Given how the longstanding nature of the Battlefield franchise, there is a slew of games within the IP that possess wildly different core settings and overarching themes. While these games are all individually celebrated by the franchise's community, for a long time there was no way to collectively blend the wildly different installments together.
That was until the latest Battlefield title, Battlefield 2042, introduced an ambitious new mode called Portal. Given the less-than-glamorous launch of Battlefield 2042, Portal was not given the proper chance to sell itself to fans of the franchise, but the next Battlefield title could be the perfect opportunity to see Portal make a comeback.
Battlefield 2042's Portal Mode
Battlefield 2042 launched in 2021, boldly doing away altogether with any form of campaign, and instead billing itself as a purely online multiplayer experience. While the multiplayer of the Battlefield franchise has always been one of its strongest selling points, it remained clear that the futuristic title would have to provide an exemplary multiplayer experience to justify its lack of any single-player modes.
The Portal mode of Battlefield 2042 was one of the largest ways in which the title hoped to achieve this, being a more casual sandbox mode that is contingent upon community creation and sharing. In Portal, players can mix and match a huge range of assets from four different Battlefield titles: Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Bad Company 2, Battlefield 3, and Battlefield 2042.
Many fans will know the huge difference in settings between these games, essentially spanning a 100-year period from the Second World War up to the near future. Portal gives the player full reign to blend these conflicting assets to produce unique time-bending game modes across a huge variety of maps, leading to endless content that can be shared and hosted via Battlefield 2042. The concept of fighting across time in this way piqued the curiosity of many prior to 2042's launch, but sadly waned given the subsequent negative reception of the title.
Portal In the Next Battlefield Title
The lack of content at launch and a core multiplayer experience that many felt regressed from prior titles fostered a very cold reception for Battlefield 2042, with the stigma surrounding this seeping into all the modes that the title offered, including Portal. The Steam player count for Battlefield 2042 fell below 1000 just six months after the game released, typifying the rapid abandonment of the release thanks to its tumultuous launch.
With this in mind, it is clear that Battlefield 2042's Portal was not given the proper level of interaction that it deserved, with the community-led nature of the mode needing a consistently popular platform to flourish. In this way, a great case can be made for a Portal mode to be introduced into the next Battlefield installment.
While Battlefield 2042 is regarded by many as a relative low point for the franchise, it is likely that the next installment of the series will receive huge amounts of attention from fans curious to see if the IP will return to form. To still give this potential reboot of Portal its own identity, this future use of the mode could include a range of other popular prior titles.
If given a consistently popular title, a future Portal mode could foster a huge amount of community creativity, as well as potentially aiding the longevity of the game significantly. While its presence in Battlefield 2042 was lackluster, a future Battlefield game would do well to give the mode a deserved second lease on life.
Battlefield 2042 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.