Battlefield Briefing - Development Update, May 2023
An overview of Season 5: New Dawn
It’s a New Dawn.
Today we invite you to join us for our latest Development Update where we give you an overview of everything new in Season 5: New Dawn for Battlefield™ 2042*.
Let’s take a look!
If you’d like to read along instead, then we also got you covered below.
New Map: Reclaimed
In 2048, war descends upon an abandoned industrial facility slowly being retaken by nature in Czechia with the battle taking place over a secret train route.
The Crash Site, featuring the derailed train, is designed primarily as a vehicle combat area, with the Landing Zone an area of forest providing a circular area that will enable close-quarters combat and new sightlines opening up when trees are destroyed.
You may see the inspiration we’ve taken for the Abandoned Turbine and Military Warehouse. The indoor space of the Abandoned Turbine will enable crossfires due to its verticality and cover. While the Military Warehouse’s floors will no doubt attract snipers and a range of gunplay experiences due to the narrow layout.
Hidden inside the nearby mountain lies The Bunker, forgotten and made up of a central room whose linear space will bring intense, short-range, close-quarters combat. In comparison to this, The Silos is another outdoor area set up for vehicle combat with its generous roads perfect for tank battles. Easy to spot due to its four towers rising up from the ground, The Silos also provides plenty of elevated areas for infantry to get a shot at vehicles dominating the ground.
Map Rework: Hourglass
Since Season 1 we’ve brought you re-worked versions of all our launch maps. Our commitment with these re-works was to address your feedback to improve the distance to travel between flags, the intensity of combat, sight lines, paths towards objectives, and cover.
Later in Season 5 we’ll bring you the final re-worked map: Hourglass.
New Weapons: XCE Bar, GEW-46, BFP.50
The weapons arsenal is expanding this Season with not only new weapons, but also further much community requested improvements to Vault Weapons.
XCE Bar
The XCE Bar is a high-precision bolt action rifle. It has expanded attachment capability to accompany its stopping power, allowing you to quickly swap through attachment options to engage the enemy at various distances.
GEW-46
The GEW-46 assault rifle offers high stability with short-burst fire. Great for the medium-range environments that you’ll experience across the Reclaimed map.
BFP.50
The BFP.50 is a powerful hand cannon, giving you another sidearm that dishes out heavy damage at close range. We know it’s been highly popular due to its size, sound and power and we just know you’re going to love this updated version for The World of 2042!
Evolving Vault Weapons
We will be adapting Vault Weapons for use with All-Out Warfare attachments during Season 5. To start, we’ll focus on Assault Rifles and Sniper Rifles with attachments for the M16A3, A-91, M416, MTAR-21, AEK-971 and the GOL Sniper Magnum.
We’ll continue to roll out All-Out Warfare attachments for all other remaining Vault Weapons during the Season.
We are also addressing your feedback to customize the skins of your Vault Weapons. As part of Season 5, all Universal Skins such as Forest Multi-terrain (Unlocked at Rank 0) and Desert Technical (Unlocked at Rank 19) will be extended towards all Vault Weapons. As an added bonus, Universal Skins will also be available within Battlefield Portal, allowing you to show off your flair as you venture back in time.
Tune in to our Inside Battlefield Podcast, or read our latest Dev Notes blog for full details.
New Gadgets: Spring Grenade, Anti-Tank Grenade, Mini Grenade
With this Season we’re also expanding our arsenal of grenades, which will help you push the objective or flush out the enemy.
Spring grenade
An old familiar projectile behavior as seen before in the form of the S-Mine or Bouncing Betty. It operates through a spring-activated thruster to reach head-height altitude before imminent explosive detonation.
Pro tip: going prone will make you take less damage from this grenade.
Anti-tank Grenade
Detonates on impact against vehicles while dealing substantial damage.
Mini Grenade
An anti-personnel grenade that can be thrown a longer distance, and after a short delay explodes across a small area.
RPG-7V2
A returning fan-favorite from Battlefield 3 is making its way into All-Out Warfare.
Reworking Vehicle Loadouts
We’re restructuring vehicle loadouts to ensure their combat roles are clearly defined. This will also add further readability on the battlefield to ensure you know what to expect from vehicles when you encounter them.
The restructuring of loadouts primarily focuses on our ground vehicles, and we’ll both remove and add weapons to each available vehicle loadout. For example, explosives will no longer be an option for all vehicles, and overall you’ll find more choice through a larger selection of weapons available to you.
Let’s use the LATV4 Recon as an example of what that looks like.
The LATV4 Recon is one of the most used vehicles in the game, and having explosive weaponry readily available pushed it outside of its intended role as a transport. We’re removing all its explosives, such as the 30mm, 50mm and Grenade Launcher, and will replace them with anti-infantry weaponry instead.
Tune in to our Inside Battlefield Podcast, or read our latest Dev Notes blog for full details.
Specialist Improvements
Dozer and Irish will receive improvements to ensure they provide similar gameplay experiences as others within their class.
Dozer
For Dozer we will be enhancing his movement and animations when using the SOB-8 Ballistic Shield. You will now be able to strafe, rotate and pitch with your shield more quickly than previously, as well as being able to traverse ziplines with your shield equipped! Lastly, we’ll also be including two new XP Events to reward further acts of teamplay when playing with Dozer.
On the receiving end when firing at his shield, we will be increasing its spread and introducing more bullet trajectory upon hitting his shield. This will ensure that during these encounters you still have a fighting chance, and at the very least, won’t be as impacted by your own bullets as before.
Irish
Irish will receive a balancing pass to the capabilities of his APS-36 Shootdown Sentinel. We’re doing that by having it cycle through new intercept and recharge states alongside an added short cooldown, versus its previous always-on state.
We’ve also improved its audio, alongside adding new colors to help you identify which state the APS-36 is currently in.
Tune in to our Inside Battlefield Podcast, or read our latest Dev Notes blog for full details.
Squad Management Improvements
Alongside the Season update we’re also adding improvements to the current Squad functionality.
Squads and Players
The Squad Menu is now separated to give you a full overview of all squads on your team. In this menu you can make someone else the leader, and see how many players or friends are in a squad. It also shows class icons so you know how to best complement a squad before joining it. And to add some personal flavor, leaders can also show off their Player Card Tag as the squad icon.
We also worked with the narrative team to come up with code names for each squad for that additional personal touch. One of our personal favorites is Gravedigger -- surely the Gravediggers know how to PTFO. We definitely don’t mess with that squad!
Create and Join
At any time you’ll be able to create or join a new squad directly via the Squad Menu. Previously you could only switch to a random squad, and only from the deploy screen. If you create a new squad then we’ve also added a short waiting period before other players can matchmake into your squad to ensure you can play together with your friends.
Easy navigation
The Squad Menu was created to make it easier and faster to manage and navigate through squads on your team. While before it was unclear when and how to change squads, you’ll now be able to do that at any time and with only a few clicks.
We hope that with this new improved Squad Management experience you feel that you have the control over who you’d like to play with during a match. Once this is in your hands, please stay in touch and give us your feedback about how you feel about it!
Later during Season 5 we’ll also add Squad Orders functionality which allows you to work together as a squad to receive increased XP rewards. In short, PTFO - and get rewarded!
Tune in to our Inside Battlefield Podcast, or read our latest Dev Notes blog for full details.
New Battle Pass
Season 5 brings with it two factions - one that’s cutting-edge, calculating and professional versus a more survivalist group who are savage, independent and ruthless.
You’ll see this in the cosmetics available as you play through the Battle Pass, some of the best we feel we’ve ever brought to Battlefield! From Falck’s ‘Regenerator’ Skin at Tier 0, to Dozer’s ‘Overthrower’ Skin at Tier 100.
There’s a whole load of items to unlock across 100 tiers of the Free and Premium Battle Pass including cosmetics, XP boosters, and the new premium Seasonal Booster! Additionally, those that were Year 1 pass holders will also receive an Epic Skin and XP booster during the first two weeks of Season 5, as a thanks for continuing to play.
Lastly, we’re continuing to work on the game beyond Season 5. We are committed to continuing the Battlefield 2042 journey and are working through the best ways to bring new content and experiences for you all. Expect to hear more from us on what’s planned later in Season 5.
And that’s all we have for you today! Season 5: New Dawn becomes available for play on June 7, and we’re excited to start this new journey with you.
//The Battlefield Team
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.
*Requires Battlefield 2042 (sold separately) and all game updates.