List of things removed from BF2042 compared to previous entries compiled by Reddit

[dex3108]

Core Features

• No single-player story/campaign mode
• No standard server browser
• Fewer standardized game modes (Can't even play TDM or smaller scale modes without relying on community servers. Really?)
• Fewer base game maps than any other title (even including portal the map count is only 13)
• No persistent lobbies (seriously why do I have to matchmake after EVERY round?)
• Fewer in-game assignments (none outside of cosmetic unlocks)
• No class system
• Less character customization options (than BF5)
• No profile progress/stats page in the menu
• No battle log/stats tracker for other players
• No global leader boards
• No end of round assignment progress screen
• No dog tags (they still sort of exist I guess?)
• No custom emblems
• Fewer achievements
• No medals
• Less destruction (only a small handful of destructible buildings on each map)
• No map altering levolution (There sort of is but the maps are so big, anything that changes doesn't really affect how you play)
• No cross-game profile screen (BF 4, HL, 1, and V were all linked by a menu if you owned them digitally, was a neat feature.)
• No spectator mode
• No permanent community servers (would be useful for clans and events)
• No test range (this one is sort of compensated for with single payer servers vs bots)

Infantry Gameplay

• Fewer guns (even including all the portal guns, BF4 still had more at launch)
• Fewer infantry gadgets
• No manual leaning
• No diving while swimming
• No high wall vaulting
• No crouch sprinting
• No backwards prone
• No explosion knockback
• No rolling after falling from heights
• No ammo or health pickup off teammates
• No scope zeroing
• No thermal optics
• No indirect fire gadgets
• Less anti-tank launchers (Come on man only one?)
• No lock-on launchers (The M5 works with the SOFLAM but that requires 2 people)
• No AP mines/claymores
• No static weapon emplacements
• No fortification building
• No static resupply stations
• No suppression mechanic (This one I don't mind but I'm including everything)
• No first person takedown animations (whether this is a downgrade is up for debate, but I think it is)

Vehicles

• Fewer vehicle types (and separate vehicle progression per faction even though they are functionally identical... why???)
• No naval vehicles (Except I guess the hovercraft technically)
• No small transports (i.e. ATVs, motorcycles)
• No vehicle gunner direction indicator
• No lock on direction indicator
• No vehicle enter/exit animations
• No tank turret decoupling (This was so great in BF4!)
• Less vehicle driver/pilot customization options
• No tank zoom customization options
• No tank gunner customization options
• No heli gunner secondary weapons
• No separate heli/fixed-wing controls
• No control input while looking behind/free looking in aircraft (BF1 and V pilots, this one is gonna absolutely suck for you guys)
• No joystick/non-generic gamepad support

Scoring System

• No squad wipe scoring
• No player damage points
• No vehicle damage points
• No vehicle kill assist points
• No headshot bonus
• No long-range kill bonus
• No assist counts as kill bonus
• No multi-kill bonus
• No killstreak stopped bonus
• No comeback bonus
• No squad objective play bonus
• Oversimplified teamplay scoring (i.e. healing a teammate always gives you a flat +5xp rather than being based on how much you heal them)

Squad and Teamwork

• No commander
• No special squad call-in abilities
• No squad field upgrades
• No in-game VOIP (coming soon[SUP]TM[/SUP])
• Fewer factions (with almost nothing to give the 2 factions any distinction)
• No cross-team chat
• No "create new squad" option
• No clans/platoons
• No view of squadmates while in the spawn screen
• No "Medic incoming" indicator in downed state (coming soon[SUP]TM[/SUP])
• No rank names/icons, just a number.

UI and Quality of Life

• Less control customization options
• Less UI customization options
• No HUD/icon opacity customization
• No HUD scaling customization options
• No gunsight reticle customization options
• No network performance graph
• No individual player scoreboard
• Less detail in the 'who killed you' screen
• Less ultrawide monitor support (hud ratio is locked in at 16:9)
• Very poor friend joining system (Lack of server browser makes playing with more than 4 friends completely impossible)
• Poor console aim assist (big fat fuck you to console players there, dice. Hopefully this will come with the D1 patch)
• No in game crossplay toggle option (you have to change your global console settings)

Audio

• General consensus seems to be the audio design is bad, especially compared to both BF3 and BF1.
• 3D soundscape is almost non-exsistent
• Less impactful soundtrack (menu music is very dull and repetitive)
• End of round music is dull and uninteresting (compared to BF1 and V this is a big downgrade)
• End of round voicelines are just awful. I can't describe how much I hate them. (Tried to keep the rest of the list objective, but I had to add this. You guys understand)

r/battlefield2042 - Fuck it, here's a list of absolutely everything either removed or downgraded from previous games in 2042

32,217 votes and 4,157 comments so far on Reddit

www.reddit.com

Some things are removed for better but this is really long list for a game that took year off to improve.

 

[TwinB242]

The BF community has gotten so unreasonable, they expect every new game to retain every single feature and weapon while also adding a buttload of new features and improvements. Thats just not a realistic expectation to have, but even if DICE did somehow manage to pull that off they would still find new things to incessantly complain about. Im a big fan of BF but this community is impossible to please.

The foundation for BF2042 is solid and will get better once the bugs are addressed and a few crucial omissions (like the scoreboard and squad management) are added back in.

 

[Charcoal]

The BF community has gotten so unreasonable, they expect every new game to retain every single feature and weapon while also adding a buttload of new features and improvements. Thats just not a realistic expectation to have, but even if DICE did somehow manage to pull that off they would still find new things to incessantly complain about. Im a big fan of BF but this community is impossible to please.

The foundation for BF2042 is solid and will get better once the bugs are addressed and a few crucial omissions (like the scoreboard and squad management) are added back in.

Click to shrink...

I don't think that's entirely the case. When you have devs openly saying on Twitter that they're taking things like BFV's movement system, retaining it, and making improvements to it, only to find it's been completely striped out. That's not fans being unreasonable. That's just lying.

 

[Joe White]

No indirect fire gadgets

Click to shrink...

No more Mortar Kombat? Seine crossing with mortar was fun.

 

[BeI]

The gun customization feels kinda dead after playing Warzone and Vanguard with all of their attachment options. The game also looks and performs very underwhelming; definitely feels like a game built around the limitations of last gen consoles. They always promise destruction, but I feel like it gets worse every game; sure they can make a lot of small buildings that blow up the same way every time, but can hardly do anything to big buildings.

 

[JoJo'sDentCo]

As an outsider, the Battlefield community scares me.

 

[OldMuffin]

Yes there are stuff like resupply stations & fortifications not being there being nitpicky, but then there are stuff like server browser, create new squad, no view of squad mates, no meidc incoming notification etc, that vary from questionable to the very least to wtf?
Also moving to specialists instead of classes.
it feels like they stripped everything out that made bf, bf as well as just nice quality of life stuff for no reason.

 

[thetrin]

Crouch sprinting is a sad omission, given the maps are so big. Right now, sprinting leaves you wide open, and they took out the sliding from the beta, so mobility is an issue. Easy to pick off infantry just trying to get to the next objective. Not everyone can hop into a vehicle with the limits in place.

 

[BakedTanooki]

Oh, I loved explosion knockback. Made things very intense and immersive.

 

[Playboi Carti]

Should've been next-gen only

 

[Marcus Aurelius]

Battlefield 2042: "Look look look, we're more like CoD now! Give us your money instead?"

 

[Tathanen]

I remember an era when making a sequel wasn't expected to be "the game, again, but with more," but rather an attempt by the developer to go back to the well and take another stab at the core concept in maybe a new and interesting way. It wasn't about checklists of features, rather freshness of experience. I can't speak for BF at all, I don't really know anything about it, but I keep seeing this with games like Animal Crossing, Pokemon, just endless lists of "why isn't this back."

Is that all we want to do now? Play the same games for our entire lives, just with more packed into them?

 

[Marcus Aurelius]

I remember an era when making a sequel wasn't expected to be "the game, again, but with more," but rather an attempt by the developer to go back to the well and take another stab at the core concept in maybe a new and interesting way. It wasn't about checklists of features, rather freshness of experience. I can't speak for BF at all, I don't really know anything about it, but I keep seeing this with games like Animal Crossing, Pokemon, just endless lists of "why isn't this back."

Is that all we want to do now? Play the same games for our entire lives, just with more packed into them?

Click to shrink...

There is a difference between playing the same thing over and over and ripping the very soul out of a game.

 

[Shadow Dancer]

The foundation for BF2042 is solid and will get better once the bugs are addressed and a few crucial omissions (like the scoreboard and squad management) are added back in.

Click to shrink...

The foundation is the problem IMO. Gameplay is janky and maps are bland compared to BF V. And that's why I'm worried about it. Bugs and some of these missing features are going to be addressed anyway.

BF V movement was so good. I still can't believe they didn't bring most of it to BF 2042.

 

[LiS Matt]

The lack of single player/story doesn't surprise me as it never seemed to be the selling point

A chunk of the rest seems like stuff that would be added over time, but couldn't make it in for whatever reason for the target release date

 

[Jazar]

Some of these are silly. When was the last naval vehicle? Though TBH I haven't kept up with prior games.

 

[trashbandit]

Getting Pokemon fandom vibes from the Battlefield community right now

 

[TheTrain]

The BF community has gotten so unreasonable, they expect every new game to retain every single feature and weapon while also adding a buttload of new features and improvements. Thats just not a realistic expectation to have, but even if DICE did somehow manage to pull that off they would still find new things to incessantly complain about. Im a big fan of BF but this community is impossible to please.

The foundation for BF2042 is solid and will get better once the bugs are addressed and a few crucial omissions (like the scoreboard and squad management) are added back in.

Click to shrink...

This, its a cycle at this point. Every time a new Battlefield is out the one before becomes the best Battlefield ever done. People shitted on battlefield V until 2042 was out in the wild, now its apparently the best battlefield of the last 10 years, how can someone take for serious a community like that? Battlefield community will never be satisfied, thats all

 

[SolidSnakeUS]

Jesus... I will say, I hope this gets more people to go back and play BF4. That game is fantastic.

Seriously, I think DICE and the BF franchise are fucked at this point. Why release the game at all like this? Why not wait another 6 months or a year to get the proper content going and to make sure the audio isn't shit?

 

[etrain911]

I remember an era when making a sequel wasn't expected to be "the game, again, but with more," but rather an attempt by the developer to go back to the well and take another stab at the core concept in maybe a new and interesting way. It wasn't about checklists of features, rather freshness of experience. I can't speak for BF at all, I don't really know anything about it, but I keep seeing this with games like Animal Crossing, Pokemon, just endless lists of "why isn't this back."

Is that all we want to do now? Play the same games for our entire lives, just with more packed into them?

Click to shrink...

The thing is that these are the same games as before but with less. Sword and Shield keeps the same formula as before for example, this specific game is very much the same gameplay but with less features and some things that are demonstrably worse.

 

[Grifter]

The BF community has gotten so unreasonable, they expect every new game to retain every single feature and weapon while also adding a buttload of new features and improvements. Thats just not a realistic expectation to have, but even if DICE did somehow manage to pull that off they would still find new things to incessantly complain about. Im a big fan of BF but this community is impossible to please.

The foundation for BF2042 is solid and will get better once the bugs are addressed and a few crucial omissions (like the scoreboard and squad management) are added back in.

Click to shrink...

Appeasing loud gamers who expect everything back from legacy, generational new features, and graphical and audio overhauls has got to be a crippling weight to put on devs. I suppose teams and profits (for some) have scaled accordingly but I worry that the larger breadth of projects may also lead to safer planning that could strip personality from franchises that helped them grow in the first place.

 

[Alienous]

I feel like Battlefield Portal played a bigger role in the design for this game than the marketing would suggest.

As a sequel to Battlefield V it doesn't make sense. Seeing 2042 as a game built on a Battlefield 'platform' that can also accommodate previous Battlefield games I sort of understand it.

For instance having a simpler movement system overall would result in a less jarring experience in emulating the experience of past Battlefield games. It can't have too much of its own personality.

 

[Jarrod38]

But the day one patch is still coming.

 

[Spinluck]

Only BFs I've ever really enjoyed were BC2 and BF4. Can't say I agree with much on the list outside of the movement being downgraded. Most of it comes off as a fruitless practice in internet complaining which can make anything seem worse than it actually is.

 

[phazedplasma]

This is DICE's mo. 1 step forward 5 steps back.

Although in 2042s case something appears to have gone very wrong.

What an empty broken shell of a game

 

[Ada]

It's like they rebuild the engine for each new game. COD manages a complete release in half the time without so many insane bugs. Yet DICE takes many years and actually reverts functionality between games. Biggest gaming regret this year.

 

[OldMuffin]

The thing is that these are the same games as before but with less. Sword and Shield keeps the same formula as before for example, this specific game is very much the same gameplay but with less features and some things that are demonstrably worse.

Click to shrink...

Even the gameplay could be considered worst, considering how much of a downgrade the movement here is compared to 5.
Everything just feels like a downgrade with the changes being stuff like specialists which seems less like to evolve the franchise & more to change trends.
I vaguely recall a different specialist system that was suppose to be in 5 but was scrapped.
I think that one was more interesting & fit with the franchise in terms of having more of a role to play.
For example a recon player with silenced weapons & special takedowns that would play (unsurprisingly) like a stealth character.
I guess they wanted players to play however they want but the removal of roles makes team play (even more) rare, as you could just be a Jack of all trades.

 

[Kalentan]

I remember an era when making a sequel wasn't expected to be "the game, again, but with more," but rather an attempt by the developer to go back to the well and take another stab at the core concept in maybe a new and interesting way. It wasn't about checklists of features, rather freshness of experience. I can't speak for BF at all, I don't really know anything about it, but I keep seeing this with games like Animal Crossing, Pokemon, just endless lists of "why isn't this back."

Is that all we want to do now? Play the same games for our entire lives, just with more packed into them?

Click to shrink...

The BF community has gotten so unreasonable, they expect every new game to retain every single feature and weapon while also adding a buttload of new features and improvements. Thats just not a realistic expectation to have, but even if DICE did somehow manage to pull that off they would still find new things to incessantly complain about. Im a big fan of BF but this community is impossible to please.

The foundation for BF2042 is solid and will get better once the bugs are addressed and a few crucial omissions (like the scoreboard and squad management) are added back in.

Click to shrink...

Imagine defending the removal of so many basic features that people didn't even have to think about in the previous games cause they were so obvious that the thought that they would be removed wasn't even on people's minds.

Sure, some of these are very specific examples of stuff that were being removed...

But a lot of it is literally removed for seemingly no reason and replaced with nothing.

 

[Philosopher]

Yea overall very disappointed with this game. All any battlefield fan ever wanted was just a BF4 Part 2(BF4 was just BF3 part 2 anyways).

 

[TheVoidDragon]

Some of these are silly. When was the last naval vehicle? Though TBH I haven't kept up with prior games.

Click to shrink...

You think including boats, in a franchise that has included boats from BF1942 up until BFV, would be "silly"?

 

[take_marsh]

I think it's fine to get rid of plenty of things, but it's as if they don't pay attention to what features of the previous games are praised as really good changes to the game. They seem to use a giant dartboard instead of focusing on what worked well in a previous game.

DICE is such an interesting company, but not because their games are so good or so bad. It's because their design decisions seem to have an internal logic that doesn't make a great amount of sense. They hear the complaints, and then they add things to resolve them, and then they make a new game and make the same decisions that lead to the same complaints from the community. It's like they don't know what people love about their games.

 

[Kalentan]

I think it's fine to get rid of plenty of things, but it's as if they don't pay attention to what features of the previous games are praised as really good changes to the game. They seem to use a giant dartboard instead of focusing on what worked well in a previous game.

DICE is such an interesting company, but not because their games are so good or so bad. It's because their design decisions seem to have an internal logic that doesn't make a great amount of sense. They hear the complaints, and then they add things to resolve them, and then they make a new game and make the same decisions that lead to the same complaints from the community. It's like they don't know what people love about their games.

Click to shrink...

I mean this is the same company that straight up said they don't know what people liked about Bad Company 1/2...

DICE ponders: what did people really like about Battlefield: Bad Company?

Battlefield fans have long called for another Bad Company game. In fact, before this year's Battlefield game was announ…

www.eurogamer.net

 

[strikeselect]

I decided to cancel my pre-order after playing the early access. Game is massively unpolished, broken and overall not as fun as BFV. I imagine it'll be in a decent state after a year of patches but I neither have the time or the patience to wait. Too many good games right now fighting for my attention.

 

[jokkir]

Wouldn't some of the removals be just a change in philosophy moving towards a 128 player game? Like difference in scoring, movement, etc

There are some weird omissions though like the scoreboard missing, and it's a bit glitchy. Still fun though from the trial I played

 

[Jazar]

You think including boats, in a franchise that has included boats from BF1942 up until BFV, would be "silly"?

Click to shrink...

I do. I don't see games as checklists that need to carry over every time. Boats were there but are they core to the BF experience? Ehh...

 

[TaySan]

I really could use a team deathmatch playlist and some smaller maps.

 

[Jakisthe]

I do. I don't see games as checklists that need to carry over every time. Boats were there but are they core to the BF experience? Ehh...

Click to shrink...

Combined arms are the core of BF, yes.

 

[Axon]

While the state of BF2042 is curious to say the least, checklists like this are top-level cringe and misleading. Games are not defined by feature checklists and there are plenty of things even just in BF2042 that no other BF before had.

Kinda makes me want to create a checklist comparing something like COD to Quake as a joke while trying to make the point that one is better than the other and see how many ppl fall for it.

 

[PanzerKraken]

This is dumb, a lot of those things were awful and needed to go.

Lot of things fans hated are listed here just to make a list to bitch at. Like entering and exiting vehicle animations. The community as a whole hated that shit with a passion.

 

[AgentOtaku]

Got damn, this really puts things in perspective. Thinking I should just stick with BFV...

 

[Berserkr]

I am so put off by the specialist system. I wanted to design my own character, not play a pre-defined character like in Hero Shooters.

 

[shadowman16]

I remember an era when making a sequel wasn't expected to be "the game, again, but with more," but rather an attempt by the developer to go back to the well and take another stab at the core concept in maybe a new and interesting way. It wasn't about checklists of features, rather freshness of experience. I can't speak for BF at all, I don't really know anything about it, but I keep seeing this with games like Animal Crossing, Pokemon, just endless lists of "why isn't this back."

Is that all we want to do now? Play the same games for our entire lives, just with more packed into them?

Click to shrink...

Or maybe take the core systems and mechanics from the last game, tweak them, add more and just all round iterate and improve the game. Its what's Yakuza's combat has been doing for years now and aside from that one time where they swapped engine in 2016, they managed to build on what worked previously and improve the combat notably with every entry, while also adding more content etc. I'd hate it if they went back to the drawing board each game and cut out tons of moves, weapons, mechanics, content...

Or another example - Sonic 1-3 built on each previous game giving us more gameplay mechanics, bigger levels etc. 3D Sonic games keep trying to reinvent the wheel and going back to square one even though the blueprint was there with Unleashed and Generations - which most fans just want to see that refined. Instead they decided to ditch all that and make Lost World instead, which I didnt like nearly as much...

 

[Bungie]

Not to kick them whilst they're down, especially when Microsoft have fucked them hard with Halo Infinite's multiplayer release, but you do have to wonder what DICE have been doing development wise this whole time. Tornado implementation cannot have taken up that much resource. Where did the rest of it go?

It's not like the game performs particularly well, has a lot of new graphical improvements, or a lot of new gameplay features (you could possibly argue balancing class abilities took up a lot of time, but it's hardly time well spent if it did)

 

[take_marsh]

I mean this is the same company that straight up said they don't know what people liked about Bad Company 1/2...

DICE ponders: what did people really like about Battlefield: Bad Company?

Battlefield fans have long called for another Bad Company game. In fact, before this year's Battlefield game was announ…

www.eurogamer.net

Click to shrink...

Haha

"But some people say this: the Bad Company 2 multiplayer is the best you've ever done. Okay, why is that? It's hard for people to articulate what that is, which is actually hard for us. It would be hard to remake something like that. Can we do it? Of course. We have our theories when it comes to the multiplayer."

Click to shrink...

Aged like milk.

 

[SaberVS7]

I think it's fine to get rid of plenty of things, but it's as if they don't pay attention to what features of the previous games are praised as really good changes to the game. They seem to use a giant dartboard instead of focusing on what worked well in a previous game.

DICE is such an interesting company, but not because their games are so good or so bad. It's because their design decisions seem to have an internal logic that doesn't make a great amount of sense. They hear the complaints, and then they add things to resolve them, and then they make a new game and make the same decisions that lead to the same complaints from the community. It's like they don't know what people love about their games.

Click to shrink...

Honestly from the stories I hear it sounds more like EA producers passing down unrealistic mandates to them rather than DICE themselves.

There's this delusional obsession at EA about "Beating CoD" that they've had since BF3 - Constantly demanding DICE do Thing X to try and poach CoD players at the expense of burning away Battlefield's audience. Which is their first mistake: The CoD audience is loyal to CoD, all they buy is CoD and Madden, nothing else. Nothing is going to change that CoD on their annual gaming budget to a BF. Trying to poach Dudebros has been a total Fool's Errand that has accomplished nothing positive for this series, while the core Battlefield fandom bleeds off into Squad and Hell Let Loose for their fix.

 

[Dan Thunder]

Were all those things in other games from launch or were they added over time?

 

[jukeboxhero2396]

Not being able to move back while prone? lmao\
BF4 and BF1 were so good though, definitely some of my favorites. No game is expected to have all these things but some of the features missing are just a bit crazy.

 

[Risev]

The BF community has gotten so unreasonable, they expect every new game to retain every single feature and weapon while also adding a buttload of new features and improvements. Thats just not a realistic expectation to have, but even if DICE did somehow manage to pull that off they would still find new things to incessantly complain about. Im a big fan of BF but this community is impossible to please.

The foundation for BF2042 is solid and will get better once the bugs are addressed and a few crucial omissions (like the scoreboard and squad management) are added back in.

Click to shrink...

That's cool but when the game releases both without a campaign and with less multiplayer content then it's 100% fair to compare and complain.

 

[Kalentan]

Can someone explain to me why the lack of the ability to pick what squad your in is somehow a good thing (that has been standard since BF2 in 2005)? Or the lack of a Scoreboard (also standard since 2005)? Or the lack of voice chat (also standard since 2005)? Having way less HUD customization?

People keep saying that these games aren't defined by a Checklist but seem to lack any rebuttal for why the removal of any of these features is actually a good thing.

 

[WorldCollide]

I have always thought that the battlefield community was incredibly whiney and entitled, (the whole women in war fiasco that plagued battlefield 5's launch window also showed me how incredibly alt righty a lot of the fanbase is). However, 2042 is a bit of a disappointment. I was having more fun in portal playing BF3 conquest more than anything in the main game. I played BF3 on the Xbox 360 back in the day so playing the game now at 60fps with 64 players has been a real treat.

I'm not a massive battlefield fan, but even to me it's obvious that a lot of corners were cut to ship this game, and dice really would have benefited from a next gen and PC only release.
128 players can be a lot of fun, especially on the breakthrough mode… but the game just often doesn't feel that great to play compared to previous entries. The specialist system too… at first I felt as if the community was just whining again like they always do, but the system really is completely broken. over half of the specialists are absolutely useless, and I don't know why they didn't just regulate specialist abilities to be spread across infantry gadgets or class upgrades. The only meaningful change I enjoy is the ability to switch attachments on the fly, it's one of those smart ideas that feels really tactile and good to use.
I do think the game has potential to be a lot better, but I wouldn't even really know how to articulate making it better