Oh god, why did a Metro clone have to be the map that revived Battlefield 2042?

It seems like the further away we get from the launch of the latest (and potentially final) season of Battlefield 2042, the more the multiplayer shooter proves its best days are not behind it.

This recent rise in player interest kicked off right at the release of Dark Creations, the game's sixth season. It was all nicely tied to a free weekend on all platforms, and steep discounts everywhere.

All of that was enough for Battlefield 2042 to have one of its biggest weekends ever, nearly two whole years after release. While many (myself included) were sceptical that the game could keep that momentum after the conclusion of free access, things only got better!

Battlefield 2042 not only managed to maintain its player base (on Steam, at least) after the weekend, it has now officially set a new concurrent player record on Steam.

As seen on SteamDB, a new all-time peak concurrent of 107,376 players was achieved just three days ago, which is higher than its previous 105,397 peak concurrent, set at launch in November, 2021. It's not a massive jump, but it's already way better than anyone could've anticipated.

All of that is well and good, of course, but my only issue with it is that many of those people are currently spending a lot of their playtime in Redacted, the new Season 6 map. As the latest map, Redacted has its own dedicated playlist right on the Battlefield 2042 homepage. The first thing you see if you want to start playing is Redacted, and that's what you're likely going to click on.

Redacted is an infantry-only, close-quarters map. It's part of what I like to call the Operation Corridor genre. It all started, of course, with Operation Metro in Battlefield 3. The popularity of that map was so immense that it was not only brought back in Battlefield 4 (and Battlefield 5), it inspired DICE to create Operation Locker - a slightly different take on the same concept.

Battlefield 2042 never quite had its own meatgrinder, corridor map - until the release of Redacted. And, I mean, just look at this:

Long-time Battlefield players - and by extension, DICE - are all keenly aware of why these maps are popular. For one thing, they offer the most efficient way to quickly grind character levels, unlocks, and weapon progression. It's all fairly straightforward: lots of players crammed in different small spaces means more opportunities for combat, which translates to faster XP gains.

They also address the needs of some in the Battlefield community, who have somehow developed an aversion to the combined arms combat and large-scale the series was built on. Battlefield 2042 only received six post-launch maps, making it all the more disheartening to see one spot be taken by another Metro/Locker clone.

Oh well, at least people are spending time with Battlefield 2042, rather than pointing at it and laughing. I just wish they could see, well, what sets Battlefield apart from most shooters.