Not only that, but this is a game where many battles are at distance, so there’s next to no potential for character silhouettes to help out your strategic approach to a situation.īattlefield 2042 features many of the series’ biggest maps to support huge 128-player battles.īreakthrough, on the other hand, is absolute chaos, each stage of battle in the attack and defence mode featuring between one and three capture points that must be held together in order to progress, as defenders try to cling on and drain respawn tickets. Williams), their dialogue more likely to get a roll of the eyes at the match-ending awards screen, and a current lack of meaningful cosmetics to diversify your look. They’re meant to inject some character to the game, but there’s none that are particularly engaging (outside of returning Battlefield 4 character Irish, played by the recently deceased Michael K. Yet, you can’t help but feel it’s all a bit unnecessary, like DICE is chasing a zeitgeist that has largely passed in favour of purely cosmetic choices. There’s some neat abilities that can enhance certain playstyles, Sundance’s wingsuit great for breaking through lines and reaching camping snipers in the backfield, Navin’s new hacking tool able to disrupt and disable enemy vehicles, Boris’ turret helping with defensive duties (though struggling in more freeform combat situations).
Having Specialists means the classes of old have been ditched, each character having a specific ability that ties into a class archetype, but then having free choice of weapons, gadgets and throwables. Instead of generic and faceless soldiers, Battlefield 2042 instead turns them into characters, EA and DICE trying to sprinkle some of the hero shooter magic onto their gritty war shooter.