I‘m wingsuiting low over Caspian Border, playing as operator Sundance. The enemy is dug in and have repelled most of our full assaults. But when they are watching for tanks rumbling over the horizon, I'm looking to get in it, planting the charge and spawning my entire squad.
It doesn't visit plan. At the eleventh hour, another player bumbles from a building, looking up as I hit the ground in a roll and come up shooting. The following minute or so is really a blur filled with Sundance's trademark cluster grenades, but we obtain a plant down, and as we finally die – swarmed by angry defenders which have abandoned their defences in the future and mess us up, I hear the rumbling of friendly tanks. We've got the point. “Fuck, which was fun,” I figured. “When did Battlefield 2042 feel fun?
On the very pages of NME's website, I declared that Battlefield 2042 wasn't an excellent game when it launched in November 2023, slapping a three-star score onto it and suggesting it was a Battlefield game that did not understand the real magic from the franchise it had been in. With more than annually of consistent updates culminating within the recent class update that brought classes back to the sport, EA seems to have recaptured that magic and also the game is now – you are able to quote me here – fun as shit.
Along the way in which, EA has ensured a little bit of that past Battlefield magic is within place. Maps and weapons happen to be sprinkled in in the throwback Portal mode, with weapons to be unlocked and maps to become played. The franchise’s best mode, Rush, has returned for players that don't vibe with the more classic Conquest or didn't fancy the new Breakout mode.
But it's less about what EA has added or removed, and more about the barriers to enjoyment it's cleared by moving a few of the weirder ideas out of the way. The squad update means you cannot, for example, be a sniper having the ability to have ammo and tuck yourself from the fight. Instead, players are nudged towards teamplay and asked to work together to keep each other safe. Rush mode removes the heavy vehicle customisation seen in the other facets of the game, offering you exactly what you ought to get the job done but nothing on the same terrifying level as Battlefield 2042's launch hovercrafts, godless killing machines that would decimate entire teams. The cross-shaped in-game weapon customisation is sadly still involved, but eventually you be done with it – it will put you in a disadvantage at times, but it's this type of silly idea I often just prefer not thinking about it whatsoever.
Not all the changes towards the game have landed. The class product is quite a distance from perfect, but it is an enjoyable experience. At this time, the support class is often forced to choose between the incredibly useful medical bag, and the equally useful ammo bag. The different support specialists all have their very own quirks on how to handle this though, meaning it's very easy to make it make use of a little lateral thinking. The disappointment isn't in these difficult choices, but because these choices highlight the fact that not many from the other classes have this much depth right now.
With a lot of the weirder 2042 additions scaled back or hacked from the game entirely, we're left with a game that's a little safer – something I don't usually advocate for, but here it does seem to be an extensive improvement – which makes it quicker to see how good the core game actually is. Firing a PKP machine gun into an approaching tide of attackers is sublime, throwing a heat-seeking grenade in to the air and watching as it locks onto a helicopter and brings it down generates a genuine frisson of excitement, and then there's the fun of pelting an enemy-spewing MAV, a vehicle which an entire team can spawn on, with rockets before the enemy players overwhelm you.
If I would review Battlefield 2042 now, it would be in a a lot more favourable tone. It seems like the game has just gotten out of its very own way a little and let people get stuck in and relish the huge firefights that Battlefield happens to be noted for. This is very good news, because nobody does large-scale combat that can compare with Battlefield 2042. The fighting is ferocious, supported by some solid gunplay, interesting tactical decisions and merely the correct quantity of cracking gunfire. You will find all of the debris-spewing explosions you would expect from Battlefield, often caused by fiery air transports crashing down to earth, shot down by crack ground troops…or, much more likely, taken out by a tree which was a little closer compared to pilot estimated.
After a rocky launch, Battlefield 2042 appears to have come good, delivering on its initial promise. It can be time you gave it another go?
Battlefield 2042 can be obtained on PlayStation, Xbox, and PC.
