Two years after its release, Battlefield 2042 has had an impressive gradual comeback, but I haven’t been able to fully love it until I returned to PC.
I wasn’t too hard on Battlefield 2042 at launch. I was lucky (or unlucky, depends on who you ask) enough to review it, and thought it was a perfectly okay, albeit underbaked, new installment in the long-running FPS franchise. We had been there before, sadly. EA and DICE transitioned into a live-service model with the ill-fated Star Wars Battlefront 2 in late 2017, and Battlefield V (released a year later) also faced several post-launch woes during its first few months. DICE always delivers in the long run though, so why wouldn’t BF2042 be the same?
Admittedly, this last Battlefield entry had more issues than BFV at launch. On top of the usual fine-tuning that was urgently needed and a weak start to its doomed Hazard Zone (an extraction-like mode) component, the class/specialist system wasn’t quite there, and the more you played the most open maps in the 128-player modes, the more you noticed deep reworks were required. I personally didn’t experience many of these ugly issues during the review period, and playing on PS5 vs. PC (my usual platform for Battlefield titles) meant I wasn’t a victim to some computer-specific bugs and oddities.
Still, I was fully confident in DICE regaining ground once they were given the extra six months or so they normally need to get otherwise well-made games in good shape. Soon, however, we learned that something was more broken than usual inside the legendary FPS studio, as EA quickly established Respawn Entertainment’s Vince Zampella as the new head of Battlefield and started cleaning house, all while many key devs left on their own. This sounded like another BioWare situation. No bueno.
Anyway, the original iteration of BF2042 became perfectly enjoyable around summer 2022 in my opinion. Nonetheless, veteran players were right when they pointed out more changes were needed to hopefully turn this entry into a game worthy of holding the fort until the next Battlefield rolls around. Players were turning to BF3 and 4, and that’s not what EA intended. Many of the innovations introduced in 2042 simply hadn’t been properly tested; 128 players sounded good on paper, but maps were built around the traditional 64-player design, and limited Portal events rapidly highlighted that.
Perhaps the most embarrassing change BF2042 had to introduce was the complete removal of 128-player modes as the standard way to play the game, especially given most of the marketing had been built around that idea. “It’s the Battlefield you know and love, but bigger and noisier than ever!” A second big blow was Hazard Zone being as left for dead as Firestorm, the previous game’s attempt at doing a battle royale. I just can’t see EA and DICE spending more resources and time on yet another BR/extraction mode after that blunder.
The traditional class system (though some might argue it needed to be rebuilt from scratch) didn’t arrive until early 2023, and that’s when the public opinion on BF2042 really started to gradually change. I personally had been following the post-launch evolution of the game and playing it from time to time, but felt “almost done” with Battlefield until the “trust us, this one will be great at launch” installment captained by Zampella and the refreshed team.
But everything changed a couple of weeks ago.
I bought a new PC at the end of July, and hadn’t really considered returning to BF2042 on its preferred platform (it has cross-play and cross-progression after all). A recent deal made me give it a go, and oh boy, that was a great decision. Suddenly, the whole game felt fresh and more exciting than ever before, and my greatest memories from BF1 and late BFV came flooding back.
Simply put, Battlefield plays much better on PC. Mind you, I think 2042 received pretty notable current-gen console releases, but high-level play really requires more buttons and the accuracy only a mouse can get you. Sniping is especially hard with a controller. I must state I’m no gamer who thinks it’s sacrilege to play shooters on consoles (in fact, Halo and Call of Duty play much better with a controller), but DICE clearly designs its games with PC in mind first and consoles second.
The muscle memory from my best days in past Battlefield entries also returned, and I was quickly topping scoreboards in a way that seemed impossible on PS5. Moreover, the ray-traced ambient occlusion gives the entire game and more grounded look which really sells the complex scenery of the reworked and new maps. No fancy ray-traced reflections, sadly. Maybe next time.
I’m just really happy I stuck with Battlefield 2042 and ended up returning to my platform of choice when I was able to. I’m still quite nervous about the future of the franchise, as EA’s damage control could be to simply stick closer to what Call of Duty is doing instead of doubling down on the strengths and ageless charm of classic Battlefield, but DICE still has the juice. Like most AAA developers, they just need enough time to cook As fun as BattleBit is, you can’t write off the king that easily.
