Montag, 11. Oktober 2021

Battlefield 2042 Beta (PS4) Review

 

The Beta of Battlefield 2042 left a rather disappointing impression on me. On my second day of playing I had more fun than on the first, but most changes of 2042 in comparison to its predecessors are not understandable and the overall performance of the game has been a huge letdown.

Performance is a good keypoint, since it was poor on PS4. The Last Gen version cuts the player count of the New Gen Versions in half (64 instead of 128) and also cuts half of the maps off. This may be understandable, but what's is not understandable, are the constant frame drops on PS4 (a friend of mine on a PS4 Pro experienced the same). There are a lot of moments with FPS below 30 and sometimes it will even be nearly unplayable. I really hope they fix this till the full release.

This performance problems would be explainable if the visuals had been significantly improved, but that isn't the case with 2042 (at least on the PS4 version). Objects and environmental elements (grass especially) were often looking really poor and in comparison to the great looking BF1 and BF5, 2042 feels like a noticeable downgrade. On PCs and maybe even PS5 that may not be the case, but it is still too difficult to explain how 2042 can both run worse and look worse than most of the other PS4 Battlefield games. Sacrificing on for the other would be explainable, but lacking in both departments is a huge issue and there is only one month left till full release (I personally don't buy into the 'The Beta Build is months old, we have improved everything...' excuse).

The movement in 2042 is decent and doesn't really feel much different than in the other games. Gunplay however leaves to be desired. The weapons lack satisfaction and an acceptable weapon feedback. It just feels very shallow to shoot on people. They should definitely tweak this and adjust the gunplay to that of the other recent Battlefield games. They clearly tried to copy some element of the Call of Duty gameplay (especially with the operators), but the gunplay currently neither feels like true BF gameplay nor like COD. It is a little in between, neither fish nor fowl. It is a not complete disaster, but definitely disappointing.

The new Operator system is another letdown. These Operators replace the former Class System and can all be individualized. Every Operator has a personal gadget (like the new grappling hook) and they can all either equip Ammo Boxes or Med Packs or other stuff. Players now don't have identifiable roles anymore within their Squads and their Factions. You can not see, whether other players outside of your Squad for example require ammo or health. There is little Teamplay left within the game, which is very underwhelming.  

A consequence of this Operator system is also, that there aren't really any factions anymore. Both sides use the same 4 Operators and the story of No-Pats, USA and Russia doesn't matter at all. Both sides look exactly the same (50-60% of players with the grappling hook character, other 30-40% with the default character). Battlefield 2042 therefore turns into a huge clone war without any story sense or reason (especially disappointing for a game without campaign...). It is therefore also more difficult to identity friend from foe, because all players look the same and the coloured backgrounds (Blue = Friend; Red = Enemy) are often glitching around.

To mention a few positive points: The new grappling hook ability is quite fun and parachutes also work decently. Being able to switch weapon sights during gameplay can be useful, if you have to switch between long range engagements and close combat. The weather elements are also pretty nice, even if we have already seen a lot of them in previous games (BF4 for example).

Animations on the other hand are sometimes really rough and don't look polished enough for a AAA game. I am at least optimistic, that these can be improved till launch. Another controversial addition to the game is the auto heal feature. In other BF games you could also automatically heal for a little bit (but not full health) or use an individual health pack (BF5), but in 2042 you can auto heal a few seconds after having received damage. Your life will completely replenish over time and you can repeat this process indefinitely. I don't think this is a good idea for a Battlefield game. The previously mentioned attachment system can also be a big annoyance, if you have to not only switch sides, but also ammunition sorts and other attachments, like gripes etc. The ammo has been significantly reduced and split into 3 different ammo sorts in BF 2042, which seems like a very bad decision, that no one appreciates.

We are however not done with the diminishing of core Battlefield features in 2042. Grenades can no longer be thrown by the press of a button, but instead have to first be equipped and than thrown with the fire button, which is much more time-consuming. The overview map has also been completely removed. You can only see the map and the checkpoints outside of your current area, when you respawn. This change is just idiotic and makes players run around like headless chicken. Score Boards are also gone. You can only see the Kills and Assists of your squad mates and how your Squad is performing overall. You can no longer see your own deaths, K/Ds are completely removed from the game and you can also not see other players stats. Therefore you don't ever have any information whether you are actually playing a good match or a bad one. This was apparently done to make really bad players feel better, but it isn't honestly explainable. Dice should really get their shit together.

There are also many Bugs and Glitches in the game. A lot of times when I was downed i saw weird colours fleshing over the screen, making it hard to see what was going on and one time I got infinitely stuck on a death animation and couldn't respawn anymore. There were also many animation glitches, like players clipping through a wall or the ground. At least I am hopeful they can eventually fix these Glitches, but it will probably take a lot more time than one month, because there were so many Glitches in the Beta.

Controls in choppers or planes were also totally terrible and very different than in previous BF games (at least with a controller). I never really got the hang of the during the Beta and I also saw many people crashing, who weren't trying to kamikaze into enemies. They should just revert the controls back to the old format.

There are now Bots in Battlefield, who will fill up places for players. I am not sure what to think about that. It would be good, if you could use these Bots for offline matches, like in Battlefield 1942, but I am not sure, if it is a good idea to mix real players and Bots. In Battle Royale games I have less of an issue with them, but in a real Multiplayer Match they can be pretty unbalancing. Especially when they behave as stupid as the Bots in BF2042 do. They often have movement and orientation problems and are just noticeably worse than real players. Maybe it won't be too much of an issue on the 64 Players Last Gen Version, but I could see them being annoying in the 128 Player matches (which generally just seem to be too many).

The last thing I wasn't a fan of was the Orbital map. The rockets locked nice and the island environment isn't terrible in itself, but the map has way too much open space. Orbital can easily turn into a sniper fest and walking between the B and C control points is just endless ground without cover. I hope the other maps are much better designed than this. Oh, and control points are now always split up into two and you must control both in order to control a zone.

 

Result:

I have only experienced the Last Gen PS4 Version, but I hear similar complaints about the game from PC-Players. The Battlefield 2042 Beta gave a really mediocre impression of the game and one can only hope, that they will improve the game in nearly all areas till the full release. It would honestly be best to just postpone the game for a couple of months, but that is probably not going to happen. I believe that performance, visuals, glitches and animations can be improved along the way, but the new operator system and gunplay changes seem more critical and much more difficult to fix. The map and scoreboards need to be brought back, there can be no excuses for excluding them. I got the initial impression after the release trailer, that Battlefield 2042 got overhyped, but I did not expect it to be this bad. If they don't significantly improve some of the most glaring issues, than BF2042 could be the worst Battlefield in the last 10 years.

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