Battlefield 2042 goes back to the future

EA has debuted its next Battlefield game, featuring wingsuits, weather hazards, and 128-player mega-maps – but, for the first time since 2009’s Battlefield 1943, it won’t include a single-player campaign. Unless we’re counting Battlefield Online, obviously. Let’s not count Battlefield Online. Who even remembers Battlefield Online? Me neither.

Anyway.

“I think that’s just something that enables us to really lean into what we are best at,” Battlefield 2042 design director Daniel Berlin tells Eurogamer. “If you look at the DNA of the studio, what we’ve been doing for so long, we just said you know what, we’re not going to have a traditional single-player campaign this time around, but we’re going to put all that emphasis and all those resources into building depth into the multiplayer. Because that is what we do best.”

Instead, Berlin explains, the game’s narrative is introduced “through the eyes of the specialists”, Battlefield 2042’s new classes.

“As we go through the live service, and the seasons, we’ll introduce new specialists, and you’ll see how the world evolves through the eyes of the specialists that we have.”

According to the game’s website, specialists have unique skills and traits – recon expert Wikus “Casper” Van Daele, for example, has an EMP drone and enhanced proximity sensors. And, with a name like that, he’s probably South African. Kiff, bru.

Battlefield 2042 launches on PC and consoles on 22 October.

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