Battlefield 2042

[Finsbury Girl]

played a bit on my laptop (rtx 2080) looked good ran ok once I bumped everything down ; had fun, specialist system is gash, going to wait and see if portal gives me what I need.

[nonny]

I honestly think they need to delay this... Give it a few more months for some spit and polish instead of what they've done the past 3 releases and let the community essentially test it for them.

[MartyG]

Dice has revealed (well kinda, there's the odd snippet of gameplay footage in the trailer)



It seems like it has one of those systems that if you're good at the game, you have a positive feedback loop making your character more powerful giving you further advantage, so this could be a real slog for n00bs.

It's teams of four players (6 teams per map last gen, 8 teams per map current gen) and it works a bit like the Darkzone in TC The Division.

[Finsbury Girl]

yeah seems very much like the Division Dark Zone ; I won't lie I had some amazing sessions running the darkzone in both groups and solo but it fit within the game and not a separate mode so has a purpose outside of the DZ (although the survival mode is a bit similar). The Division is a completely different beast, this is not what I look for in a Battlefield game.

[MartyG]

Given it a go for a bit on the trial - it seems they've fixed most of the glitches in the beta and the class system seems to work better in some of the different modes. Didn't run into any issues with lag or other network issues.

Gave portal a quick go and this seems well done, at least on the official servers. Browsing thru the custom ones and it looks like a good chunk of them are just set up as XP machines.

Still not keen on the way the whole weapon systems work, but you can't just add any attachment to any weapon as it was in the beta. The map selection isn't too bad either, actually the ones I played are better than the Orbital map.

However, at minimum entry cost of £70 there's zero chance of me buying.

[nonny]

I think looking at general reviews in progress moving to 128 players and relying on basic AI bots is a huge mistake.

64 players was fine before and whilst 128 sounds better on paper playing against bots quickly falls apart if they're not good enough, oe too good.

The specialists in this just sounds like a way to monetise things going forwards and whilst that wouldn't be a major issue the fact is replacing a system that wasn't broken and everyone liked (i.e. assault, medic, support, recon classes) just makes it sting even more.

I think the best part of this package is the potential to use Portal to play old classic maps with classic rules and weaponry. Unfortunately I don't think that's enough for me at current pricing.

[Tobal]

played a couple of hours, specialist are a poor replacement, the new maps are dull and look like something from the 360/ps3 era, the sound is terrible and quiet even on war tapes, just no idea what's going on there. Just felt nothing of the fun i had in BF4.

Jumped in to the edit mode and went with DICE select modes, a terrible 1942 setup which only allowed sniper rifles and a half decent BF3 mode with the specialists turned into medic/engineer etc, etc.

Not buying until it hits the bargain bins, hopefully by then enough gameplay patches will have be released to make it fun.

[charlesr]

What's with the visuals in this? They look like an old game that has been upscaled.

At least the network is mostly solid for a launch battlefield!

[Tobal]

the complete lack of competitiveness also kills it for me, no score board, no points to get for yourself or the squad. Can't aim for the top players in the servers, no feed back on your squad working well together. this is probably worse than the bad maps and rubbish gun play trying to shoot 30m out, feels like rolling a dice.

change squad is hidden 2 menus deep and only allows random selection or dumps you in on your own if they are all full.

love spawning with the force gun check animation unable to do any action while the enemy team capturing the flag pumps you full of lead.

the forced deploy at the start, little time to set up, leads to running around with something you don't want, and with 40-50 other people that missed the vehicles.

No server list, can't guarantee low pings, every match end dumps everyone out so can't revisit servers and get familiar with the players there and the map rotation.

Constant deploy menu bugs, went full matches unable to change my load out, often the highlighting cursor is missing or everything is lit up.

[fishbowlhead]

Well this is just awful. I only downloaded it for the ms points trick with the trial, which doesn’t work now it seems, but the game is truly dreadful. What happened to all the bullshot vids before launch of the visuals? Completely false advertising that, gameplay is just awful as well.

[nonny]

The way things are looking between this and COD Vanguard, I think Halo Infinite has a very good chance of stealing the limelight for the remainder of the year.

Both titles feel a little undercooked... Maybe that means Halo is overcooked by a year but the multiplayer felt very well executed even a few months ago.

[Neon Ignition]

I'm keeping my expectations in check given I can't remember the last BF that launched in good shape. This is a bit like BF4 as well whereby all the next-gen talk is BS for what is blatantly a PS4/XBO title with player counts etc ramped up. I won't give it forever to get good but am fine to ride the initial wave and see how it goes.

Vanguard is genuinely solid but so similar to past titles that the lack of a sense of freshness and variety limits it a fair bit. Infinite is harder to gauge, it'll do well because Game Pass anyway, but I feel like it's almost in a vaccuum. All in all it isn't a banner year for MP titles.

[nonny]

Vanguard you could literally say that of every COD game. I think it just pales in comparison to the last two because they had really good campaigns and very few issues. Looking at DF some of the graphical issues in Vanguard are pretty rough. I'm sure they'll be patched but both BF2042 and Vanguard feel a little messy Ruth now and I'll be more inclined to wait a few months and pick them up patched and cheap.

[Neon Ignition]

For most you could but some COD's shunt out more than others or fare worse. I prefered Vanguards campaign and MP to Cold War's, but Modern Warfare 2019 was better in both regards

[MartyG]

Went back at lunchtime thinking maybe I missed a load of obvious problems, but I'm having a pretty good time with it tbh.



Playing on Series X I'm getting a solid framerate at 4K, textures whilst not the best I've ever seen are fine, doesn't look upscaled, no server lag or elastic banding. No glitching from me or other players. I'm sure there are people out there with issues as I've seen some of the vids, I'm just not experiencing problems.



I don't like the specialists, I don't know why the perfectly working class system needed to be replaced, but that aside, it plays like a decent BF game. The only thing is that the maps are too big and the open spaces mean that it's too easy to get picked off by snipers. The vehicles all go at the beginning of the map, so you're left running for ages before getting to combat (and then I die about 20 seconds later because I suck).

I'll finish up my 10 hour trial and wait for the price drop, but there's no way I'd rate this 2.6/10 as it seems to be getting in the metacritic user reviews. Perhaps it's just too much of a move away from traditional BF for some folk.