Battlefield 2042's 128-player Breakthrough has been removed
To bring back "PTFOing."
EA DICE has removed the 128-player Breakthrough offering from Battlefield 2042 in its latest patch.
Update 4.1, which released today, has made substantial changes to the game's All-Out Warfare playlists, which are available on current-gen consoles and PC.
In a blog post, DICE explained the removal of 128-player Breakthrough lobbies was necessary to increase "the value and impact of an individual player", as they currently were full of "intensity and chaos".
That's putting it lightly. Players found that 128-player Breakthrough matches were almost unplayable, particularly at chokepoints where both teams were fighting for a single objective. Players would find themselves spawning into multiple firefights are once.
While this experience was fairly enjoyable to many when the game launched, it's become more tiresome six months into the game's release.
It seems like DICE agrees: "Reducing our player count here helps to remove some of the chaos from the experience... [and allowing players] to hold frontlines more effectively [and] find more space to work together and fulfill their individual roles," the developer said.
While this means some maps (Hourglass, Breakaway, Renewal) will now only be available in their smaller 64 player versions, other maps (Discarded, Manifest, Orbital, Kaleidoscope) will still be available in the larger 128 player versions, presumably to space players out better.
Meanwhile, 64-player Breakthrough will continue to operate as normal on Xbox One and PlayStation 4.
The update also has a vast number of other changes and bug fixes, which you can read more about in the blog post.
DICE also stated it was finally set to release new content for the game next month: "Up next in our update schedule is the release of Season 1, currently set for release in early June. We'll be back with a full overview and Update Notes closer to its release."