Battlefield 2042

Platform(s): PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
Genre: First-Person Shooter
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Developer: Ripple Effect Studios
Release Date: Nov. 19, 2021

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'Battlefield 2042' v5.2 Update Next Week, Brings Hourglass Rework, All-Out Warfare Attachments, Squad Orders & More

by Rainier on July 28, 2023 @ 2:10 p.m. PDT

Battlefield 2042 is a groundbreaking first-person shooter set to revolutionize the modern multiplayer sandbox.

Powered by cutting-edge technology that pushes the capabilities of next generation hardware, the game drops players into a near-future, all-out-war experience that includes the franchise’s hallmark, game-changing destruction.

Featuring matches filled with up to 128 players and massive-scale maps on PS5, Xbox Series X|S and PCs (Xbox One and PS4 are capped at 64 players and reduced map sizes), this unprecedented scale adds a new dimension to multiplayer battles.

Battlefield 2042 also ups the action with the inclusion of real-time events that reshape the battlefield and tactical combat. All new weapons, vehicles and gadgets give players the freedom to be strategic and create jaw-dropping, only-in-Battlefield moments.

In Battlefield 2042, the world is on the brink. Shortages of food, energy and clean water have led to dozens of failed nations, creating the greatest refugee crisis in human history. Among these Non-Patriated, or No-Pats, are families, farmers, engineers - and even soldiers. Amidst this crisis, the United States and Russia draw the world into an all-out war. No-Pat Specialists join both sides, not fighting for a flag, but for the future of the Non-Patriated in this new world.

Players will jump into the boots of Specialists, an all-new type of playable soldier for the franchise. Inspired by the traditional four Battlefield classes, Specialists will be equipped with their own unique Specialist Trait and Specialty, and will have fully customizable loadouts. As a Specialist, players will have access to a cutting-edge arsenal of weapons, equipment and vehicles to use in battle. These powerful new tools give creative players a wealth of options as they find the perfect combination to fit their play style and outsmart and outgun opponents on the battlefield.

Today, the Battlefield 2042 team announced that Update 5.2 will be available to download next week on all platforms, bringing with it the final launch map rework and a wide range of balance changes, fixes and other areas of improvement.

A quick synopsis of the changes incoming include:

  • Map Rework: Hourglass - The final Battlefield 2042 map rework has arrived, capping off the development team’s commitment to improving line of sight, traversal and combat encounters in each map. Hourglass now has a reduced size to keep combat focused, more opportunities to defend through added cover along the primary routes and more!
  • Vault Weapons - SMGs and LMGs are receiving All-Out Warfare Attachments, joining the other weapon types to receive this treatment.
  • Squad Management  - Through Squad Orders leaders can now issue attack or defend orders towards objectives. Squads can collaborate and earn additional XP (Squad Order Bonus) for successfully completing the orders. 
  • Ammo Crate improvements - Ammo crates now have a shared cooldown between other deployed ammo crates, have a greatly reduced recharge and supply time, and give an extra magazine to both primary and secondary weapons.
  • Dispersion tweaks to SMGs and LMGs - Similar to recent dispersion changes made to Assault Rifles, SMGs and LMGs have now also received tweaks to their dispersion rates, alongside general dispersion improvements across weaponry.

Hello there,

Update 5.1.0 deploys across all platforms next week to further enhance your experience with Battlefield™ 2042.

We’ve thoroughly enjoyed watching you jump into Season 5: New Dawn, and fight through lands slowly Reclaimed by nature with weaponry such as the GEW-46 and your new trusty sidearm the BFP.50.

We'll see you out there!

//The Battlefield Team

The Arkangel Legion are ascending

Before we head into the changes taking place for Update 5.1.0, we wish to confirm that your next Seasonal Event will be arriving in July.

We'll share full details with you as we get closer to launch of the event. Expect new earnable cosmetics to acquire and we look forward to seeing you take control of the situation.

Areas of Improvement

Vault Weapon Attachments

Season 5: New Dawn marked the start of Vault Weapons receiving All-Out Warfare attachments with Assault Rifles and the GOL Sniper Magnum became the first to receive these improvements. Marksman Rifle Vault Weapons are next to receive this same support with the M39 EMR and the SVD.

Squad Spawning Improvements

There will now be a ‘Low Vehicle Health’ prompt when attempting to spawn on vehicles from the deployment screen, allowing you to better see the state of the vehicle, or if it is in combat. We have also restricted the ability to spawn on-foot with the CAV-Brawler should the vehicle be at capacity and currently in combat. This helps prevent your untimely death upon spawn.

Changelog

Audio

  • Fixed an issue where grenades play the pin-out twice if you wait a long time to throw
  • Fixed an issue where silencers were affecting underbarrel shotgun & launcher firing sounds
  • Updated when the game thinks the player is on the Exodus to catch edge cases where the mix of the game would be wrong.
  • Fixed visual and audio sync for countdown timer in End of Round.
  • Fixed bug where the Main menu character animations would sometimes not play because of audio being culled.
  • Added fallback to loading music when going to a level in case the normal loading music trigger doesn't get hit.
  • Expanding the season 5 main menu to be more alive and engaging with sounds of soldiers working, PA announcements and alarms when joining a level, no penguin sounds though, we’ll keep asking.

General & Gameplay Improvements

  • Fixed an issue that caused players to stutter/jitter while freefalling at high speeds.
    • Dev Comment: This is also a speculative fix for an issue that prevented players from safely deploying their parachute as they got close to the ground. Let us know if your experience improves!
  • Fixed an issue that caused damage numbers to appear in the skulltrain when the crosshair placed damage numbers option was enabled.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented players from being able to cancel a Danger Ping.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause a pinged objective or vehicle to no longer be pinged if another squad member also pinged it.
  • Fixed an issue that would cause the confirm counter to count incorrectly if the Squad Leader cancelled a previous ping.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented players from being able to spot vehicles when inside of a vehicle.
  • Fixed an issue that prevented players from being able to spot nearby enemies when inside of a vehicle.
  • Fixed an issue that was causing vehicle icons on the minimap to stutter/jitter as they moved.
  • Fixed so Chat position respects Horizontal HUD padding.
  • You’ll now be able to separately alter the scaling of Vehicle Seating and Game Hints within the HUD Options
  • Added a preview window to the Options setting for the Minimap Orientation.
    • This preview window now also displays the aforementioned updates.

Battlefield Portal

  • Fixed an issue that caused default attachments on weapons to appear in the Restrictions tab
  • Thermal scopes have now been added to the restrictions tab in Battlefield Portal
  • Fixed an issue that caused multiple attachments to be missing from the restrictions tab
  • Fixed an issue that prevented the 2042 Vault weapons to not show in the 2042 rule editor
  • Fixed an issue that caused Season 4 weapon attachments to not show in the restrictions tab
  • Fixed an issue that allowed the default attachments of the 1942 Sniper Rifles to be disabled in the restrictions tab.

Maps

Reclaimed

  • Placed extra environmental cover and VFX to limit the ability for players to look into the spawn of the defending side whilst standing at a hill on D1.
  • Resolved an issue that allowed players to vault through a Guard Post wall near C1.

Modes

Hazard Zone has received a range of alterations to improve the overall experience and gameplay flow.

  • Hazard Zone Coins have been removed along with the buy phase at the start of the round, and reward pay out at the end of the round.
  • Introduced XP gains as the main reward function for successfully extracting, data drives define the amount of XP rewarded upon successful extractions. Take note, only two teams can extract in total - ensure you’re one of them.
  • Similar to Conquest and Breakthrough, players will now be able to bring their normal loadouts into Hazard Zone.
  • Improved the End of Round screen as part of the changes taking place with Hazard Zone.
  • Fixed various issues with the EOR which often would show the mission outcome as "failed" when in reality you extracted just fine.
  • Fixed a variety of issues with HUD elements, particularly in-world icons of drives.
  • The Penguins have infiltrated the barracks of AI Soldiers and ruined the durability of their armor, resulting in reduced health within Hazard Zone. It’s fine, they’re AI - they’ll never notice.
  • Fixed a variety of issues around the Second Chance functionality.
  • Added a dynamic minimum player requirement. If not enough players join the lobby in time, the player requirement to start a round will be automatically reduced to a minimum amount of 8 players in order to start a round.

Hazard Zone - Known Issues

As part of this release, we are aware of some Known Issues with the improvements made to Hazard Zone, and we'll resolve these issues in a future update.

  • If your inventory is full with hard drives you will be unable to pick up any uplinks.
  • During the End of Round screen there is a chance for the extraction to state incorrect information, this is a visual error and does not impact your extraction streak.
  • The End of Round screen will only show a max extraction streak of 10, this is a visual error and your extraction streak will count beyond 10 - if you’re skilled enough to reach those numbers.

Specialists & Gadgets

  • Fixed an issue that allowed for Irish’s APS Shootdown Sentinel to unintentionally intercept vehicle weaponry from 20mm, 30mm and 50mm cannons.
  • Claymore lasers now accurately reflect team ownership and follow your custom enemy, ally and squad colours. Meaning they are colourblind friendly too!
  • Fixed an issue that caused Rao to enter an incorrect animation state when attempting to hack a vehicle that activated the CWP countermeasure mid-way through
  • Fixed an issue that prevented repairing a vehicle with the Repair Tool if you were stood next to a soldier.
  • Fixed an issue that caused overlapping text to occur when trying to lock onto a target that had been hit with the Tracer Dart.
  • Fixed some graphical issues on the Spring Grenade.
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Repair Tool UI to appear broken when repairing with a custom crosshair colour
  • Fixed an issue that caused the Lock On Diamond to get stuck if the enemy vehicle deployed the thermal smoke countermeasure

Weapons

  • Fixed an issue that caused the default attachments of the 2042 era Vault Weapons to not be displayed on the collection screen
  • Fixed an issue that caused the 1942, BF3 and BC2 default attachments not to show on weapons within the collection screen
  • Fixed an issue that caused the red dot sight on the PF51 sidearm to have a different field of view to other red dot sights
  • Fixed a graphical issue on the GEW-46 scope attachments when used in combination with the default weapon skin
  • Fixed an issue that caused the PP-2000 to incorrectly be categorized as a BC2 Vault weapon

Vehicles

  • Fixed an issue with 20mm flak cannon where it did extra unintended damage in direct impacts
  • Lowered 20mm flak cannon impulse, it should no longer move your air vehicles, wobble wobble.
  • Reduced range of 20mm flak to ~200m and below
  • Added replenishment to jets cannon to keep them consistent with other pods in the game
  • Increased range of jet rocketpods to 600m and below
  • AGM missiles on F-35E Panther should no longer lock onto empty vehicles
  • APS icon on vehicles now share the same icon as Irish’s Shootdown Sentinel
  • Fixed an issue where the Nightbird's rockets are not fired from both rocket pods upon holding the fire button.
  • AT Mines dropped by the M5C Bolte now properly sink into the ground after being deployed.
  • Fixed an issue that was allowing heavy air vehicles to be used as a battering ram against light ground vehicles without taking collision damage, this will no longer be the case!
  • Improved the the BC2 MI-240’s gunner seat screen fade when zooming to be more responsive.
  • Fixed air vehicle camera clipping and crosshair visibility in all 3p views and transitions regular, zoom, rearview and rearview zoom
  • Fixed an issue that caused vehicle tracks to continue to move and spawn particle effects when descending in a vehicle elevator
  • Updated the description text for the decouple aim option to have some recommended settings.
  • Fixed an issue on the Stationary AA weapon that prevented screen shakes from playing when firing it.

Battlefield 2042 includes 3 distinct multiplayer experiences:

  • All-Out Warfare - the next generation of fan-favorite modes Conquest and Breakthrough, featuring the largest maps ever for the franchise and for the first time, up to 128 players (on XSX, PS5 and PC). Experience the intensity of All-Out Warfare in large-scale battles like never before on maps filled with dynamic weather, dangerous environmental hazards and spectacular world events that see tornadoes rip across the map and sandstorms block out the sun.
  • Hazard Zone - an all-new, high-stakes, squad-based game-type for the Battlefield franchise that is a modern take on the multiplayer experience that is distinctly DICE but very different from All-Out Warfare’s Conquest or Breakthrough modes.
  • Portal Mode - A first for the Battlefield franchise, Battlefield Portal is a community-driven platform designed to offer a huge variety of imaginative experiences by giving players the tools to set their own rules and build their own definitive Battlefield experience - and share them with other people.

All Out Warfare launches with seven maps total. Let’s take a quick tour of those:

  • Kaleidoscope [Sogdo, South Korea] This cityscape features dense roadways and skyscrapers that can be explored, or if you’ve a wingsuit, leapt off. It’s here that a tornado that dwarves the glittering buildings will make its presence known.
  • Manifest [Brani Island, Singapore] Supply lines are under threat in this key location for global trade.
  • Orbital [Kourou, French Guiana] Players will battle in the shadow of a towering space rocket pad that’s counting down to an imminent launch. 
  • Discarded [Alang, India] Clash around, through and on top of massive ship hulks and the surrounding cranes.
  • Renewal [Eastern Desert, Egypt] Wrestle for control of an agriculture technology centre in the Egyptian Desert.
  • Hourglass [Doha, Qatar] An approaching sandstorm will shift the tide of war taking place at the heart of a city.
  • Breakaway [Queen Maud Land, Antarctica] From hot deserts to icy landscapes: oil and gas are the key resources being fought over here. Insert on the mountaintops with a wingsuit and you can dive into industrial buildings below.

Post launch, Battlefield 2042’s first year promises four seasons of content, bringing with them four new Specialists plus new locations. Each season is marked by a new Battle Pass. EA confirms that new locations will be accessible to all players.

Battlefield 2042 is available for Xbox One, PS4, PC ($59.99), for Xbox Series X|S and PS5 ($69.99).


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