“Be a class above,” goes the tagline of Battlefield 2042’s new season. Just a month ago, that sentiment would have been salt in the wound. By that point, longtime players had suffered through more than a year of DICE’s disastrous Specialist system, which smashed apart Battlefield’s traditional, fixed roles in favour of COD-style open customisation. A class above? Players would have settled for any class structure at all.
Battlefield 2042Publisher: EADeveloper: DICEPlatform: PC (Steam, EA/Windows), PS4, PS5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/SLaunched: 2021Monetisation: Full-price game with optional $10 Battle Passes, MTX.
Their dismay wasn’t rooted in mindless nostalgia for the days of Wolfenstein: Enemy Territory and Team Fortress – when the babies of PC gamers were assigned the role of medic, engineer, tank or sniper at birth. Rather, it came from an understanding that Battlefield’s very integrity had been compromised.
At its core, Battlefield is a strategic team shooter that doesn’t force you to don a headset and coordinate closely with your peers. It offers fleeting connection and the gleeful chaos of large-scale engagements, without demanding the commitment and community-building of more hardcore, collaborative shooters. This balancing act is both the reason that DICE is among the wealthiest developers in the FPS genre, and the reason that its stumbles are so painful. When you’re walking a high wire, any misstep is a major incident.
What 2042 did so wrong was remove the job titles that enabled Battlefield comrades to recognise and rely on each other. It wasn’t that old mechanics were missing – repair tools and defibrillators and rocket launchers were all still present and correct, ready to become a part of any Specialist’s hodgepodge loadout. But when everyone’s one part goalkeeper, a little bit striker and a sprinkle of midfield, who can you expect to catch the ball when it soars toward the net?