For instance, the sprawling glaciers and ice sheets of Breakaway are open and encourage lots of heavy vehicle play, while the claustrophobic mazes of shipping containers on Manifest are best conquered with lots of infantry. The game's six other maps were designed with carefully-placed sightlines and spawn zones, and each map features a distinct theme and overall design direction. In 2042, they're armored like a tank and come with multiple grenade launcher and minigun gunner positions, giving them the durability and firepower necessary to act as a mobile spawn point for teammates to use near objectives.īattlefield 2042's maps are also excellent across the board, with the sole exception being Orbital due to its overly-flat terrain and sparse layout. The developers even managed to make transport helicopters good, which is a first for Battlefield.
Portal is everything I was hoping it would be, and I can't wait to see what the Battlefield community does with it. You can even force factions from one game to fight on maps from another game one of the coolest Portal experiences I've come across so far is "1942 in 2042," which brings World War II-era combat to Battlefield 2042's massive near-future maps. You can adjust values for damage, health, movement, and more as well. The options available in the Portal creation tool are mind-boggling you can enable or disable pretty much every single weapon, weapon attachment, gadget, or vehicle from each of the four games. You can host these on a public server to play as you wish, and it all works very smoothly in my testing. It's a mode that allows players to create custom experiences with remade maps and assets from older Battlefield games like Battlefield 1942, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 3 (as well as everything from Battlefield 2042). Ironically, the best part of Battlefield 2042 is Battlefield Portal. Battlefield 2042 review:īattlefield Portal is everything I was hoping it would be. Overall, there's potential for a fantastic game here, but more work needs to be done before it's reached. Unfortunately, these positives are contrasted by Battlefield 2042's poorly balanced Specialists, the game's small number of weapons, its mediocre Hazard Zone mode, and its numerous bugs and performance issues. This all leads to memorable moments of ingenuity unique to Battlefield. The game's maps are excellent across the board, too, and new features like the 'Plus System' and vehicle call-ins also give players extra opportunities to get creative with their arsenal. Battlefield Portal met expectations as this year's show-stealer, and the vehicle sandbox is nothing short of phenomenal. 12 release, and in some ways, it checks the boxes. I've now poured hours into the game following its Nov. It was a game that promised a return to Battlefield's roots - for me, a dream come true. This was amplified by 128-player matches and the new Battlefield Portal mode allowing players to create custom experiences by mixing elements from previous games. After all, the fact that Battlefield V promoted twitchy run-and-gun gameplay was a huge bummer - I've always felt that Battlefield is at its best when its core gameplay encourages strategy, squad play, and clever usage of its many weapons, gadgets, and vehicles. When Electronic Arts and DICE stressed that Battlefield 2042 would center around the engaging and diverse sandbox fun that defined the series, I was ecstatic.