In case you weren’t already aware, Battlefield 2042 is a game that was released in the middle of a pandemic without anywhere near enough design work or testing being done for such a flagship release. Our latest reminder of this comes in the form of an update which will kinda undo one of its major selling points at launch.
2042 made a huge deal pre-release about its new “Specialists”, hero-type characters with flexible loadouts who would replace the series tried-and-tested “Class” system (multiplayer FPS archetypes like ‘Recon’ and ‘Assault’). Those Specialists were wildly unpopular with long-time fans, both for their gameplay implications as well as their design, and while the latter is already being addressed it looks like developers DICE have been convinced to also rework the former.
In a big update posted by the development team, it’s revealed that they have “started work on a massive overhaul on the way that you’ll play with Specialists”, which essentially is going to split the difference between the traditional system and 2042’s use of Specialists. The hero characters are going to remain, but they’ll be assigned into class tiers (see above), with some gadget use restricted between classes to “ensure that Class Identity is more pronounced”. So only recon players will be able to use a SOFLAM, for example, while medical crates will only be available to support players. As someone who mains Mackay (in the ‘Assault’ class) but uses the SOFLAM a lot that sucks, but I guess we’ll see how it all shakes out once the changes go live (which won’t be for a while, since DICE say it won’t be until Season 3).
Other changes coming in and around Season 2 will be three new weapons (two mains and a sidearm), as well as refreshes to two of the game’s launch maps, Renewal and Orbital, which are coming alongside another brand new map. DICE will also start adding some “vault” weapons to the main game, which are guns from the time-travelling Portal game mode, as well as continuing the visual refresh of all the Specialists, specifically ‘Voices, Body Posture, and Facial Expression changes”.
You can check out the full list of changes and additions coming before and as part of future updates here, or in the video below.
