Battlefield 2042 For PS5

Battlefield 2042 For PS5

The games industry stops for no one, and just one week after Call of Duty: Vanguard was put out by Activision, Battlefield 2042 is here to try and eat its lunch. What it has to offer, though, could hardly be considered a filling main course. EA DICE has cooked up an excellent starter — sort of like a crowd-pleasing tomato soup — that doesn’t quite have the chops to stand on its own. Extensive post-launch support will surely see it fulfil those ambitions, but that content is months or possibly even years down the line. When Battlefield 2042 shows you the bill, it’s asking you to buy into what’s to come rather than hope you’re satisfied with the chef’s first dish.

Three modes grace the main menu: All-Out Warfare houses classic Conquest skirmishes along with the return of Breakthrough from Battlefield 1 and Battlefield V. Hazard Zone is an entirely new mode tasking squads with retrieving data drives and then extracting before any other teams can eliminate you, and Portal brings back maps of the past ripe for editing to create custom modes.

Conquest and Breakthrough are where you’ll likely spend most of your time, representing the core of what makes a Battlefield title tick. The popular race to whittle the enemy team’s tickets down to zero by capturing points on the map has hardly changed. Up to 128 players on PlayStation 5 compete for victory this time around, meaning maps are bigger than ever.

They span the globe of the near future, from the dusty environments of Qatar and beached ships of India to Singapore’s outdoor cargo hangers. Each one has the potential to highlight what our own Earth could look like if global warming isn’t thwarted as tornados and violent weather destroy the landscape around you, but there’s something else linking them together: they’re all a bit too big.

While past Battlefield games have always had the criticism of simply running for a few minutes to find the action and then dying as soon as you get there thrown at them, there have always been ways of getting around it. Whether that’s hopping in a vehicle, spawning on teammates, or properly reading the map to see where the action will be headed next. This time, however, while those options still exist, so much barren space separates the objectives from one another that the game feels like just as much of a running simulator as it does a shooting one. These periods of boredom are something you’ll just have to accept as part of the flow if there’s nothing nearby to transport you to the next objective or a friend who can pick you up.

You’re also likely to encounter the same maps over and over again since there aren’t too many of them at launch. Only seven, in fact. Obviously, you’re at the mercy of matchmaking, but it’s all too easy for the game to load up the very same map twice in a row. You’ve already taken a hammering there once; you don’t want to do it again.

At least the shooting is its usual solid self. Battlefield has always been a series that actually makes where you place the iron sights matter, with the likes of bullet drop to take into account before taking your shot. Things are no different in the near future as a large range of weaponry caters to the needs of assault rifle users, close-quarters SMG experts, and long-range masters with a snipe rifle in their hands.

They’re complemented by gadgets like the grappling hook, ballistic shield, and sentry guns for rounding out your loadout. Tied to the Specialist you choose to play as, it’s here where Battlefield 2042 moves away from the class system of old. Repair tools, ammo and medical crates, and insertion beacons can be equipped by anyone, blurring the lines between the traditional roles previous titles have subscribed to. Each Specialist has their own unique perk, but they’re hardly a replacement for the defined tasks of soldiers past. While you could argue this is a more freeing implementation, it also means those all-important tools could be left behind. If you’re not communicating in a squad, something like the rocket launcher or armour plating will likely be your first port of call. It’s not a change for the better, we’d argue.