Image: Electronic Arts
Battlefield 2042 Season 5: New Dawn feels like a return to form for the franchise, even if it comes far too late.
Battlefield developer DICE has fallen into a worrisome pattern in the handling of its first-person shooter franchise, starting with Battlefield 5. Much like Battlefield 2042, that game launched in a poor state and floundered with a declining player base for more than a year, before DICE finally started making meaningful changes to set the game back on the right track. Battlefield 2042 seems to have now entered the latter phase of this cycle, with a new season coming that aims to deliver everything a new season should: balance updates, new maps and weapons, and some much-needed quality-of-life changes.
We got the chance to play some content from Season 5: New Dawn this week. Here's what we thought:
New stuff!
The big ticket item of Season 5 is Reclaimed, a new map set in Czechia around an abandoned industrial facility. From what we’ve played of it, this feels like a return to classic Battlefield maps in its structure and level design. It’s much closer to what we wanted from the game in the first place, compared to the more unwieldy large-scale maps like Hourglass we got at launch.
Reclaimed is made for combined arms warfare and divided into six different sections, all of which are set in an industrial facility retaken - reclaimed, if you will - by nature. One zone features a derailed train and works best for vehicular combat, while the Landing Zone throws you into a forest area filled with trees that, once knocked down, will open up sightlines for planes and snipers. Another objective is set indoors, inside an abandoned turbine with lots of cover and an open roof.
The Military Warehouse has high vantage points and low cover, making for a good spot for snipers and long-range fighters to play in. Pushing further into the map will uncover The Bunker, a short-range, close-quarters meat grinder carved into the side of a mountain. The Fuel Silos is much the opposite, providing tank players with a fun little outdoor area to destroy one another with. This area has a circular layout, which means that you can just spin around in circles wiping people out or set up shop at one of the elevated areas to take out a few tanks.
One of Battlefield 2042’s main points of criticism at launch was its poor map design, with large player counts leading to bloated maps that felt too large and unfun to traverse. Reclaimed feels more in line with Battlefield V’s excellent maps, which struck a balance between providing opportunities for unexpected combat encounters in large-scale warfare without feeling too big for their own good.
New weapons
I got to play two hours of New Dawn, which isn’t as much time as I’d have liked to get acquainted with its new weapons. Setting that aside however, these new weapons and gadgets felt pretty decent in a number of situations, and come in a solid variety. First up is the return of Battlefield 4’s HK G36C, now named the GEW-46 - my main weapon of choice for this preview, seeing as it's an assault rifle that doesn’t have a ton of kickback, giving the player stability and decent firepower in short to medium-range fights.
The XCE Bar is a high-precision bolt action rifle that should suit long-range fighters nicely, and this thing has tremendous stopping power too. It’s a powerful gun with a lot of optional attachments to play around with, though it obviously lacks the speed of the GEW-46. The BFP.50 is a secondary weapon that plays like a nice compromise between the two. It’s a hand cannon that deals a ton of damage at close range, but doesn't work as well at long range - so just keep those engagements tight and you’ll be fine. Or throw on a long-range sight, and use it that way.
There are a few more grenades included in Season 5, though their uses in battle are pretty self explanatory. The Spring Grenade launches into the air right before it detonates, the Anti-tank Grenade deals heavy damage against vehicles upon impact, and the Mini Grenade is quicker and has more range than its regular counterpart. These grenades didn’t wow me, but the Anti-tank Grenade is a solid addition that I can see myself using a lot more often to deal with trucks and tanks.
All of these weapons and grenades are solid additions to the playable arsenal, but I wasn’t particularly blown away by any of them. This is also a slim addition of content to a game that already has huge gaps in between seasons (Season 4 launched in February with more weapons), and lacks other content like vehicles and Specialists, which we’ve seen DICE add regularly in the past.
Balance updates and quality-of-life changes
Season 5 also brings a number of quality-of-life changes. A whole five seasons of content into the game, we’re finally getting a proper Squad Management system. Better late than never of course, as this new-but-old feature allows you to tinker with your squad on the fly. You can now create, join and leave squads while passing around leadership as you see fit, which is great, considering that cooperative squads can make or break a match for most players. Sometimes, you get matched with a great squad that sticks together, hands out revives and dives in for rescues, and other times, you don’t even know where they are.
That’s a nice little improvement, but there are a few other changes to check out, like the reworked vehicle loadouts and new weapon stations. On the former, DICE is adjusting weapon loadouts to give them more defined uses in battle. For example, the LATV4 Recon was one of the game’s most popular vehicles because it had explosive weaponry, but it’s getting those explosives removed to shift it closer to its intended role as a transport. Basically, some vehicles are for driving and others are for destroying, and new lines have been drawn to separate them.
DICE will also launch the last of Battlefield 2042’s reworked maps in Season 5, though I didn’t get to go hands-on with it: Hourglass. You’ll remember Hourglass as the expansive, sandy map included in the game’s original marketing material - a map that had a lot of potential, but was no fun to traverse whatsoever. We’ll see how that improves later on.
And that’s that
DICE hasn’t announced any plans for Battlefield 2042 beyond Season 5, but I’d be disappointed if this was the end. The few weapons it adds are nice, but the star of the show is Reclaimed, a new map that feels great to play in and has well-designed objectives that flow well into one another. Visually, it’s not going to blow you away, but it has lots of potential for classic Battlefield chaos. There’s also the Season 5 battle pass which provides loads of cosmetics that definitely aren’t for me, but you do you.
It feels like DICE is very much in tune with its playerbase’s wants right now, but whether that translates into long-term content drops remains to be seen. As it stands, I have a lot more faith for what Season 6 brings, if it happens at all. Battlefield 2042 Season 5: New Dawn launches on June 7, 2023.
