Battlefield Briefing - Development Update, August 2022

Hey folks! -

Hoping that you all had a great summer. We’re back at it following our own summer break, and wanted to give you some insight on where our focus is as we close out Season 1: Zero Hour, and look ahead to the start of Season 2 and beyond. If you’re looking to get straight to it, have a watch of the video below to check in with Alexia Christofi and the Battlefield Development team, and come back here afterwards for the recap.

What we learned from Season 1?

Season 1: Zero Hour has been a special moment for us on the team. We knew how frustrated many were waiting for us to bring all-new content to Battlefield™ 2042. It was humbling for us to see so many of you enjoying our new map Exposure, Lis and her G84 TGM, alongside the BSV and all of the game improvements that have featured over the course of the Season.

Being our first Season, there was plenty of opportunity for us to learn from you all about the experience you had progressing through the Battle Pass, how our new content affects existing balance, and how the changes that we made for this Season specifically changed the experience that you have with the game.

You want more Hardware. We hear you and we’ll be introducing 2 all new Primary Weapons, and 1 New Sidearm at the start of Season 2, alongside our first two Vault Weapons - beginning our journey for bringing content from Battlefield Portal into the All-Out Warfare Arsenal.
You enjoyed Kaleidoscope’s rework, and you want to see more of our original maps to be updated faster. In Season 2 we’ll be bringing refreshes for both Renewal, and Orbital. We’re presently planning for each of these refreshed maps to drop in subsequent updates following the release of Update 2.0, which itself will bring an exciting new map to the Battlefield.
With our first run of Weekly Missions nearing completion, we’ve been able to learn from, and refine our weekly missions to ensure that we have a better balance across mission variety and difficulty.
We have also reworked the main menu to make it easier to see what’s happening across the game, without needing to go into the different areas of All-Out Warfare, Hazard Zone, and Battlefield Portal.

It genuinely was a joy for us to see you having so much fun on Exposure during Season 1. We appreciated how much you were enjoying the CQC gameplay spaces on the map, and we’re bringing plenty more of that in Season 2. Thank you for playing Season 1: Zero Hour, let’s tell you more about what we’re working on to keep the good times rolling.

Core Feedback: Specialists (and how we’re bringing Classes back to Battlefield)

As we shared in the video, we have started work on a massive overhaul on the way that you’ll play with Specialists. This is a big undertaking for us, and whilst this work won’t feature in Season 2, we’re planning for it to feature in Season 3 later on this year. Presently we’re targeting this to go live in Update 3.2, but as we work through the changes, and incorporate more feedback, we’ll be in the best position to let you know if we can make it happen earlier in the season.

For a full breakdown on our plans, and to find out how you can help to share your feedback on the changes, check out our Core Feedback: Specialists blog here.

For those just looking for the headlines, here’s a summary of the planned changes we’re looking to make.

We’re reintroducing classic and familiar classes to Battlefield 2042, that place our existing roster of Specialists into the four roles of Assault, Recon, Support, and Engineer.
Classes: Classes will introduce new restrictions on Gadgets, enabling you to better assess the threat and understand who may be carrying what in their arsenal, as well as assigning new Class Traits to the Specialists that help them to better support their role on the Battlefield.
Weapons: Weapons will remain unrestricted, as we continue to find that players prefer to have the freedom to choose the loadouts that best suit their playstyle. Naturally the Class Traits we introduce will encourage the familiar style of gameplay known to best suit certain approaches to combat, that will see Recon roles enjoy more success with more long range weaponry, and Support have more effectiveness with heavier weaponry.
Audio/Visual Improvements: We’re continuing to bring visual and audio improvements to our Specialist Roster. This includes work on their Voices, Body Posture, and Facial Expression changes. We started this work already during Season 1, and will continue to release updates on this throughout the year.
Balancing: The Specialists themselves will continue to be updated with balance passes that help to best define their roles as unique sub-classes within the new system that we’re designing.

We heard you when you said that you were keen for us to find a way to bring Classes back, and have spent a long time finding the best way for us to make that happen. We’re still keen to hear what you have to say about the work, so please do read through the detailed Core Feedback: Specialists blog here, and let us know your thoughts.

Vault Weapons (bringing Battlefield Portal weapons to the 2042 armory)

In Season 2, you’ll encounter the first of our Battlefield Portal migrations, with Battlefield 3’s iconic M16A3 Assault Rifle, and the M60E4 Light Machine Gun being the first to make the move. They’re being added to the Base Game for Battlefield 2042 as a part of Update 2.0, and not on the free tiers of Season 2’s Battle Pass. You’ll be unlocking these via Assignments, a new system that we’ve developed which will grow as we bring more of Battlefield Portals arsenal into the 2042 armory, and these assignments will remain open and accessible for all players to unlock, no matter when they jump in to play.

Assignments will be familiar to players who have played Battlefield titles in the past. Each weapon will be unlocked through completion of a fixed set of challenges, which when complete will unlock the weapon in your Armory.

From here, you’ll be able to add the weapon into your loadouts the same as you would any of 2042’s other weapons, set them up with their Vault Attachments, and work towards earning their mastery badges.

As an example of those assignments, here’s an example of how you’ll unlock these first two Weapons.

M16A3

30 Kills and Assists with Underbarrel Grenade Launchers
100 Kills and Assists with M16A3 or SFAR-M GL

M60E4

100 Kills and Assists with the M60E4 or PKP-BP
100 Teammates Resupplied with Ammo

None of the new Vault Weapons that we bring in from Battlefield Portal will have unlockable, or purchasable Cosmetics, and will not feature Mastery Appearances. We made the decision to maintain their default looks, and increase the speed at which we can add new Vault Weapons in future updates. This allows us to stay focused on their gameplay balance, and correctly mapping them with the backend systems which help us to manage your progression across the game.

In later Season 2 updates, we’re looking to introduce weapons such as the P90, the AKS-74u, and the M98B, with plenty more to come and we will keep sharing updates with you all as we have them. For those of you who didn’t jump in during Season 1: Zero Hour, we’ll be using the Assignments system to allow people to unlock Vehicles, and Specialists as well.

Maps (evolving Renewal and Orbital)

We’ll be following the reworked Kaleidoscope with two new maps during Season 2. In our last Development Update, we were able to show you the work that we were doing on Renewal, trimming down the playspace to give the map better focus, and flow, alongside making big changes to the terrain to ensure that you’re better able to move across the map as Infantry.

We’ve also worked to improve the playspace’s look and feel, changing spaces such as the Solar Station to feature a lot more fortifications, as well as updating the Synesco Building to create more of an entrenched stronghold for players to both attack and defend. These changes to Renewal won’t launch with Season 2, but will feature in the 2.1 Game Update that is planned to release later in September.

Our next map to be revised will be Orbital. Also featured during Season 2, and planned for release in October, Orbital is taking on some big changes that will help to bring it inline with our improved set of standards. With Orbital being one of the maps that was first developed for the game, we know that it’s going to benefit from this attention, and improve the experience that you have on the map.

The first note to share with you is that we’ve moved the two HQ’s closer into the Battlefield, switching Radar and Checkpoint for their corresponding teams HQ’s, and enabled teams to attack the remaining flags on the Battlefield much faster, instead of racing into these two flags first, and not getting into the action faster. Both areas have been revised with new cover, and new looks similar to our work on Renewal and Kaleidoscope, helping to better set the tone for the fight ahead.

Down at the Refinery, we’ve done similar work to update both of these two capture points with new cover, and transformed the connecting tunnel to be a space you can look forward to fighting over, instead of being a space where you just hoon a vehicle through from point to point. The reworked tunnel also provides you with a new exit point, allowing you to duck out, or interrupt a firefight in progress.

Above the tunnel, you’ll also discover a new Capture Point on 128 player layouts, called Security Checkpoint. This playspace connects through to the Tunnel below, and helps to create more movement between the Refinery flags, and the Crawlerway.

Over at the Crawlerway, you’ll notice that the team have done a tonne of work to update this playspace, providing much more of a battle-scarred atmosphere that helps to improve the experience of moving across this previously open space. Cover at D1, and D2 has been increased, helping to up the intensity at both of these popular infantry flags, with way more natural cover present on the Crawlerway itself to help the fighting between B and E.

We’re excited for these two maps to be updated during Season 2 and are already hard at work on our next set of improvements for Season 3, with two further maps presently under review for improvements.

Season 2 (and what to expect)

It’s not long until the start of Season 2. Our new map for Season 2 builds upon the strengths of Exposure, and is perfect for more infantry focused gameplay, with a smaller overall layout, that really brings the intensity for 128 players.

You’ll also be stepping into the boots of an all new Specialist, with their own new unique abilities and gadget, experience new hardware, a new Battle Pass, more featured experiences in Portal, and new ways to play.

Our teams are continuing to work on Season 3 and beyond, and it’s really important to us that we can continue to keep the community playing together in new and exciting ways. Future Seasons will have a similar amount of content to Seasons 1 and 2, so we can focus on the quality of what we’re giving you, which we hope you saw in Season 1’s variety and depth. We can assure you the battlefield will continue to evolve and grow.

And that’s it for our latest Development Update.

In addition to everything we’ve spoken about today, we will continue our commitment to ongoing Quality of Life and Performance improvements in all our updates.

On behalf of all the teams continuing to work on Battlefield 2042, thank you for sticking with us.

See you on the Battlefield!

Freeman // @PartWelsh
Community Lead, Battlefield

This announcement may change as we listen to community feedback and continue developing and evolving our Live Service & Content. We will always strive to keep our community as informed as possible.