Battlefield 2042’s first season of content will only introduce a single additional map, as well as mark the end of development for one of the multiplayer shooter’s game modes.
According to Battlefield 2042’s Season 1 roadmap, released as part of a recent development update, the game will only receive a single new multiplayer map in its first season of content. That's alongside a slate of new weapons, vehicles, and a new playable specialist. It will be the game’s eighth map, and the first new map to be added since the shooter launched in November last year.
Details of what that map will look like are sparse, however. Senior producer Ryan McArthur hinted that it could be set in Canada, and has been designed to spotlight Battlefield 2042’s unique features.
“For me, this map is different from the other seven we created at launch,” McArthur said in a video that accompanied the development update (watch it below). “It’s got a ton of verticality, it’s got good space for vehicle play, but it’s also got those things that make a Battlefield map great.
“When you look at how this map plays, it’s at the level we expect of ourselves as game-makers.”
Dice previously admitted that the multiplayer shooter’s maps were too large, and committed to improving them with additional through ongoing tweaks. This development update confirms those changes are still underway and will release throughout Season 1. A new version of Kaleidoscope, in particular, will be released towards the end of the season.
After an initial delay, Season 1 is expected to release next month. It'll introduce a bunch of quality-of-life improvements, bug fixes, rebalances, and new character animations. While Dice hasn't given a firm launch date for the new map, it's expected to release sometime between June and August.
Big, bad changes
That Battlefield 2042 will only receive one new map in Season 1 will be disappointing news to its already despondent players. Previous Battlefield games have received several additional maps in each of their seasons, giving fans a bevy of new content to dig into. A single map will do little to allay the concerns of those who are already irritated by the game’s ongoing bugs, loss of 128-player Breakthrough playlist, and ailing playerbase.
Elsewhere in the development update, Dice announced that it had stopped developing new content for Battlefield 2042’s Hazard Zone game mode. While it will continue to address “critical errors and odd behaviors” that appear, it won’t be actively developing new content.
“All of us on the team had great ambition and high hopes for this new Battlefield experience throughout our development, but we’re the first to hold our hands up and acknowledge that it hasn’t found the right home in Battlefield 2042 and that we’ll benefit greatly from letting our focus and energy stay on the modes we see you engaging most with".
Regardless, Dice says it hopes Season 1 will go some way to “demonstrate our continued commitment to Battlefield 2042 and our mission of restoring the trust that many of you feel was hurt when we launched back in November of last year”.
Only recently, EA CEO Andrew Wilson said the publisher was "rethinking [the game's] development process from the ground", after assuring investors it's taking a "long view" to Battlefield 2042. After months of player disappointment, a lot is riding on this first season.
