2/5 ★ – WrathofBen's review of Battlefield 2042.

Well, I really tried to enjoy this one, considering my negative experience with the game during its beta and launch. I REALLY tried to put all my previous issues aside and enjoy this for what it is, but I hit a threshold tonight that I could not get past. This game is easily the worst Battlefield experience I’ve played. Which sucks, because there are feature here I genuinely enjoy! The story here is that Russia and the U.S. are at war. I’m pretty sure that’s it. There’s no single player campaign, and almost zero story at all in the multiplayer. So, that’s the best I got for you. I’ll be honest, a primary reason why this game is getting such a low score from me is the extreme lack of single player content. Because this setting could’ve hosted an interesting story. But instead, DICE got lazy and focused solely on a multiplayer mode that is just lifeless. At launch, all you had were characters to play as, and different weapons and specialties. Only in post-launch did they bring back the classes from previous games, like Assault, Engineer, Medic and Scout. You have a large selection of weapons to choose from, but unless you have maxed it out or unlocked something better, most weapons are worthless. I found every game to be pretty infuriating after a while because I would die to one hit from any gun, from any range, on any map. Battlefield is supposed to be more methodical and slower pace, but the time to kill is RIDICULOUS! I swear, I look the wrong way for a split second, and I die. I don’t mind this in games like Call of Duty or Halo, but the respawn time is SO long in this game it makes dying that much more infuriating. Especially when the spawns are so bad, you’ll just appear in front of someone’s crosshairs. Game modes are Conquest, Breakthrough, Team Deathmatch, and Portal, (There was some Hazard mode, but I couldn’t get it to work for me… anyone else had an issue loading this?). I’ll admit, 128 Conquest is INCREDIBLE, and is a really fun experience… until you realize the game only gives you the Kaleidoscope map to play on… I know for a fact there are other maps because I played them on the beta. But for the life of me, I couldn’t get the game to give me any other map. Breakthrough is fun enough, but again, the time to kill makes any progression in this mode a drag. Team Deathmatch, see the previous statement. The one thing I liked about the multiplayer selection was Portal, which lets you play maps from BF3, BC2, and BF1942, as well as use those weapons and equipment. This is essentially playing remastered multiplayer from those respective games. This is something I had to dig for this time around because DICE doesn’t really have a good Portal playlist right now. But I love this! The graphics are another shining light here, as well as the sound design. These are DICE staples, so I’m not surprised here. But the music and interface design are horrific, which REALLY surprised me. These are design aspects that DICE had been nailing in their previous two titles. BF1 and V had phenomenal music and a super simplified HUD. However in this game, the HUD is crowded all over the screen, you can’t hardly tell friend from foe, and the blue tint is gross to look at. The one thing HUD-wise I liked was the button that lets you add/remove attachments on the fly in-game. That mechanic is so freaking cool, and I want that in future titles! The music is dreadful, as the Battlefield theme here sounds like nails on a chalkboard. I don’t understand how the music could go SO wrong here. That’s about as much as I want to talk about with this game. While it has improved very much since I last played, it is a MESS! No wonder DICE is trying to distance themselves from this and move on to a more grounded title next. And what a sad way to end my series playthrough of Battlefield. This just furthers my opinion that I’m just not much of a Battlefield person. I remember this series so fondly in memory, but the games I revisited have all (except for BF1) been sour tastes. It makes me sad that EA killed Medal of Honor for this series. Here’s to hoping future installments can change my mind, or that Medal of Honor can finally come back. But until then, I don’t like this game! 4/10. My first day was a 7/10, for reference. But the more I played, the less I enjoyed.