The Battlefield series has always strived to deliver multiplayer moments that you can't get anywhere else. Jumping out of a jet, sniping another pilot, and hijacking their jet in Battlefield 3; levelling buildings in Battlefield: Bad Company 2; parachuting away from a collapsing skyscraper in Battlefield 4 - when it comes to scale and bombast, DICE regularly knocks it out of the park. Other times, the studio has taken a swing and a miss by trying something completely different, like Battlefield 2142, an experiment in future warfare that launched with countless issues and sparked some wariness in my 13-year-old self about buying multiplayer games at launch.
Battlefield 2042's reveal trailer shows that DICE is doubling down on what it's known for: fun over realism, chaos over order, and plenty, plenty of 'Battlefield moments'. Set in the near future, the FPS game depicts a world wracked by the effects of climate change and the collapse of the European Union. It's a pretty bleak prophecy, with many cities being ravaged by tornadoes, sandstorms, massive battles, and sometimes all three. But at least the soldiers are having a good time: they can modify their weapons while running around, or hitch a ride on tornadoes and then use their newfangled wingsuits to glide to safety. Maybe the future won't suck.
Climate crisis aside, warfare doesn't appear to have changed all that much. Battlefield's classic Conquest and Breakthrough modes return, scaled up with even larger maps and clustered capture zones rather than flags dotted around the map, all to accommodate the new 128-player count. Breakthrough, the latest incarnation of the long-running Rush mode, divides players into attacking and defending armies that fight over a linear series of objectives to establish dominance across the whole map.
Read the rest of the story...
RELATED LINKS:
How to create your own game mode in Battlefield 2042 Portal
Battlefield 2042 specialist skins challenges - how to customise your specialist
Battlefield 2042 system requirements - your gaming PC might be in for a fight
