on my RTX 2070 Super), the menus
feel sparse. There are fewer
unlockable guns than usual, simpler
progression systems, and no battle
pass. The only extra EA is selling
right now is a year-long pass that
promises four new specialists who’ll
bring exclusive gadgets and perks to
the battle. The menu and
microtransaction hygiene is largely a
good thing, although
there are some
annoying and
disappointing
omissions at launch.
There’s no stats page,
for instance, and you
can’t tell if a teammate
is coming to revive you
when you’re down.
GET TO THE POINTS
One thing hasn’t changed: in
Conquest, two 6 4-player teams
compete to capture and hold control
points the same way they have for 20
years, by standing near a flag until it
changes colour. However, points can
now appear in clusters of two or
three, forming sectors that give some
structure to the giant maps. I can
easily spend an entire match duking
it out in a single sector. Entirely
separate war stories were playing out
over at the rocket launch pad while I
was repeatedly dying on a grassy hill,
for all I knew. It’s easy to lose track of
the larger battle as I focus on one or
two points, but that sense of being a
small variable in a big, complex fight
is part of what makes it enchanting.
Battlefield 2042 is best played in a
four-person squad in a Discord voice
channel (there’s no built-in VOIP at
launch), which I wouldn’t have said
about Battlefield V. We always
seemed to end up doing different
things in that game, but 2042 ’s new
specialist gadgets encourage
teamwork by making us more useful
to each other. So far, I like to bless
my crew with intel from a spotting
drone and transparent fortifications
to hide behind. The decoupling of
class from loadout also makes it
easier to coordinate, because no one
has to give up their favourite gun to
heal, or spot, or carry rockets. The
ammo capacity tuning feels just
right, too, such that putting an ammo
crate in one of my loadouts is useful
enough to not feel like a downgrade
next to toys like rocket launchers
and AA missiles.
There are great characters and
gadgets for solo players, too.
Sundance’s wingsuit is a blast. They
can leap out of helicopters or off of
skyscrapers and manoeuvre in the air
like a manta ray. It’s not as satisfying
as skiing in the Tribes games, which
is essentially using a bug to accelerate
forever, but if you master the physics
of it you can keep them airborne for a
long time. Mackay’s grappling hook is
useful in fewer situations, but
likewise increases the
intrinsic fun of moving
around skilfully. I once
chucked a smoke
grenade over a
shipping crate, zipped
onto the top of it, and
then leapt into my
smoke plume to
emerge like a stage
magician, surprising a squad that
could’ve sworn I’d been much further
away just a few seconds ago.BLASTS FROM THE PAST
Some of my complaints about
Battlefield 2042 can be addressed in
Portal. It’s a Battlefield potpourri that
features official recreations of
Battlefield 1942 Conquest, Battlefield:
Bad Company 2 Rush, and Battlefield
3 Conquest, with two remade maps
per game and most of their guns,
vehicles, and gadgets, as well as
free-for-all and team deathmatch
modes, plus servers running custom,
player-made modes that mix and
match maps, weaponry, and rules.
You can turn off squad and vehiclespawning, for example, or design an
asymmetrical mode in which a team
of Battlefield 2042 soldiers fight
Battlefield 1942 soldiers, or one team
is full of aggressive, knife-wielding
bots that swarm toward the human
players like zombies.
I’m frustrated by Portal
restrictions that feel unnecessary, or
like they exist to stop me from
making a mode that’s broken or
unfun (I’ll decide what the
boundaries of FPS design are, thank
you very much). For example, the
visual logic editor, which opens many
more possibilities than the built-in
toggles and sliders, can only be used
to modify free-for-all and team
deathmatch modes, which don’t
contain any vehicles. You can’t set up
a mode that spawns ten players into
jets for a free-for-all dogfight.
With the logic editor, I did
manage to create crude hit boxes so
that players can kill each other by
colliding in the air, and then set it up
so that they teleport back into the
sky if they get too low. If they opt to
use a sniper rifle from rooftops
instead of being human missiles, they
get on-screen messages declaring
that they’ve violated the way of
Bushido. So, Portal is powerful. I
hope DICE loosens up some of the
restrictions. If I can make a mode
that crashes my PC, I’ll consider that
a feature, not a bug.
Taken together, All-Out Warfare,
Hazard Zone, and Portal are a
substantial videogame warfare
toybox, enough to get me to
reluctantly accept a newfangled
scoreboard that focuses on squads
more than individuals. The specialist
abilities and Portal custom modes
introduce new ways to play
Battlefield, while some of the old
ways don’t feel the same, for better
and worse. It’s a modern Battlefield I
want to get my Forza Horizon and
Rainbow Six Siege-playing friends
into. That might not happen until EA
makes Battlefield 2042 available on
Xbox Game Pass, if it ever does, but
that’s fine. I’m happy to spend
months trying to break the game with
Portal’s logic editor so that I have a
library of nearly unplayable mutant
FPS modes ready to go.80
Battlefield 2042 makes
gusty changes toa series
that neededthem, and
Portal fills it with
possibilitiesfor creativity.VERDICTI can easily
spend an entire
match duking it
out in a single
sectorOLD-SCHOOL TACTICS
How to play Battlefield like a series veteran16 %
SHOOT AT
NOTHING
You got into the
gunner seat of a
vehicle, so you
may as well use
the gun.5 %
YELL AT PILOTS
What were they thinking when
they didn’t dodge all those
lock-on missiles?14 %
LIE ON HILLS
Have a lie down
with a big rifle, a
10x scope, and
no shame.64 %
PINE FOR
OLD DAYS
If only that one
feature from
Battlefield 2142 were
in this game. Then it’d
be good!1 %
CAPTURE A
POINT
Game’s almost
over, better be
seen near a flag!Battlefield 2042REVIEW