Off the Shelf Media

Back in 2016, I preordered No Man’s Sky, making a mistake I swore I would never repeat. Four years later, when Battlefield 2042 was about to be released, by God did I preorder it. I learned the hard way that history does in fact repeat itself. Quite often.

I’m a sucker for the hype. One “love letter to the fans” and a Damavand Peak cliff jump trailer meant I was down $60 and one night’s sleep on release day. And who could blame me. I’ve been hooked on Battlefield since Battlefield: Bad Company. Yet, I was in bed by 9:00pm. Awful performance, terrible gunplay, no score board, half-baked maps, too few guns to choose from, and constant crashes. As they say in Tennessee, or Texas, shame on me.

Hopefully, I won’t be fooled again. But No Man’s Sky did a rare thing. They stuck with it, consistently added content, and took it from one of the most poorly reviewed games on Steam to one the highest reviewed. Did EA and Dice do the same thing? No. Let me be very clear about that. But it’s a better game than when it was released, and one I play regularly when I’m craving that big open mixed first-person shooter (FPS) combat that is the Battlefield style.

Gameplay: 2

The biggest thing holding it back are the maps. Most of them just aren’t good, especially the launch maps. They reworked some of them and did improve them, but the majority of the maps are bad. No cover, very open, limited verticality, and out of the way objectives pretty much kills Conquest, my favorite game mode. There’s no server browser to avoid the bad maps. Portal is dead, and none of the classic maps are in regular rotation. But at the end of the day, they sorted out the gunplay, things tend to work, and Breakthrough feels close enough to classic Rush mode. Sniping is a lot of fun and very dominant due to the poor map design. Even if it’s the worst entry in the series, it’s still got the classic constant explosion mayhem that makes Battlefield so fun.

Steam Deck – Windows only. 30-40fps average on lowest of the low settings, but regular dips into the high teens. Decent aim assist makes close range submachine gun (SMG) combat workable, but you’ll get eaten alive at range by the keyboard and mouse players with normal monitors. Vehicle hunting and support roles are still fun and doable.

Story: 1

There isn’t one. I mean, they put quotes in the loading screen that allude to….something, I guess. It’s multiplayer only and doesn’t detract from that.

Atmosphere: 1

It’s fine. Generic. Feels worse than the last entry in the series, Battlefield V. But not offensive.

Duration: 2

Attachments and camos take a reasonable amount of time to unlock. All two of them per gun. Pretty lame. The star of the duration show is Solo Breakthrough mode. 64v64 AI Breakthrough, and the AI is beyond braindead. One or two games will net you all of the attachments. I’m impatient, so I like this a lot.

Value: 0

$60 MSRP is what I would consider “they’re on drugs” pricing. Three years later, there still isn’t enough content and the active player count is too low to justify that price. They stuffed the stat sheet on number of guns by adding some (but not close to enough) of the classic Portal weapons. They’re pretty much all terrible, they don’t have access to as many attachments, and there’s no elite camos for them. Luckily it goes on sale for $10 pretty regularly. I’d call it a buy at $15.

Total Score: 6/10

They put the fire out, but there’s still a burnt dumpster in my driveway three years later.