Battlefield 2042 in the test: three for the price of one? A preliminary conclusion

With the return to a setting in the near future, Battlefield 2042 makes many fans happy, but in addition to the tried and tested, EA’s shooter does not lack new ideas – they just don’t work 100 percent together.

Note: In this test you will currently not find any rating or a final conclusion. As part of a review event, the press and content creators were able to test Battlefield 2042 and all of its content. For an adequate evaluation, however, you need conditions that are as close as possible to what you experience in the finished game. The “Portal” mode in particular lives from the game experiences created by the community.

Battlefield 2042: three games in one

EA and developer DICE already have the three modes in the marketing campaign “All-Out Warfare”, “Hazard Zone” and “Portal” always as separate parts of Battlefield 2042 treated. In fact, there are also three very different game experiences and it is precisely their combination that leads to problems. All three modes not only share a large part of the game content, but also a progression system.

For the review event, we were able to test the PC version on a high-end device, which allowed the game to run with maximum graphics settings. The version was about the build, which will also go live on November 12th for everyone with early access. However, all weapons and equipment were already unlocked.

“All-Out Warfare”: The classic Battlefield experience?

In addition to the larger cards and at least on PC and Next-Gen 128 players, the most prominent change is probably the one Introduction of the specialists. Instead of classes, as in previous games, there are individual characters in Battlefield 2042 who have a special gadget and a unique property. Weapons and other equipment are available to every specialist, for example as a medic you are not bound to assault rifles and as a sniper you are not bound to sniper rifles.

A big issue in Battlefield is of course “Levolution”, small and large events that affect the battlefield. In the meantime it has become more of a synonym for the map’s destructibility. In Battlefield 2042, these are mainly natural disasters and the rocket launch on Orbital. By the way, you won’t find collapsing skyscrapers in the new Battlefield. In fact, the degree of destruction is limited to fences and smaller obstacles. Not even a tornado or sandstorm lead to destruction, they obstruct the view and cause your HUD to fail.

With “Conquest” You can expect the well-known Battlefield experience, just with more players. The new mode “Breakthrough” relies on a concept known from “Rush”, in which there is an attacking and a defending team. However, flag points have to be captured as normal. This creates a large front line where most of the players collide. But all the action also creates a lot of chaos.

So it didn’t become the classic Battlefield experience. The specialists are significantly changing the way the game feels and some of them don’t really work in All-Out Warfare. It could also lead to problems with the distribution of roles (and fulfillment) within the squads. A problem that is also related to the “Hazard Zone”.

“Hazard Zone”: A fresh idea, only for whom is it?

One of the gigantic battles of “All-Out Warfare” is “Hazard Zone” the opposite thesis. Squads fight on the seven known maps to recover hard drives and then to catch one of the two evacuation options. There are credits for this, which you can then invest in weapons and equipment for the next round. In addition to the eight squads (six for PS4 and Xbox One) there are also AI opponents who want to make life difficult for you. But they don’t do that well because they come from the same barracks as the stormtroopers from Star Wars. At least there are a few credits for the kills that you can keep even if you screw up both evacuations.

With a squad that communicates and works together (greetings to Squad 12, objectively the best squad of the review event), the mode is definitely fun. Come here the special skills and gadgets of the individual specialists are particularly useful. In the fight for the final take-off from the map, the pulse goes up and there is excitement and fun. Long-term motivation could become a problem, because apart from credits there is not much to get and this is exactly where another problem arises: Good players will always be provided with enough credits to have the best equipment. All others are left with the free standard equipment and against good squads you won’t see any land with the attachment-free assault rifle.

“Portal”: Are you nostalgic or playful?

Behind “Portal” might be the star of Battlefield 2042. They are Two new maps each from the games Battlefield 1942, Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3. The new maps not only look great, but are also playfully implemented in Battlefield 2042. You have to make a few compromises, for example the gun attachments from Part 3 and Bad Company 2 are missing, but especially for long-time fans it will feel like coming home.

The most important part of “Portal” is actually the community experiencesthat you can all create yourself. It remains to be seen what the creative minds out there will do with the settings and the visual script tool. A small damper, however, is the restriction to the “Free For All” and “Team Death Match” modes when creating your own game experiences.

Look and performance

As I said, I played Battlefield 2042 on the maximum graphics settings, but I checked that several times at the start. What greeted me on the “All-Out Warfare” maps did not meet my expectations visually. Everything looks matt and has little detail. Almost all textures are wonderfully sharp and there are also many details on weapons and vehicles, but the visuals themselves lag behind what the trailers promised.

During the review event, some participants complained about various performance problems such as frame drops or complete crashes. Personally, I was spared any of this, so there could be a few specific hardware problems.

Preliminary conclusion

Battlefield 2042 offers three very different game experiences, that makes for a lot of variety, but also leads to problems. On the one hand, it is questionable whether “All-Out Warfare” and “Hazard Zone” appeal to different types of players. The problem of the specialists is also related to this. They have to work in both modes and even run the risk of not doing really well in either mode. What becomes of the “portal” also depends to a certain extent on the community and the question of whether DICE has given them enough tools to create cool long-term experiences.

Basically, the gameplay is a lot of fun and since the beta a lot has developed in a positive direction overall.

You can expect a detailed conclusion and an evaluation in the next few days.

Battlefield 2042 starts in Early Access on November 12, 2021, the release will take place on November 19, 2021. There is crossplay between the platforms PS5, Xbox Series X | S and PC as well as separately between the platforms PS4 and Xbox One.