Battlefield 2042 and Portal
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I know that Battlefield 2042 is somewhat of a black sheep in the franchise, but I think that it’s “Portal” servers is one of the best additions.
Portal allows people to spin up their own servers with custom rule sets, scenarios and maps and weapons from across the BF franchise. For example, this video from JackFrags shows a match that plays entirely different from the fast paced and much higher TTK vanilla BF2042.
With BF2042 on sale, I would encourage people to give it a shot, if not just for the Portal servers. There are some genuinely awesome experiences to be had there and it can only get better with more players.
On PC, you're better off just getting BattleBit Remastered if you're not turned off by the graphics. It's more mil-sim than BF but not as heavy-handed as an actual mil-sim, which makes it pretty damn fun. The only thing I miss is being able to parachute.
Seriously, it's the most battlefield game since probably 3.
Portal can be decent fun, but the problem is that the devs did a poor job integrating it into the rest of progression so very few people play it unless its 1000% damage HC servers.
The regular modes are generally a lot more rewarding IMO and at this point the content for it is reasonably fleshed out. The biggest issue is that now the new content that is coming is very much a drip feed.
Someday I still have to try this on Game Pass, but I might not even be the target market for the other Battlefield games. The instant death from long distance snipers and zero squad play tends to reduce my interest.
I feel you on getting insta-sniped. The squad play thing unfortunately seems like a problem in a lot of games these days. People just seem less interested in using in game voice chat in general.
There’s games where squad play comes naturally through mechanics, even if some players don’t like voice. Apex gives people a LOT of ping options, and Deep Rock Galactic mostly lets people be independent except for traversal tools - which have great use for the team.
Ideally, I think a Battlefield game would have frequent reviving between squad members, a spotting system, and a lot of ammo sharing, but those mechanics don’t end up being very relevant to the game’s lone wolf desperados shooting through large groups with their all-unlocks LMGs.
I’ve been playing it a lot and it’s much better than people say. I like the new operator mechanics it leads to cooler gameplay. My favorite moment was using a wing suit and dropping grenades from the air to stop an enemy push.
My biggest issue is the vanilla maps that have yet to be reworked like the ice map that is sniper hell.