Anyone who has ever dragged a construction fence through the city during their driving test knows that second chances are significant. Of course, I can harp on why it had to come to this first. Why did Assassin's Creed: Unity have more bugs than this at release? Why did we have to endure Games for Windows Live that still prevent us from playing masterpieces like Resident Evil: Operation Raccoon City? And how did Ubisoft's XDefiant announcement trailer ever get the green light?

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5Tv_EFwnQm0

But honestly, at the end of the day, I don't want to be angry or disappointed as a player. I want to play good games! Who wants to spend years riding around on the loot boxes of a Battlefront 2 or - and this brings us to the topic - on the launch fiasco of a Battlefield 2042?

DICE and EA got the customer's receipt… or rather the opposite of it. As I predicted at the beginning of the year, the community almost completely collapsed due to the lack of Season 1. Battlefield 2042 currently has fewer players on Steam than Car Mechanic Simulator.

And yet DICE, Ripple Effect, and Co. communicate the will to make up for their own mistakes instead of saluting and getting into the dinghy and letting their boat bubble to the seabed. In a 15-minute video, they show how Battlefield 2042 should change over the next few months - starting with Season 1 in early summer 2022.

Some of these changes are a surprisingly open admission of our own mistakes. So let's go through the whole thing.

What did DICE show?
Before we get started, you'll be given a choice! I include the full 15-minute developer video in English here, which you can then snack on as you wish - if you don't feel like it, don't worry: I'll classify all the important points again. And this classification is also essential because, as in many developer videos, despite fairly open words from DICE, specific changes have to be distinguished from possible lip service.

What I mean by that: I only believe that Battlefield 2042 gets four seasons when I see it. Afterward, it's no, no, by new seasons, we just meant actual seasons - and, in 2022, there was still autumn, winter, and then spring and summer. It sounds cynical, but every Battlefront and Battlefield of the last five years had to throw their season model overboard because the developers couldn't keep up with the development. And since Battlefield 2042 is now seven months away from the start of Season 1 (!)… you get the idea where I'm coming from.

Big change #1: The maps
Rework sounds as sexy as a word like filing a tax return again, but it could be the key to getting Battlefield 2042 back on track as early as Season 1. Because, as Season 2 of Halo: Infinite sadly shows: two new maps are not enough to revive a community after a long dry spell if the fans have played the rest of your maps ad nauseam. And Halo's maps are excellent - Battlefield 2042's… not.
All the better that the developers are fundamentally revising many of the old maps. The design motto is across the board: we want to make all areas of the maps more exciting.

Comparison scenes like this one abound in the video. And yes, aesthetically speaking, DICE chooses the shortcut because many new map areas consist only of containers, sandbags, and scaffolding. But I'm happy to put up with this evil if I get new routes, cover options, and strategic options at every map point.

There are also really serious changes: On Renewal, I can walk through completely new canyons, the map points are also closer together, and some areas are completely gone! DICE throws all the map design ballast overboard, purifies, and - more importantly - focuses. This also applies to the modes.

Big Change #2: Bye, Hazard Zone
I have to throw it in: Hazard Zone hurts. Hazard Zone was supposed to be Battlefield's big battle royale killer - and was about as successful as the New Coke in the 80s. Years later, after the pretty cool Firestorm Battle Royale from Battlefield 5, a touted, groundbreaking multiplayer mode ends up as a pipe burst in the bin. But DICE is still making the right decision.

Hazard Zone is beyond saving. The rest of the game…can at least get cooler. The devs want to focus all their energies on the classic Battlefield experience, so while Hazard Zone will remain available, its further development will be discontinued. It's not just about capacity: The fact that Hazard Zone and All-out Warfare share a common map pool has had a very negative effect on the map design, in my opinion, because each map had to meet umpteen requirements some of which conflict badly. Battlefield 2042 is a torn game that can only be fixed by making sacrifices.

Breakthrough is permanently reduced to 64 players with the same design philosophy because front-line warfare doesn't work with such large player counts. By the way, Conquest still keeps its big 128-player variant because here, the people are distributed more evenly on all possible map points.

Big Change #3: Specialists become less banana
The Specialists didn't upset me personally as much as the rest of the gaming world. Still, I'm with you on one point: The silly sayings at the end of the round are more out of place in a bitterly serious conflict scenario than health advice at Burger King. Thankfully, DICE is addressing these issues… albeit in a rather odd way.

First of all: The Specialists should also be turned inside out in terms of gameplay in the long term, but according to the developers, this is too complex a task to deliver results in Season 1.

To address the problem in the short term, at least the appearance of the Specialists will be adjusted.

If you don't see the difference at first glance, the two operators now have longer beards to make them look more serious, brutal, and war-torn. As a bearded man for many years, I can tell you: Beards do not change a person's character. Beards are just hair that can look good on some people in some shapes. And it seems strangely outdated when a game in 2022 even unironically wants to bring more seriousness to its scenario by taking the razors away from its characters.

But well, it may just be an unfavorable example, and the changes will also take effect in other places. But what I think is excellent: at least the sayings of the colleagues are being adapted. Gone are the days of don't be sad. This is just how it works out sometimes.

Big Change #4: Lots of small changes
There will also be tons of more minor adjustments with these big changes. Specialists get new walking animations to make their movements more recognizable. Weapon balancing hit feedback, recoil, and attachments will continue to be reworked. And Rush is set to move into fixed rotation in the long term, along with some of the older weapons from Battlefield Portal.

And then, of course, Season 1 is just around the corner, the official reveals of which are yet to come. Battlefield 2042 gets new specialists, new maps, a Battle Pass - and what can be read between the lines: The focus of development is clearly on the classic Battlefield experience, all-out warfare, the big modes, and maps. Exactly where it should have been from the start.