Battlefield 2042 Fully Launches Amidst A Whirlwind Of Bad Reviews

Battlefield 2042 is now officially launched, following a week of early access for pre-orders. With 128-player big battle matches on huge maps for players on PC, Xbox Series X|S, and PlayStation 5 (and slightly smaller battles and maps on the Xbox One and PS4), and the Battlefield Portal, which allows players to customize their experience and create the battlefield of their dreams -- or nightmares.

The game's storyline revolves around a near-future conflict -- in the year 2042, shockingly enough -- where "the world powers of the United States and Russia are in conflict, while refugees from collapsed nations known as the Non-Patriated ('No-Pats') struggle for survival." In a departure from previously class-based Battlefields, 2042's story is told through the eyes of 10 specialists, each with their own fighting style and customizable weapon loadouts.

In addition to the previously mentioned All-Out Warfare and Portal modes, Battlefield 2042 also offers Hazard Zone, where players need to find and extract with sensitive data, taking it from their opponents by force if the need arises. Dynamic storms and environmental hazards makes matches even more unpredictable.

Many of the changes to this year's edition of Battlefield aren't going over well with players, however. On Steam, the game currently has just a 22% positive rating, mostly coming from early access players over the past week. Many of the negative reviews complain about the class/specialist system, game balance, poor hit registration, progression, stats, and more. While some of those are things that could be added in later, some, like the specialists, are deep-seated elements of the core game that woudn't be modifiable without a massive rework.

And also, really, we shouldn't excuse poor mechanics, optimization, and bugs from a fully launched, $60 (or more, depending on your edition) game anyway. There are plenty of "this feels like a beta" comments among the reviews, and if that's the case, it shouldn't have been launched. But, as we all know by now, the holiday season marketing campaign slows down for no one.