“Be a class above,” goes the tagline ofBattlefield 2042’s new season.
Just a month ago, that sentiment would have been salt in the wound.
Players would have settled for any class structure at all.
Rather, it came from an understanding that Battlefield’s very integrity had been compromised.
When you’re walking a high wire, any misstep is a major incident.
Sure, you could pair a drone expert with C5 and a shotgun, and that was a laugh.
At first, it seemed naive to imagine that a game so fundamentally misconceived could be saved.
It felt as if the developer was rearranging the deck chairs on a totalled Super Hind.
Yet behind the scenes, the studio was desperately ripping up the game’s foundations and laying them anew.
And against the odds, it’s actually worked.
Each has been assigned a formal class: Assault, Engineer, Support or Recon.
In practice, these tweaks have utterly changed the way Battlefield 2042 is played.
Now, by contrast, you’re incentivised to react to changing events on the ground.
Compound torn apart by tanks?
Respawn as an Engineer and undermine the enemy convoy with rockets or mines.
Team losing reinforcement points at an alarming rate?
Come back as a medic and help staunch the bleeding.
For an average-to-poor Battlefield player like yours truly, the shift is revelatory.
It’s not a full return to the rock-paper-scissors class archetypes ofBattlefield 1942, and problems remain.
In fact, soldiers are still an indistinct mishmash to look at, especially from a hundred paces.
Finally, it seems, EA has realised the folly of neglecting story in its flagship FPS series.
Perhaps more importantly, a strong campaign could sell Battlefield’s universe as coherent fiction to a disinterested public.
It may be too late for Battlefield 2042 itself, however.
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