Battlefield 2042's next map will arrive with Season 2 in September
Turning tides?
Battlefield 2042's latest map is set to arrive with the release of Season 2 in September.
In a developer interview hosted by DICE, lead level designer Shashank Uchil said the team had taken on player feedback by focusing on adding cover and small spaces:
"We want to make smaller levels; we want to have levels with more cover. All of that is in this level."
Uchil also spoke about the difficulties of redesigning the base maps to add more cover, largely to issue of adding more assets on such large maps without compromising on performance:
"A level can be any size it needs to be, but it can only have so much content in it... If you add more cover, it needs to come from somewhere. The levels at launch were at max asset count. So that's why it takes time."
It appears lessons were learnt by the team, who are now putting less emphasis on gigantic maps and more on compact maps with additional cover.
Uchil also said the team took on the feedback that the maps felt too "pristine," so the maps have been reworked to give a more "war torn" look.
Update 1.2 was hugely anticipated by the player base, bringing in the first updated base map containing additional cover and a smaller world size.
However, players have been puzzled by DICE's decision not to put the reworked map, Kaleidoscope, in its own dedicated playlist. Players are now at the mercy of the game's auto-search or can take their chances with fan-made Portal servers.
DICE also confirmed that more base maps will be updated after work is completed on Renewal, although no timeframe was given.
It's still unclear as to whether DICE will continue to support Battlefield 2042 after Year One or abandon ship just as they did with Battlefield V and Star Wars Battlefront 2.