- Publisher: Electronic Arts
- Release Date: Nov 19, 2021
- Also On: PlayStation 4, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, Xbox Series X
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- Critic score
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- By date
- Unscored
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Nov 29, 2021Despite trying to present itself as an advancement of the series, Battlefield 2042 instead feels like a severe dumbing-down. The Battlefield Portal offers some familiar fun, but it’s just not enough to warrant buying the game.
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Nov 11, 2021In a world where developers are getting used to working from home and games are being pushed back due to the global pandemic, EA decided that Battlefield 2042 was ready for this year. It’s not.
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Dec 23, 2021The weakest first-person shooter in the history of DICE. Even, by some miracle, the studio manages to fix the most glaring mistakes and reanimate the abysmal netcode, this game will not become Battlefield at its core.
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Dec 13, 2021Battlefield 2042 is trying to be a distillation of what the first-person shooter genre has become in recent times, while also not committing to any single vision, let alone one that Battlefield can claim ownership of.
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Dec 3, 2021Evidently, Battlefield 2042 was not ahead of schedule. The game greatly suffers from an incapacity to fundamentally understand what makes Battlefield a Battlefield game. EA and DICE failed to understand the assignment: this game is not what long time Battlefield veterans want to play.
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Nov 30, 2021In my opinion, especially with all of the bugs, you should save your money on this one or wait until a heavily discounted sale. Maybe in a year or so they’ll iron out some of the issues that plagued its release and work on the “fun factor”, but it just isn’t there right now for this reviewer to feel comfortable recommending it to our readers or friends.
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Nov 25, 2021I genuinely believe that Battlefield 2042 will one day be the game it's trying to be. It has everything it should need to become a go-to game for me and a group of friends. Right now though, it's just not ready for that mantle. Fixes are desperately needed that can bring Battlefield 2042 to its full potential.
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Nov 24, 2021My hope is that we’ll look back at this launch and laugh, remembering that a great game began on such a shoogly peg. For now, the best fun is found in the sideshows. On the main stage of its chaotic 128-player showdowns, it stumbles.
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Nov 18, 2021The real lesson here is to stop releasing unfinished games, whether that’s server woes, optimisation issues, immersion-shattering bugs or, as is additionally the case with Battlefield 2042, an undercooked core gameplay offering that would have benefited from at least another year in the oven.
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Nov 18, 2021At its best it's action filled and grand in every way, but most of the time you'll struggle with game-breaking bugs or even getting into a match without the game crashing. Hopefully DICE will be able to save this beast with time, but it will demand a lot of work, and an expansion of its most exciting mode, Battlefield Portal.
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Nov 16, 2021It’s hard not to be disappointed with this 2042 offering. You know when the devs said this is a game to “celebrate Battlefield”? They’ve stripped away some of the most fundamental elements of the series and added tornados and Wingsuits to make up for it. It’s Marketing 101. Explosions, tornados, and swooping helicopters look great. One day, they probably will be great. DICE is one of the best when it comes to post-launch patches - for better and for worse. But if you’re on the fence about buying Battlefield 2042, I would just wait. It’s hard for me to condone purchasing what is essentially an unfinished product - an unfinished product with Battle Passes, too. Just wait. It will be a better game in a year’s time. Maybe even six months. If you’ve never played Battlefield and want to experience some of the sheer beauty of 64v64, I say go for it. Just don’t expect an experience that will keep you interested for more than a couple of weeks.
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| This publication has not posted a final review score yet. | |
| These unscored reviews do not factor into the Metascore calculation. | |
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Nov 23, 2021If it wasn't clear by now, Battlefield 2042 is a mess in more ways than should be reasonably expected, with the laundry list above barely scratching the surface of its wreckage (I didn't even mention lag, persistent server issues, no game search, or countless other concerns). But for all the failures, missing elements, and bizarre revisions, the most telling thing I can say about it is also one of the simplest: I rarely wanted to keep playing.
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Nov 19, 2021There are some neat new toys while Portal delivers the series at its best, but 2042 launches as the weakest Battlefield in some time.
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Nov 11, 2021Given the breadth of exciting content to play, including Portal’s six classic maps like Battlefield 3’s Caspian Border and 1942’s Battle of the Bulge, this entry is an easy recommendation for fans of the series. If you’re on the fence about purchasing Battlefield 2042 at launch, you can look forward to my full review in the coming days. [Review in Progress]
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Nov 11, 2021Battlefield 2042 will split opinion. Some will love the new stuff, others will hate it. Some will use it as a gateway to get the biggest nostalgia hit they can. The game EA and DICE have created here is more like a toolset to make your own fun than a great game in its own right. Does that make it a good game if it relies so much on community involvement? We’ll find out... [Review in Progress]
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Nov 11, 2021Quotation forthcoming.
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Dec 13, 2021The word “unfinished” gets thrown around a lot these days, often simply to refer to a game that is lacking in a bit of polish, or is missing a feature or two that fans wanted. But Battlefield 2042 truly feels unfinished, as though every menu screen and transition to a new map is a placeholder for something more final yet to come.
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Nov 11, 2021There’s still nothing quite like being in the middle of a massive firefight with dozens of players, while jets strafe the ground around you, and a tank rumbles over a hilltop only 50 feet away. DICE has been in search of that old Battlefield magic for more than a decade, and Battlefield 2042 comes extremely close. But 2042, at least so far, rarely manages to be much more than that. It doesn’t feel like a real step forward for the franchise, or a meaningful update on a 20-year old formula. As of now, I’m still waiting for that next big leap. [Early Impressions]
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Nov 19, 2021I really wanted to like it, but right now I see Battlefield 2042's little logo and I simply don't trust it. This game needs time. Time to untangle those performance issues and perhaps tweak Hazard Zone’s economy. Portal needs time to save it from the maw of XP farming servers. Whether I’ve got the patience is another matter, entirely. Simply put: this is a game that doesn't seem ready yet.
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Nov 12, 2021It was wise of EA to end the press event with Portal and specifically with throwback games, because that's exactly how Portal seemed to function for me and the people I was playing with: it was an escape from the mediocrity of Battlefield 2042 into the greatest moments of the series' past. Next to that, Battlefield 2042’s may never have stood a chance, but without Portal, I'm not sure Battlefield could survive its latest entry. As it is, both have a long way to go before either leads to a good Battlefield experience, much less a classic one.
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Nov 11, 2021Battlefield 2042 feels like the most complete Battlefield game yet, mainly thanks to the incredible depth provided by Battlefield Portal and the brand new Hazard Mode, even though it is unclear whether it'll be enough to draw flocks of new players to the franchise. [Review in Progress]
Awards & Rankings
User score distribution:
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Positive: 618 out of 4864
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Mixed: 242 out of 4864
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Negative: 4,004 out of 4864
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Nov 14, 2021
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Nov 13, 2021
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Nov 14, 2021