Hello, that is Kotaku’s Luke Plunkett, one of many 17 folks on the planet commonly having fun with the sport, reporting reside from Battlefield 2042.
Should you haven’t performed the sport throughout its first 12 months—and actually, it has had issues, who can blame you!—EA has determined that now could be the time to attempt to persuade you by providing Battlefield 2042 totally free (throughout the first few days of December, throughout all platforms), or a minimum of as a part of the subscription payment you’re already paying for Sport Cross.
They’re doing this for 2 causes, in fact. The primary one is that nowhere close to sufficient folks purchased this recreation within the first place, so the playerbase has been at occasions tragically low. Here in Australia, for instance, solely a single multiplayer mode is ever populated sufficient to get common video games. The second, and that is associated, is that Battlefield 2042 has beauty microtransactions, so the extra folks EA can get taking part in the sport, the extra they’re hoping to make off weapon, car and participant skins.
I’m now going to inform you that you just don’t want to purchase these skins, those you unlock are advantageous, and I’m additionally going to inform you that you need to play this recreation! Battlefield 2042 launched with numerous issues and numerous adjustments, each of which upset many long-time gamers, however like I stated on the time, there was nonetheless good (or a minimum of potential) in what it was making an attempt to do.
Now, 12 months later, after a ton of labor and (remaining) fan suggestions, builders DICE have the sport…on the level it ought to have been at launch. Which is a low bar to clear, I do know, however this recreation was developed proper via a pandemic, it’s going to free (or principally free on Sport Cross), and clearing low bars is strictly what these sort of companies and weekends are for.
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It’s additionally gotten fairly good! The unique maps are being reworked, the brand new maps are nice, and numerous the stuff older followers had been lacking at launch—from scoreboards to the category system—have both been reintroduced or are about to be.
In saying the free/Sport Cross availability, DICE additionally dropped a video and weblog right now, outlining new weapons, map adjustments and specialist tweaks coming as a part of Season 3. There was additionally a really temporary trace at one thing else coming past that, which they’re pitching as one thing extra substantial. That one thing else is mentioned over a cinematic of troopers taking a look at ominous climate, so given the sport is about in a near-future local weather apocalypse (and already options in-game storms that may wreck your shit), it’ll be attention-grabbing to see if this one thing else makes dramatic adjustments to the way in which climate shapes and impacts the maps.
Battlefield 2042 might be hitting Sport Cross when Season 3 launches quickly, whereas the free weekend/week will run from December 1-4 on Xbox, Dec 1-5 on Steam, and Dec 16-23 on PlayStation.