Battlefield 2042 developer EA Dice has outlined the game’s first major changes, following the announcement last month that it will dedicate several updates to streamlining and improving the game’s multiplayer maps.
In a blog post, the developer said it's taking on community feedback to overhaul two maps first - Traversal and Kaleidoscope. The spawn and flag points on both will be moved close together to reduce the time players spend traveling, and the distribution of vehicles will be tweaked so you’re forced to spend less time on foot.
Extra cover has been added in open spaces to reduce the frequency of long-range firefights, and also added around Flags and Objectives. DICE says the additional cover and line of sight blockers should help resolve some of the issues that have been highlighted by the community.
Other changes include environmental tweaks, like changing areas of grass into mud to better immerse players in the battlefield, as well as reductions to the availability and cooldown of vehicles. Dice says those vehicle changes should make the objective areas of 128-player battles less chaotic, something fans have been asking for.
The first batch of map changes, which includes the alterations to vehicles, will release in the game's next update. The remaining changes – to spawn points, flag locations, and cover – will arrive sometime during Season 1, which is expected to launch this June or July.
However, the player response to the changes hasn’t been hugely enthusiastic. Over on the Battlefield 2042 subreddit, players have expressed disappointment at how few changes are being made and how late they’re to be implemented.
Dice has outlined changes to only two of Battlefield 2042’s seven original maps and suggested the biggest of those tweaks are months away.
With no mention of other, big updates dropping until the release of Season 1, this map rework has provided cold comfort to many players who are already disappointed with the game's bugs and low rate of content drops.
Regardless of how necessary these map changes are, much of the Battlefield community was expecting larger action from Dice. If it wants to revive the ailing game, it'll need to think bigger.
