Before the reveal for the next Battlefield existed, there were questions. Other than “when’s it coming out?” and “can I jump out of a plane to shoot another plane?”, which are answered by “dunno” and “you bet your sweet ass,” players naturally wanted to know what the game will contain. Will Battlefield 2042 have a campaign, and is DICE bending to the tide and adding a battle royale mode? The answers to these questions are much easier: no.
In an interview with Eurogamer, Battlefield Design Director Daniel Berlin dropped the news. Battlefield 2042 will be a fully online-only game, with no single-player campaign to be found. Additionally, the studio isn’t keen on adding a battle royale mode to the game, which has long championed large-scale multiplayer PvP battles.
“I think that’s just something that enables us to really lean into what we are best at,” Berlin told Eurogamer. “If you look at the DNA of the studio, what we’ve been doing for so long, we just said you know what, we’re not going to have a traditional single-player campaign this time around, but we’re going to put all that emphasis and all those resources into building depth into the multiplayer. Because that is what we do best.”
Hold the battle royale
As said, Battlefield 2042 won’t feature a battle royale mode. The game type exploded into popularity a handful of years ago. We saw some multiplayer games, like H1Z1 and Fortnite, completely shift focus toward the mode, while others like Call of Duty eventually added it to the list. Despite its continued prevalence, EA and DICE don’t want it for its tentpole franchise. Berlin remarks that the companies are fully aware of how popular the mode is, but they “don’t have any battle royale plan at this point.”
Instead, he points out that Battlefield 2042 will offer new modes and changes to the familiar ones. The game will feature some enormous maps capable of holding 128 players at once. It will also include computer-controlled bots players can fight in solo or squads, according to Eurogamer. The game includes a couple of modes that neither EA or DICE have detailed as of yet. One is the squad-focused Hazard Mode, and another is unnamed but will be featured during EA Play Live on July 22. There also will be narrative elements woven throughout the game for players to parse, in lieu of any traditional story delivered by a full campaign.
Be sure to check out the reveal trailer for Battlefield 2042. A full gameplay reveal will happen this weekend during the Xbox and Bethesda E3 showcase on June 13.
