Battlefield 2042 recently began its first season, bringing some of the game’s best content, but it may not be enough for the fun to last.
Battlefield 2042 had a notoriously rocky launch, hemorrhaging consistent players throughout its first couple months, but the recent release of its first season, Zero Hour, has managed to bring some attention back to the game, which many felt was a lost cause. Season 1 marks the first new content added to Battlefield 2042 in the seven months since it came out. The additions are of a consistently high quality, making 2042 more enjoyable than it’s ever been, but it may be too little and too late for the game to genuinely recover from its numerous pitfalls.
Zero Hour’s new map, Exposure, is perhaps the best in the game. It was claimed that Battlefield 2042 will release smaller maps after the base game’s were criticized for being too large and empty, but Exposure still has the scale to support the series’ multifaceted conflicts. Set in the Canadian Rockies where a landslide has unearthed a subterranean complex, Exposure accommodates all manner of play styles with an interesting variety of terrain and elevation. Conquest and Breakthrough, 2042‘s two main game modes, both flow well on Exposure, and the areas surrounding objectives provide plenty of cover.
Season 1’s new Specialist, Lis, is similarly a welcome addition. Her G-84 TGM launches TV Guided missiles, giving players more options for taking down vehicles. They’re especially handy when confronting Zero Hour’s new stealth helicopters, which have a setting that prevents AA launchers and SOFLAMs from locking on. It took months for 2042 to get a real scoreboard, and even longer for new weapons to arrive with Season 1 – the BSV-M suppressed rifle and Ghostmaker R10 crossbow. The BSV-M has found plenty of use, but the Ghostmaker is a bit of a gimmick. Regardless, this new content has made Battlefield 2042 more exciting than it ever was, and with improved hit registration and much fewer bugs, it makes for an experience that is a reminder of how fun the series can be.
Unfortunately, it doesn’t appear that Zero Hour will be the comeback Battlefield fans are hoping for. Exposure can offer so much variety in play style, with more dynamic gameplay than any of the other maps, but the novelty is sure to wear off with it being the only new location to fight. Only a handful of new content after seven months is not enough to overcome the foundational issues the game still suffers from. 2042‘s Season 1 was delayed for bug fixes, which is understandable considering the state of the game on release, but the quantity of post-launch content, regardless of its quality, is severely lacking compared to previous Battlefield titles.
Electronic Arts refuted claims by industry insider Jeff Grubb that 2042‘s development team was down to a skeleton crew, but the trickle of new content doesn’t necessarily corroborate EA’s insistence that the game is receiving dedicated, longterm support. Despite a consensus that 2042 will never be able to live up to series favorites like Battlefield 4 and Bad Company 2, the game’s slight resurgence for Zero Hour proves there’s still potential for a fun game. It’s a truly odd experience getting hooked on the Battlefield franchise’s worst release ever, knowing it will likely fade into obscurity again until another disappointing amount of content is ready to release. Despite a plethora of online shooters, there’s nothing that quite compares to DICE’s long-running series, and even though many aspects of Battlefield 2042 are ill-conceived, the slow and steady progress is still noticeable.
Source: Jeff Grubb/Twitter
One of Kyle’s earliest memories is of watching his older brother play Ocarina of Time, which probably explains how he ended up as an Editor for Screen Rant’s Gaming section. His tenure at SR began in late 2020 as a contributing Game Features writer before quickly becoming a Staff Writer, a role that gradually progressed into an Editor position. A terminal Midwesterner who graduated from the University of Kansas, Kyle also has knowledge and interest in literature, film, film adaptions of literature, and history. When not talking about The Legend of Zelda, Dark Souls, Mass Effect, or some PlayStation exclusive, he’s probably droning on about the works of Cormac McCarthy, Frank Herbert, Stanley Kubrick, and Wes Anderson. Or he’s trying to get you to watch Mad Men. He’s a firm believer in three hours being the perfect length for a movie, but thinks a lot of games are much too long. When not sedentary, Kyle enjoys traveling to the National Parks, seeing new cities, and has ambitions to explore abroad.
