Battlefield 2042's rocky launch has been well-documented, but it continues to improve in the eyes of players and fans. The latter has played a vital role in this continued refinement, as DICE has sifted continuously through fan feedback for its various improvements to Battlefield 2042, as well as see where there are perhaps any major divides between the developer and fanbase. Now, this has led to a complete rework of each of the game's launch maps in each Seasonal update. Tellingly, this kind of fan feedback has factored heavily into Battlefield 2042's course correction.
For the first time in franchise history, DICE has gone back to each of Battlefield 2042's launch maps and redesigned each of them based on a three-pronged approach. Taking both developer insight and fan feedback into consideration along with actual telemetry from gameplay, the studio has worked diligently to deliver an experience that matches up more closely to player expectations. As it turns out, the Battlefield community and reception to 2042 played one of the largest parts in influencing the map redesign initiative.
Community Feedback Continues to Drive Battlefield 2042
In a recent conversation with Game ZXC, both Battlefield 2042 producer Nika Bender and lead level designer Shashank Uchil spoke in-depth about the impact that fan feedback has had on the redesign of each of the game's launch maps. Any amount of time spent on r/battlefield2042 reveals that the Battlefield community is extremely vocal about the changes they want to be implemented. Commendably, DICE is typically an important part of these conversations, regularly contributing to the Battlefield 2042 subreddit or replying to tweets about the game where players voice any lingering concerns.
Talking about how the team uses this feedback once it's been collected, Bender notes that the various teams behind the development of Battlefield 2042 try to implement it in a meaningful way that results in positive changes toward player outlook.
...that feedback has been taken into account heavily. I would say, very significantly...We do have our telemetry, which is the data in the game, and then we try to understand “Okay, what are the pain points?”.Because quite often when you play the game and when you play multiplayer shooters like Battlefield, you need to understand if the actual problem is what the player is saying. Like, “Hey, I don’t like this,” but the actual cause is something else that makes you feel that way.
The level design and core gameplay teams at DICE are taking player feedback into account and leveraging it against what player data has been collected and analyzed, using the data as a springboard for the changes that players want to see in the maps. One of these changes is the decreasing of several maps' size, owing to the fact that players felt they were too large to run across as infantry.
That said, the process of redesigning a level won't always appeal to all players. According to lead level designer Shashank Uchil, this isn't just to be expected but is something the team is okay with. Uchil notes:
...If something has to be good for everybody, it's not good for anybody...if you play Breakthrough, it has no vehicles and that is a pure infantry experience. We are okay with that. We're okay with saying some maps are going to be tilted towards infantry, and some maps like the Hourglass rework is still quite a big map."
Ultimately, as Uchil puts it, the team's desire to rework the launch maps comes from a drive to "do right by the players." New maps will continue coming to Battlefield 2042 as part of seasonal updates, but this ambitious rework of all the launch maps comes from a desire on the part of DICE to show its fans that the team is listening.
Battlefield 2042 is available now on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.