Battlefield 2042 is the next iteration in the Battlefield franchise. This time around we are taken to the future in an all-out war. I have not played a Battlefield game before so my perspective will be of that person who is playing Battlefield for the first time.
Battlefield 2042 is a first-person multiplayer only shooter game. Here, you are the non-patriated, people from all walks of life enlisted in an all-out war to determine humanity’s fate. There are currently 10 specialists that you can play as. Each of them having their own special abilities. Each of these specialists are classified as one of the following types: Assault, Engineer, Recon and Support.
Each of the specialist have their own gadgets that are unique to each one of them as well as a passive ability. Not all of the specialists are unlocked at the very beginning. However, you do get to unlock them for free just by leveling up your account. You can level up your account just by continuing to play in any of the modes.
Playing as a Support specialist is crucial to any of the modes as they have passive abilities that can heal up your allies with full health or with armor. I’ve seen and played the characters in action and I think that whoever you play as may matter in other modes but not so much in some other modes.
There are three modes of gameplay that you can play in. The All-Out Warfare, the Hazard Zone and the Portal. The All-Out Warfare is where you can play Battlefield’s staple game modes of Breakthrough and Conquest. It boasts of a 128 player game and has the largest maps for Battlefield ever. I don’t really have a preference of either mode as I’m not really sure which one I like better. I can say though that the experience was rather exhilarating.
The battles are chaotic and epic which is what you would expect with 128 players. Although there are two sides in the game (which is US and Russia), you are assigned to a smaller team of 4. These are the people that can directly communicate with you and can call out to you if they need your help. This doesn’t mean that you can’t help the other squads though.
The large-scale battle does open up a lot of opportunities for some epic battle fights. I had one where I was flying down in my parachute and I got lucky to land right behind an enemy. Of course, I did the natural thing that any player in my position would do and that’s to rain down bullets on this unsuspecting enemy.
Another thing I like about this mode is that the maps have dynamic weather. So there are games where you are experiencing a storm and then it can suddenly turn sunny. It’s really cool what they did here because it keeps the map fresh and unpredictable. Creating an experience that will always be different each time.
In the All-Out Warfare mode, when you die you can choose to either be revied or give up so you can respawn immediately. This is why medics are really important because then you can just request to be revived.
The battles have been pretty smooth and seamless. I haven’t had a problem and had a stable frame rate all through out any game. Respawning doesn’t really take a lot of time so you can get back into the action right away. All you’ll experience is a non-stop fight from start to finish.
You can choose from four different loadouts which are: Assault, Medic, Engineer, and Sniper. Each loadout contains a Primary Weapon, a Secondary Weapon, a Gadget and a Throwable. My personal preference would be the Assault loadout as I want to be front and center in the action. I wouldn’t mind being a Sniper once in a while too so I switch it up from time to time. Switching loadouts is very easy and convenience because you can do this anytime at the Deploy screen along with other options that you can change.
The loadouts I was referring to are actually customizable. So if you want to use different weapons for your loadout or add an entirely customized loadout, you can just do so in the loadouts screen. The default loadouts are actually very helpful if you’re new to FPS games and can’t really determine yet what loadout suits you. At the beginning, you only have a few weapons to choose from but leveling up will unlock the other weapons. I do think it’s pretty smart for the game to let you unlock everything for free. Otherwise, if this game was hampered by microtransactions, it might put off some people.
The other mode that you can play is Hazard Zone. Hazard Zone is Battlefield’s unique take on the Battle Royale scene. Instead of the typical goal of being the last squad standing, this mode puts its own spin by letting you capture data drives and getting extracted from the battlefield before you and your squad gets eliminated. This mode also allows you to complete the game even if not all of the squad members make it to the extraction site.
The third and final game mode is Portal. In this game mode, you can play through a variety of game modes that have been made created by the community. It is basically the Creative mode of the game. If you don’t like the custom created maps, you can always choose to create one of your own. Portal lets you choose from fan favorite maps from previous Battlefield games. You can even choose what weapons are available to use as well as gadgets and vehicles.
The variety of game modes to choose from means you’d have endless hours of games to play. However, I still do wish that they would create a campaign mode for Battlefield 2042. Sure the multiplayer aspect would mean each game would be different each time but I’m not sure buying a game that has an exclusive multiplayer is worth it when you can have the same experience in free to play games like Apex Legends. Regardless, if you are looking into a new multiplayer game to dive into in this modern day and age, Battlefield 2042 will be right up your alley.