Battlefield 2042 Open Beta Impressions

After being delayed by a couple of months, Battlefield 2042 held its open beta across all platforms last weekend. After pouring in about 6 hours into the game's 128-player filled 'Conquest' mode, I'm impressed with the technical ambition the game is trying to achieve. However, it's no surprise that the beta was filled with technical bugs and glitches which are a cause for concern given that it releases in just over a month from now. The lack of a single-player campaign also makes the high asking price tough to swallow, so how does it stack up?

For a cross-gen game, Battlefield 2042's technical ambitions seem to be quite high, and the game looks great for it. I played the game's open beta on a PC with an AMD Ryzen 7 3700X and an Nvidia Geforce RTX 2060 Super, paired with 32 GB of RAM. The game would hold up well above 60fps on 'High' settings (at 1080p), as expected, although there were plenty of frame drops and micro-stutter during gameplay.

On PC, Battlefield 2042 will support Nvidia's DLSS and Reflex technologies, although only the latter was available during the beta. I personally can't always tell the difference between having Reflex turned on or off, but it's a good sign to have the feature for those looking to get some serious K/D ratios when the game launches. Being a beta, I'm a little forgiving of the performance issues found here, and given that it will launch with DLSS, I'm quite content with performance as it stands right now (when it works), which developer Dice has said is from a build that's a few months old.

So how does the game actually play? Well, it stands up to the expectations of mayhem that Battlefield players have, although I do have many criticisms. For starters, as much as the map implores players to use vehicles and grappling hooks, I still think it's too big for the number of players in the match. Much of the Orbital map is open space, and traversal can become a pain if you don't see a vehicle nearby. Thankfully, redeployment is very forgiving making it really easy to just pick and choose where you want to drop in, and if you're in a squad of your choice then only one player is needed to reach your choice of destination.

When you do drop into an area of engagement, gunplay is pretty decent with a good amount of freedom thanks to the free-flow customisation system. While you can't change your loadout during gameplay, you can customise your weapons to do exactly what you want, and of course, you can pick up other weapons dropped on the battlefield. Complimenting that is the specialist system, which you can switch between in the redeployment screen. This, combined with the less than stellar visibility icons separating enemies from allies, can make for some unintentionally intense moments. On the one hand, getting to change your team dynamic every time you deploy is great for flexibility in play style. Each specialist has their own unique abilities that can come in handy and contribute to the team's strategy, as much as there could be when facing a literal tornado while buildings (along with players) are being swept up in it.

This is where the vehicles show up for some spectacular mayhem. Seeing jets and helicopters being gobbled up by the tornado is quite a sight, but only when it works properly. My beta session did include prolonged moments of lag and lack of hit registration, which were frustrating. It also included squad members occasionally getting logged out of the match, which was as fun as it could be for a few moments.

Overall, Battlefield 2042's beta shows that there is still work to be done. The game, as obvious as it may be, is still quite unfinished, and I'm not talking about the performance issues or general bugs. The game's UI design needs a rework, and while it may be late I hope Dice takes a closer look at its map design for the mode that has been marketed the most. Of course, we can't tell how the other modes will play at launch, and I'm interested to check out the new India-based maps here, but for a full priced multiplayer FPS without a campaign, it may not be enough.

Battlefield 2042 India Price and Editions

Battlefield 2042 will release under three editions:

Battlefield 2042 Standard Edition (PS4, Xbox One) - Rs. 3,999 (Rs. 2,999 on PC)
Battlefield 2042 Cross-Gen Edition (PS4/PS5, Xbox One/Xbox Series X|S) - Rs. 4,499
Battlefield 2042 Gold Edition - Rs. 6,499 (Rs. 4,799 on PC)
Battlefield 2042 Ultimate Edition - Rs. 8,499 (Rs. 5,999 on PC)

The Gold Edition of the game contains 7 days early access as well as the Year 1 Pass, which includes 4 New Specialists (1 per Season), 4 Battle Passes (1 per Season), and 3 Epic Skin Bundles (”Blistered Earth”, ”Tempest”, and ”Cold Blood”).

The Ultimate Edition of the game contains the same on top of Midnight Ultimate Bundle ("Shadow Stalker" Legendary Outfit, "Obsidian" Legendary Weapon Skin, "Onyx" Legendary Vehicle Skin), the official digital art-book as well as the digital soundtrack.

Battlefield 2042 releases on November 19 for PC (Steam and EA Play/Origin), PS4, PS5, Xbox One and Xbox Series X|S consoles.

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