Despite boasting larger lobbies, new game modes, and current-gen graphics, Battlefield 2042 stems from its launch day bugs, but there are other issues with the game related to its design. Sadly, there is a lot that could be improved in DICE's latest shooter, with many elements of Battlefield 2042 failing to iterate on the classic BF formula players have grown accustomed to.
At this point, unstable and disappointing launches have become an unfortunate tradition for the Battlefield series, with BF 4, BF 1, and BF 5, all being riddled with bugs and balance issues among other problems. 2042 has proven to be in a league of its own, though, with many common and expected features simply missing from the game. For some reason, a scoreboard showing the entire server's kills, deaths, and assists doesn't exist. There is similarly no statistics page to be found, meaning players can't see their career stats in 2042. Perhaps the most detrimental omission, though, is Battlefield 2042's lack of voice chat. Although DICE has confirmed it will be coming to the game sooner rather than later, it's still strange that it's missing at launch, given teamplay and communication is a fundamental part of the Battlefield experience.
Many expect Battlefield 2042 to make strides in stability and bug fixing over the next few months, but the game will still require a lot of work in order to be on par with its predecessors. Even Battlefield 5, which is generally considered a divisive entry in the series, introduced some gameplay mechanics that were well-received, such as crouch sprinting and fortifications. However, 2042 has not adopted either of these features, which let players build sandbag walls, tank traps, and more. Equally, 2042 has done little to address other criticisms of BF 5, namely when it comes to UI. Battlefield fans have even designed their own UI mock-ups, with 2042's generally being viewed as messy and distracting.
Classic Battlefield Features Are Missing From BF 2042
At its most basic, Battlefield is an FPS franchise, and 2042 has some very poor shooting mechanics. Hit registration seems to be particularly unreliable, moving while shooting results in random, wide bullet spread, and hitboxes have clear issues when examined closely - the latter is shown off well by Reddit NickelFPS. Some of the first shots taken in the linked clip can be attributed to all Specialists having the same size hitbox for balance purposes, but the end of the video shows bullets ing straight through a character's chest. All of these combined strips away the skill involved in playing 2042, and leaves the results of a gunfight partially up to chance.
The disappointment with 2042's gunplay goes beyond a lack of hitbox polish, though. Reddit Battlefield 2042's weapons list is also small, which means there's far less weapon variation than in previous entries. This could potentially be a bug with stat changes being misrepresented, but there are other apparent downgrades that would take more than a quick patch in order to address.
Arguably the biggest example of Battlefield 2042 taking a step back for the series is its level of destruction (or apparent lack thereof). The series has been slowly declining on destructible environments since Bad Company 2 let players raze nearly the entire map, but 2042 seems to have toned it down to be almost nonexistent. Some buildings appear to be impervious to explosions, and even from tank shells (as demonstrated by Reddit Azifor). The current state of the game is rather baffling, especially considering increased destruction has long been a requested feature from the Battlefield community. As popular as the series is, it gets discussed in detail with every release, yet Battlefield 2042 continues the trend of the series taking steps in the opposite direction.
Source: Reddit (Azifor, NickelFPS, ultrajvan1234)