Battlefield 2042's largest patch is here with many welcome fixes
As promised, the most substantial update for Battlefield 2042 so far is in our hands.
DICE has rolled out a new update for Battlefield 2042 on all platforms, one week after a smaller patch went out to address weapon bloom and Hovercraft balance. Unlike that one, however, today's patch is significantly bigger.
This is true for its download size - ranging from 5.5GB to 7GB depending on platform – as well as its content. The patch includes a host of fixes, new features, balance tweaks, and even a little bit of new content.
The patch notes, which you can read yourself on the blog, are way too many to include here, so we're going to pick out the most relevant in our highlights below.
Battlefield 2042 update 0.3.0 highlights
New content
Battlefield 2042 is getting Weekly Missions. Three of these will go live every week, and each will award XP upon completion. If you finish all three in any given week, you'll earn a unique cosmetic. You'll be able to track progress through the main menu.
Battlefield Portal now has new layouts for Rush across all of the game's All-Out Warfare maps. You can also expect more templates in the Builder, including a vehicle TDM one. The Portal Rules Editor is itself getting some new updates, in the form of a new logic option that checks the source of fatal damage done to players.
Gameplay
The clunky CommoRose has seen a number of fixes. It will now be more responsive, and won’t show inactive objectives in Breakthrough. It will also show objectives you can tag when it should.
The Plus Menu has been updated, too, to improve the customisation experience. In Conquest, the information spam about sector gains/losses has been toned down.
In terms of game modes, Breakthrough has a long list of fixes that include new capture times, improved spawning algorithm for defenders, and the addition of a new game mode widget to help you better keep track of match progress. The new widget is found inside the scoreboard, and it also shows elapsed match time. The UI will even highlight major events like attacker tickets reaching 25%, and upon reaching the last sector.
The game's world has seen several updates that cover missing effects for players who join late, and various out-of-sync instances on the game's maps. Interact prompts across the game will now say what they do, and not just display 'interact'. The list also extends to destruction audio improvements, and better audio for the sandstorm.
HUD
Another exciting set of changes comes to the game's HUD. You'll now see players within 50m who can revive you, and you'll be notified when one of them pings your dead body to indicate they're coming in for a revive. You'll also now correctly see if you're surrounded by teammates when you're waiting for a revive.
When running low on ammo or health, the game will let you know which of your nearby teammates can resupply you. To emphasise teamwork even more, you'll know who healed/resupplied you.
Another major fix concerns the icon clutter in the 3D world. Icons will now scale with distance, so your screen won't be constantly blocked with a stack of them. Friendly player icons will now also properly be hidden when they're behind walls, to further reduce on clutter.
The update adds an option to make the fire mode icon visible at all times, even when the weapon does not support changing fire modes. In general, it should be easier to identify friend from foe after the update, without that creating more UI clutter.
Audio
Battlefield 2042's weak audio may not be addressed this update, but DICE is making several welcome changes to the game's soundscape. Off-screen sounds should play more consistently, including reviving, flares, wingsuit and parachute effects.
When you get shot at, the audio of that gunfire will be easier to identify. There's also a long list of new and updated sounds that affect a number of actions - including updates to vehicle sounds to make them easier to identify and more immersive to drive.
Quality of life
The animation culling that shows distant soldiers with low-quality animations has been relaxed to reduce those instances. The update makes a number of tweaks to soldier animations in general, such as swimming, sliding, leg poses when falling, and prone in certain situations.
The Collection screen is the recipient of another major update. It will now take you fewer clicks to move around and customise your weapon, including the Plus Menu. The screen will properly show which attachment is unlocked, and which is in use.
In general, you can expect transitions between the different game menus to be smoother overall.
Maps
DICE said over 150 fixes have been made to the game's maps, which include everything from geometry fixes, adjusting spots where players get stuck, spawn logic, visual glitches, collision for walls and other objects, as well as audio in certain areas of the maps.
There's also a long list of Specialists balance tweaks, which you can see at the link above.
We're expecting one more patch in the coming days, likely next week, that will be smaller in size than update 3. It will bring more bug fixes, and make a few balance tweaks not included in today's patch.