Earlier this month, fans got a chance to experience the open beta for Battlefield 2042. Unfortunately, responses were something of a mixed bag, both praising and heavily criticizing Battlefield 2042 online. Still, the beta did give players a chance to explore the game’s Orbital map well ahead of its November 19 release date.
EA and DICE haven’t yet allowed players to go hands-on with the rest of Battlefield 2042's maps. However, they did give fans a sneak peek at three of them earlier today.
The Battlefield Twitter account shared a short video showcasing gameplay in the Renewal, Breakaway, and Discarded maps. The whole video is just over a minute long, but EA and DICE manage to cram a lot into that short segment. The clips focus heavily on the gameplay but also showed off the size of the maps and offer a few glimpses into the dystopian future where Battlefield 2042 takes place.
The first map, Renewal, is set in the deserts of eastern Egypt. However, don’t expect a rehash of the Middle East depicted in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. Instead, the map sees players fighting for control over a high-tech irrigation project that’s turning large stretches of desert into farmland. The clip also showed the verticality of the map, with players descending through an office building as an enemy helicopter takes potshots at them from outside.
The second map, Breakway, takes place in Queen Maud Land, Antarctica. The real-life region is claimed by Denmark, through “claimed” definitely seems to be the operative word in Battlefield 2042. The map’s centerpiece is a large oil rig, but what stands out is the size of the area around it. The clip opens with a shootout on a glacier some distance away, and viewers can see the battle spread out across an enormous sea of ice.
The third map, Discarded, takes players to the outskirts of Alang, India. The real Alang is home to the world’s largest shipbreaking yard, and that’s an opportunity DICE decided not to waste. Discarded features a partly deconstructed cargo ship as the map’s centerpiece. It’s also the visually bleakest of the three environments, with the mud and rust contrasting against the near future aesthetic of Battlefield 2042’s other locations.
For anyone unfamiliar with the setting, Battlefield 2042 takes place in a dystopian near-future where climate change has triggered a global economic and humanitarian crisis. A subsequent global communication blackout plunged the world into chaos, with Russia and the United States fighting for control. Players take the role of members of Battlefield 2042’s diverse cast of specialist operators fighting on behalf of the two superpowers. The conflict takes players around the world to the above-mentioned Egypt, India, and Antarctica, as well as Qatar, South Korea, and French Guiana.
Battlefield 2042 releases November 19 for PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.