Video Gamers Podcast - Deep Dive: Battlefield 2042 - Gaming Podcast

Episode Date: December 6, 2021

Gaming specialists Paul and Josh are back in this long awaited gaming Deep Dive for Battlefield 2042. Strap into your wingsuit and hang on tight because this one is gonna be a doozy. Join us as we break down game play, weapons, changes from other Battlefield entries, what works and what doesn’t. A rousing new segment called Whine Time debuts before we head to the gaming leaderboard to see where Battlefield 2042 ranks.  Thanks to our LEGENDARY supporters: TFolls, AceofShame, Jake, RangerMiller, and Ad    Connect with the show: Support us on Patreon: patreon.com/multiplayerpodcast Join our Discord: https://discord.gg/Dsx2rgEEbz Follow us on Instagram: instagram.com/multiplayerpod/ Follow us on Twitter: twitter.com/MultiplayerPod Subscribe to us on YouTube: youtube.com/channel/UCU12YOMnAQwqFZEdfXv9c3Q Visit us on the web: multiplayerpodcast.com/ Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

Before we jump into today's episode, we want to tell you guys a little bit about how you can help support what we do here. We are a podcast that is run independently by two dads, and the reason that we are able to continue delivering podcasts is because of listeners who decide to help fund the show. We like to think that we fill a niche here of family-friendly, casual gaming content so if you appreciate what we do please consider subscribing on apple podcasts or through patreon at multiplayer squad.com even if it's just five dollars for a month or two it definitely adds up and helps keep the podcast running to make it worth your while you do get a couple of awesome perks you will get two additional Quick Take episodes every week, ad-free episodes, and you'll also get access to the episodes a day early. Thank you so much to everyone who already subscribes to

the show, although I guess you won't be hearing this since you have the ad-free version, but enough is enough. Let's go ahead and jump into today's episode. hey everyone welcome to the multiplayer gaming podcast today we are going to be doing a deep dive episode on battlefield 2042 which is one of the most anticipated titles of this year please remember to rate our podcast five stars and leave us a review. And if you like what we do and want to help support our show, you can subscribe in Apple Podcasts or support us on Patreon by going to MultiplayerSquad.com. Either way, you'll get access to two extra Quick Take episodes every week. I am your host, Paul. And joining me, like Maria Maria Falk he might be one of the older ones around but he's here to prove that while dangerous behind the wheel he can still serve a purpose it's Josh

what a great dumb and dumber reference number one there we go number two great dig at my old age and number three i do not need assistance yes oh boy all right battlefield 2042 this is going to be a doozy i think but before we jump into our regularly scheduled content we do have a little bit of housekeeping to do josh we have a couple of shout outs to give for new patreon supporters i'll tell you what man i love giving shout outs because that for new Patreon supporters. I'll tell you what, man, I love giving shout outs because that means people are number one, finding the show, supporting the show. They're making all this possible. Yeah. Yeah, we really do appreciate it. So our two new Patreon supporters that we owe a shout out to are Splendiferous Banana. Very curious to know how that username came about, but I have no idea.

And then also Wilbur, who is, I believe, from Sweden and has been very active on our Discord. Yes, Wilbur's great, man. He's been around a long time. So mad props and thanks to Wilbur. Splendiferous Banana, one of the best usernames I think I've heard in a while. Oh, goodness. So, yes, thank you so much to the two of you. Thank you to everyone else who helps support us on Patreon. You guys are the ones who help keep the show running since our podcast does have expenses. We really do appreciate it.

And I think that's all that we have. Actually, for housekeeping, we should explain, Josh, that here in a couple of weeks, we are going to be taking a little bit of a break for the holiday season and so we don't want people to be caught off guard but for a two week period at the end of december we are going to be re-releasing some of our favorite episodes this year so we will be re-releasing four episodes in a row. And then we're going to be back to our regular new content as soon as those four reruns are done. Yeah, we have something like 270 episodes now. It's getting crazy. And I think some of those might be the bonus episodes that people get

when they do support the show on Patreon or subscribe on Apple. But we've got a lot of episodes. And so unless people have been with us from the very beginning, there's a good chance that maybe they've missed a few. And so we kind of dove in and said, hey, what are some of these great games that we wanted to make sure people heard about? Or maybe just some of our favorite episodes

or something like that. And so we will be re-releasing those. Don't worry, we will have new episodes coming out right around New Year's. It's just to give ourselves a little bit of a break. Let us spend some extra time with family and kind of focus on Christmas and the holidays. Yeah, exactly. All right, so here today we are covering Battlefield 2042. Next week we will have a new bonus round episode, and then after that is when we will have a couple of reruns, although we would still love you guys to click on those episodes and download them, because they still help our stats. Yes, indeed.

All right. Well, Josh, I think we're ready. Let's go ahead and jump. Wait. No. Oh, we have some reviews. I got some reviews, too. Oh, I totally forgot. Yes. I'm so excited. Let's hear them. They've been continuing to roll in. Thank you. I know I said that the last episode and the episode before that, and I think the episode before that. But man, you all out there have been doing your part to help the show, and it's amazing. So we always like to read a couple of those reviews, just so you guys know that we appreciate it. Yeah. All right. So first review, this one is titled five out of five pancakes oh no i already

don't like this yes exactly this is a little bit of an inside joke but okay go ahead and it is from uh the username is petra sambo uh from sweden and the review says i'm a man of many words so here we go great best regards wilbur oh so wilbur gets a double shout out wilbur gets a double shout out because he left a review uh you know once he signed up as well so again thank you wilbur for that we love having you around uh and uh and yeah we get to hear about Sweden, which is really cool. Yeah, and I was going to say before we read the next review, if you guys want to come join us on Discord,

it's totally free. There's a link in the episode description. And for whatever reason, like once every two months, we somehow get back into this stupid argument over what's better, pancakes or waffles. There is a clear answer for waffles there is a clear answer for me there is a clear answer for josh and they are not the same and so our our discord server is

full of uh psychopaths who choose pancakes over waffles it's also filled with some very smart people who pick waffles over pancakes but if you want to come join in these silly arguments, you know, discords where that's taken place. Yep. And, uh, again,

Wilbur's wise cause he went five out of five pancakes there. So, all right, moving on this next one. Hey, you know what's funny? I'm not intentionally doing this, but I love,

I love these reviews from around the world. This next one comes in from Germany. Uh, it's titled great podcast. It's titled Great Podcast, and it's from Josh2YA. And it says, Hey guys, I'm listening from Germany, and I just enjoy listening to you two so much. Your way to talk about topics is great entertainment,

great stuff. And of course, you love his name. I mean, best name ever, really. That had nothing to do with me picking this review, Paul. Oh, well, thank you, Josh, from Germany. I'm so glad that you enjoy the show. It's still really wild to me that we get these reviews and we can see little spots on the map with people listening from like Australia and Denmark and Belgium.

It's totally wild. But we really do love hearing from you guys. We love the reviews. We love chatting with you on Discord. We really do appreciate it. You guys are the ones who are able or who make it able for us to keep doing the show, which we love to do. It's very true. All right.

Do we have any more reviews? That is it. Housekeeping is over, Paul. Housekeeping officially done. All right. Let we have any more reviews? There's not one for today. Housekeeping is over, Paul. Housekeeping officially done. All right, let's do it. Let's talk about Battlefield 2042. All right. Every time we do a deep dive on a game, we always start off by reading a description of the game in Steam or on Wikipedia. And here is how Steam describes Battlefield. Battlefield 2042 is a first-person shooter that marks the return of the iconic all-out warfare of the franchise.

In a near-future world transformed by disorder, adapt and overcome dynamically changing battlegrounds with the help of your squad and a cutting-edge arsenal. All right, now, josh battlefield 2042 very nice okay so 2042 is entry number 12 in the battlefield franchise hard to believe there's already been that many but there are are 12. And it goes all the way back to 2002 with the first one. And truly, this franchise has one of the best naming jobs I have ever seen in a series of games. So the very first title was Battlefield 1942. The second one was Battlefield Vietnam. the third one was called battlefield 2 then we have

battlefield 21 42 battlefield bad company battlefield bad company 2 battlefield 3 which is the seventh entry battlefield 4 battlefield hardline battlefield 1 and then Battlefield 5 with a V Roman numeral. None of the others have a Roman numeral, Josh. Why? Why do you go from Battlefield number 4, Battlefield number 1, and then Battlefield Roman numeral 5? I don't know what these people are doing. And then Battlefield 2042. This has to be the most confusing named series ever, right? This is even worse than Windows. I don't understand it at all, to be honest with you. I don't know how you go from battle. It's very easy. You go Battlefield 2, Battlefield 3, Battlefield 4, Battlefield 5, Battlefield 6.

And then do you know what would come after that, Paul? I don't know. Battlefield Space Ranger Elite Squad 12. what would come after that paul i i don't know battlefield space ranger elite squad 12 oh man i really just don't get it it's so funny all right so i think at this point probably everyone listening has some kind of concept of what battlefield is but on the very small off chance there's someone out there who has no clue what would you say say are the bones or the skeleton of what makes a Battlefield game? Battlefield has always been known for its mass scale conflict. You have these large maps with these control points,

and you're basically just trying to control those against the enemy team. And so what that does is it creates these hotspots of interaction where there's a lot of combat going on. There's that tug of war to try to control the point. The Battlefield series has always been known for having vehicles in these very large maps, helicopters and jets and tanks and armored transports and all that kind of stuff. And so you feel the chaos of war. Honestly, that's the best way I can put it. Call of Duty is much more about the intimate shooting one-on-one aspect of you versus another person or the squad. Battlefield, to me, has always felt more about the overall warfare going on. You can lose a fight, but you win the war kind of thing. And so I feel like it really has always captured the chaos of war because there's a gajillion things going on on screen at one time. But what always set it apart for me was you have a squad, you move around as a squad if you're playing well, and you get those kind of moments in that

squad-based gameplay in this larger conflict that has always kind of made the series stand out for me. Yeah, I feel like whereas Call of Duty is very much more individual-based, Battlefield is designed to be, obviously it's not, quote, realistic, but I think it's the most realistic in terms of we've got vehicles on ground and in the air. We're dividing people into squads, and you're trying to actually engage in something similar to real-life warfare, as opposed to just immediately respawning and then running around on foot. This is like bigger battle type stuff. All right. Now, we've talked about Battlefield

in previous episodes, and we've talked about Battlefield in previous episodes, and we've talked a little bit about our history. But if anyone here is a first time listener, what does the Battlefield series mean to you? It has always meant just a ton of fun. I cracked out on Battlefield 2 like so much, man. That was one of those games that I played more than any other game. I wish I could go back and actually see what my play time was in Battlefield 2, but it was a lot. And I loved that game. I've always said on this show, I was never a Call of Duty guy. I mean, Cold War was the first Call of Duty that I ever played. I've always been a huge fan of the Battlefield series.

That really started with 2. I think it was the huge fan of the Battlefield series. That really started with two. I think it was the first Battlefield that I actually played, to be honest with you. And it's still widely known as one of the best Battlefields. Now, it's funny because people are talking about Battlefield 4 a lot more recently, and we'll get into that a little bit later. But that's been my jam. I wasn't a Call of Duty guy. So if the Battlefield came out, man, I wanted it. I wanted to play it. I wanted friends to play it with. But it's one of those games where even if you don't have friends that play it and a full squad that you can actually get online, it was a ton of fun regardless.

Oh, yeah. I did play Battlefield 1942. not only did i play it i played the demo before the game even released and our good friend andy your brother-in-law he was a guest host on our outriders episode he and i probably played 400 hours of just the demo before the game even released and we would just get on our cricket phones, because this is before the days of voice over IP service. Everyone was still on dial-up internet, so you'd have to dial up to play Battlefield. But Andy and I, we were working teenagers. We were 17 or 18 at the time, and we each had cricket phones. And we each bought a little headset so we could call each other with our unlimited cell minutes and talk while playing Battlefield. And so we played a ton of Battlefield

1942. I bought probably the first five entries, and then I took a few of them off. So during the hard line and Bad Company 2, that's when I wasn't playing Battlefield at all. But then I got back into it with Battlefield 4. So I think between you and me, we have a lot of Battlefield experience. I think we have a good background and context of the series. But for me, it was just always about that teamwork and trying to create funny memories along with your buddies that you could joke about and talk about later. I mean, I will never forget me and Andy playing Coral Sea in 1942, and we would always end up on the enemy's aircraft carrier, and we would just hide with bazookas.

And every time a plane would spawn, we would see like eight people try to fight over the airplane and blast it with the bazooka, get an eight kill all at once, and we would just like eight people try to fight over the airplane and blast it with the bazooka get an eight kill all at once and we would just die laughing like that's that's to me like good memories about battlefield are similar to stories like that yeah and that's the thing about the battlefield series is and that's what i kind of referenced earlier is even though there's this mass scale warfare going on you have those moments with your squad where you're trying to infiltrate the enemy spawn

so that you can steal their tank or you can steal their jet or something like that. Or like you said, even just sitting there and blowing them up as people try to take off in them. As a squad leader, it used to be if you were the squad leader, people could spawn on you. You can do that now, but it used to be restricted to just the squad leader. And so the squad leader would hide

somewhere in a bush or up on a billboard or something. And you'd see the enemy team know that somebody's around and they're running around trying to find you. And you'd just be laughing because they'd be running over your body as you're laying down in this bush or something. And that was a lot of what was going on in that game. And those memories are what set Battlefield apart to me. Yeah. And they added so much over the course of the series. Going back to 1942, there were no squads. And you did not spawn on squad mates. You had to spawn back at the original base. and there was no communication. You could not ping what you were attacking, and it was just kind of a little bit of chaos. You just had to hope that enough people followed enough people that you could do something with it.

And over the course of the game, they added commanders, and they added the ability to call in vehicles, and all of these different things. So with 2042 releasing, I thought it might be helpful just to talk a little bit about what has changed for this entry. Now, we are going to get into some more nitpicky stuff a little bit later, but I thought I would just touch on a couple of the major things. So first and foremost, it is the first Battlefield entry that has no campaign. Do you care? I don't care about a campaign, to be honest with you. I know that... But not with Battlefield. No, no. Honestly, I could care less about campaigns. I know whenever Call of Duties

come out and Battlefields came out, that you'd get this little four-hour campaign that you could hop into solo. I don't care about that. I know that there's people that have said, hey, this one doesn't have a camp. That's not why you buy Battlefield. If you're buying Battlefield to play a single player campaign, you're doing something wrong. Exactly. Also, the max players has doubled. So it used to be that the biggest maps were 32 versus 32. That has now doubled to be 64 versus 64 if you are on PC or next-gen consoles. And double the players has to mean

double the fun, right, Josh? Maybe. Maybe not. But it's a lot bigger. As long as you have a bigger map, right? As long as the map's big enough to hold 128 people. So if you just make a map big enough then surely the double size will work yeah so this game's big these these are big matches and i think my favorite part is that since they don't always fill you get stuck with a bunch of bots who are running around with you but you know again this is some stuff we'll pop into later uh they did add the plus system in this game so basically if you want to swap out attachments and things related to your weapons, you don't have to wait to die or to quit your match and

then set a loadout and then go back into another game. They let you do it on the fly. So if you want to swap out certain parts of your assault rifle, they let you do it. And so you can kind of tinker your experience around, okay, well, now I'm going to be fighting more at range. Maybe I'll switch out some attachments. Okay, well, now it's gonna be a different situation. I'll swap them out. So I think that the plus system is actually kind of a neat thing that they implemented. I thought it was a fun idea. It sounds good in theory. You know, they did a phenomenal job in the trailers for 2042 to really get people hyped. I mean, how long have I been talking about being super excited for Battlefield 2042? I mean, I would say that it comes close to rivaling my excitement for Cyberpunk.

Oh, really? You know, like, well, I mean, as much as I was getting hyped for it and I was telling everybody, like, oh, I can't wait for Battlefield 2042. We're going to have everybody playing. We're going to have multiple squads. And it's going to be the best Battlefield ever. And I feel like I said a lot of that about Cyberpunk. And we all know how Cyberpunk turned out. And so I guess we'll talk here in a little bit about how Battlefield turned out. But the plus system, it's neat in theory. I just find that I never use it. It's one of those things that I think demos very well when you're standing on a stage and you're saying,

look what we've done with Battlefield 2042. And you show all the different optics that you can attach and the under barrels and the grips and all this stuff. And you talk about the gun customization and you can change it on the fly. One, a four times scope because you're going to fight at range, but then you go into a building. So you want to switch it to a, like a one times.

Great. You can do that on the fly now. And I remember thinking like, Oh, that sounds really cool. But when I'm playing does, I don't touch it at all. Maybe that's on me, you know, but I don't use it. That's exactly what I was going to say. I almost never touch it because it's very rare that you're like sniping, like you're fighting, not fighting over, but you're almost always in vehicles. And if you're not in vehicles, you're trying to fight around objective points. I don't find myself using it a whole lot either, but it's kind of like one of those bells and whistles that this, you know, entry added. And then I think the other biggest change is the class system. So previously in Battlefield, you would choose your class before spawning and your class

dictated what kind of weapons you would have on you. So I've been jumping back into 1942 through the portal mode, which we'll talk about later. But in 1942, you can spawn as an anti-tank. And that's the only class that has a bazooka to try to take out vehicles. And so you would have to be flexible and members of your team would have to swap out around what the game needed. Not everyone could run as a sniper with the scout class because you're going to get stomped. But similarly, not everyone could do anti-tank. And what they did here in 2042 is something that's a little bit different where they have now created these specialists. And do you want to talk a little bit about how specialists work? Yeah, there's 10 different specialists in

the game. They all have a unique look, I guess. Like you kind of mentioned at the very beginning, the medic is like an old gray haired lady. So they try to make them look different. I'm just going to come out and say I am not a fan of the specialist system at all. I don't know why they did this. Classes in Battlefield were always super enjoyable. It's like you said, if there's an enemy tank that's wreaking havoc on one of your points, you respawn as an engineer and you throw down a landmine or you have a bazooka and you take that tank out. That's your job at that point. And if you're on a good team, three or four different people would all spawn. And then after three bazooka shots, no more tank. And then when you died, you could go back to playing assault or whatever people wanted to play. But with this system, everybody shares all of the guns, which I find to be a tragedy. Everybody shares all of the utility type trinket things, the same grenades, the same

weapons, the same sidearms and all this stuff. Every specialist gets one unique ability. Gadget. Yeah, a gadget, you know, and that's it. And so there is very little differentiation between them anymore. And to me, that's just a shame. Like, I don't know why they made this decision. And I get, hey, I want to play the guy that has a grapple hook so I can grapple up to the top of

a building. Great. He's the only guy that has that ability. But everybody's running around with the same guns. I mean, I can be a medic running around with a sniper rifle or an LMG or an SMG. I can be an engineer that's doing the same thing. There's no personality to any of that stuff anymore. And I do not like it, man. I think it was a terrible decision. I don't really know anybody that does like the new system. I really feel like they were trying to dumb it down a little bit so that they could just go, well, it doesn't really matter who you pick anymore. Yeah. I think it was to not have a meta build. They want to give you the freedom to play whatever you want. But the problem is that half of these specialists have gadgets that are nearly worthless. So you mentioned the grapple hook, okay? It's a cool idea in theory, but guess what?

When you are playing on a massive 64 versus 64 person map where almost everybody is in a vehicle, and if you're not in a vehicle, you're running across a wide open desert. Guess what good that grapple hook does? Almost none. I find that there are very few situations where I was like, oh, if I had a grapple hook, that would actually be a pretty neat place to hide and snipe. There are some things like that, but it's like, you know, I don't know. The recon drone, I have zero interest in trying to hide

and pull out a little drone, and then someone's going to run across me and kill me. I don't find that one to be very neat at all. I will say, though, I really do enjoy Sundance. She's the one that's got the wingsuit. The wingsuit is one of the cooler abilities. Yeah. I mean, even one of our buddies the other day was saying it's almost like a must-pick, because if you can spawn in a helicopter, you just immediately jump out of that helicopter, and you can fly anywhere on the map, and you'll be there in a snap so that is actually something that's fun to do and it's also a great utility

to get back with your team and to get where you want to be so at this point it almost kind of feels like for me i always just default straight to sundance i don't know that i really care about many of the other specialists i mean are there any others that you find fun or any that you want to troll? The only one that I play is the medic. I'll be honest with you. Her ability, she gets a little healing pistol. They call it a serret pistol. And you can pew-pew your own teammates to heal them up and top off their health.

Now, time to kill in Battlefield is fairly quick. It's nothing like Call of Duty. It does take a little bit longer, but healing doesn't really come into play a whole lot, but I try. You know, it's one of those things where it's like, I see somebody low on health and I shoot them and then they get more health.

The medics can res, but see, the thing is, it's not unique to one person now because there's two specialists that have the ability to res. But it's like the ability to res or a wingsuit where you can fly across the entire map that's really cool or you know a guy that can drop ammo packs sure you know what i mean like in in the old days an engineer was critical because you would run out of ammo you would actually need those when it's repair vehicles right or the repair of the vehicles was huge because you would run out of ammo. You would actually need those when it's 60. Or repair vehicles. Right.

Or the repair of the vehicles was huge because if you had an engineer with a tank could get out of the tank and heal it back to full health, that tank could be unstoppable. You see a socket wrench, Josh. Right. That socket wrench heals anything you want on that tank. And so they have specialists now that can hack enemy vehicles, and it disables them a little bit.

Sounds good in theory, but it takes like a solid seven seconds or something like that to hack a vehicle. There's one that you can unlock where if somebody's firing at you, it will highlight them. Now, that's pretty cool, but it's chaos. Battlefield is all about chaos. It's 64 v. 64 at this point. You don't run out of ammo. You just die, you know?

And if you're trying to find the guy that's shooting you, well, guess what? You're already dead by the time you locate that person. Yeah. I almost feel like they're trying to give more tactical gadgets, but it's a game that doesn't really lend to fine tactics like that like you're just in a tank and you see stuff and you shoot a giant mortar shell at it and they blow up like

that's just kind of what battlefield is i don't know that i need to be able to hack a bridge like okay so i can raise a bridge well guess what tanks in this game can literally run through anything you can knock over palm trees yeah and run through it so it doesn't do you any good to disable a bridge and raise it anyone can get anywhere they want anyway so it feels to me like they're almost like gadgets from a different game is how it feels to me it is the other the other main complaint i have with this whole specialist thing is it used to be that you would play certain classes because of the guns yes you know when you were an engineer you'd get a shotgun it was an be that you would play certain classes because of the guns. Yes.

You know, when you were an engineer, you'd get a shotgun. It was an unlock that you could get, but no other class really had a good shotgun. And so if you got good at engineer, not only could you repair tanks and you had landmines for counter tank, you know, play, but you would get this shotgun that was just devastating. And so, you know, if you were on a squad, you'd want a couple of assault guys because that's what their job is, their assault stuff. You'd have a medic and then maybe an engineer to round everything out. And everybody had their part to play. And in 2042 with these 10 different specialists, I don't know what part I'm playing anymore. I play medic because honestly, I know what to do as a medic. And I just,

I res people. Like I actually play the kind of medic that runs around and res people and tries to heal them. But it's, that's because none of the other classes have any kind of like identity to them, I guess, you know,

like sure you get a wingsuit. That's super cool. But what are you doing for your team in a wingsuit? Unless you all have a wingsuit and you're flying together, but then that takes the identity out of it. Because if everybody in your team in a wingsuit? Unless you all have a wingsuit and you're flying together. But then that takes the identity out of it. Because if everybody in your squad has a wingsuit, then you have no identity at that point.

Yeah. I'm 100% with you. I think it's a very goofy system. Even just cosmetically, like, look, I get it. Representation matters. But do I really need like a 60-year-old woman who can run just as fast as a fit, early 20s man or woman who's ripped like an athlete? It's just kind of goofy all around. I don't totally get it.

But Battlefield is broken down into three main modes. So when you load up the game, you can click on All Out Warfare, which is the main mode. I think most people would say that includes conquest and breakthrough. Those are very similar. They're just slightly different. Conquest is basically where it's 64 v 64. Each team has a certain number of tickets. As you hold control points, you will deplete your enemy's tickets. Or if you kill someone, then their team loses a ticket. And if you force the other team down to zero, you win. Breakthrough is a little bit different where one team's on offense, the other team's on defense.

And if you're on offense, you basically have to take over every objective within a sector. And now you have captured that sector and now you're gonna go into the next one and you're trying to push the enemy back and break through their frontline and take it all over um hazard zone is another option do you want to talk a little bit about about how house about how

hazard zone works hazard zone was an interesting thought that just didn't really after thought maybe yeah i mean honestly i feel like they went hey guys we need to have a different mode and we need one quick so somebody come up with something. And Scavengers is kind of cool. And Escape from Tarkov, let's sort of just try to throw in a mode that's kind of like that. It's exactly what they did, man. And Scavengers is a game where you go out and you try to collect these data crystals. Like you get these, what are they? I don't even remember what they're called now. It's some kind of crystal thing that you would harvest. And then you would try to extract

with it. What Hazard Zone is, is basically that. It drops you in. It's eight squads of four guys. So there's 32 people on a map. You fight against some AI bots that are guarding these hard drives that you're trying to get and then extract with. It sounds neat in theory. I played a bunch of matches of Hazard Zone to just kind of see, hey, is this going to click for me? Maybe I'm just new to this. I'm not new to it. It's terrible. It's not done well. You earn credits by killing these bots, which are terrible. They're super easy to kill. Or they're overpowered because there's a sniper up on a crane that's just sniping everybody on the map. And it's like, well, that's kind of dumb. And then you get credits if you kill the bots or if you extract with drives. You can spend the credits on your next round to unlock a gun that might have a

scope on it at this point. But if you die, you lose everything. So you lose all of the stuff that you bought. You don't get anything other than more credits as a reward. It's just super imbalanced. It's a terrible mode. I tried it a lot to see if it would grow on me, and it just is not good. There's other games that have done it way, way better. I feel like Hazard Zone was a complete just last-minute throw-in to say, hey, we have all of these modes like look what we've done

with battlefield 2042 even though it's terrible yeah there's just it's such a misstep in so many ways like i don't know anyone who is enjoying hazard zone i don't think anyone's even really playing it when i jumped in i don't know about you i had crazy long queue times i played a few and every time i was waiting six seven minutes to get into a match, maybe even longer. I feel like that's about right. Yeah, I don't think it's terribly popular. But even just the fact that as soon as you spawn on the map, you pull out this special lens, and then you just see circles that you just find the closest one. You sprint there. You kill some easy bots.

And then eventually everyone just fights at the extraction. You and I love games that have PvE VP content, but this was not the answer. You've got Gambit mode in Destiny 2, which works fantastically. Scavengers has a million problems, but I'd rather play that than Hazard Zone. I would too. Yeah, this is just kind of like a throw-in. I don't think anyone's really loving it. And then you also have Portal Mode, which is the one that I have really been hyping up to this point. And essentially, it's very similar to the Overwatch Workshop. It gives you the ability to create custom modes using older entries, maps, and features. So you can change things like health, weapons,

movement speed, things of that nature. Now, were there any portal modes that you gave a try or any fun ones that you ran across? Because I've got a couple I can share about. I did not. I played a few rounds of portal. I really tried to stick to the main all-out warfare mode and the hazard mode for now. Portal, to me, is going to be,

if anything saves this game, it's going to be Portal mode. So when I did jump in, I jumped into the El Alamein map. Is that from 1942? I can't remember which one that's from, but I did try to jump into some of the older ones. And it was very refreshing to see, like in 2042, you have tactical sprint works just like in war zone, where if you double tap shift, your guy runs extra fast for a little while, you know, and there was none of that in these older modes. So it was kind of neat to see that you could go back in time almost to some of these things. There were no optics on these weapons. It was all iron sights, that kind of stuff. And like you said, so the class system was back, where if you were playing one of the older Battlefield modes, you had to spawn as an engineer to take out that tank. You didn't have your specialists and stuff. I do know of a mode,

I haven't played it personally, but it was one that they showed off before the launch of Battlefield where they were saying, oh, look what you can do with Portal. Here's a game where everybody has rocket launchers. You get one rocket and the only way to reload your rocket is to jump five times. Otherwise, it's just knives. And so it's like, okay, that sounds neat in theory, but jumping five times in a row, isn't really fun. I get it that they're kind of trying to showcase the, the backend,

like programming that can go on and what people can do there. I think it's still early enough because the game hasn't even been out two weeks. You know, by the time we're recording this battlefield officially has not been released for two weeks yet. And so I think it's going to take players time to craft this stuff. So yeah, I have a lot of hope for Portal in that it's going to give you the fun times that everybody wants.

But I think they've put it in the hands of the players. And it's up to the players to do that at this point. The problem is there's so many issues with the base game that I don't know that people are going to be drawn to spending the time to make Portal great. And that worries me. That definitely worries me as well. Now, one of the neat things I saw in Portal was Squid Game. Really? I didn't see that one.

What they do is they implement a red light, green light mechanic. So while green light is on, you can sprint around and everyone only has knives. And so you're trying to kill other players with melee. Well, as soon as they call red light, if you keep running, you die, but you immediately stop

and then the game gives you a sniper and you have one bullet and so when it calls red light everyone stops and then you all try to snipe each other and that's actually i thought a really clever use like i i thought that's exactly what i want to see in portal mode that's something that's just kind of goofy that one weird person had they stick it in the game and it's actually a lot of fun. I thought that was very clever. There are also a lot of zombie modes where it's like asymmetrical. So you'll have many more people on one team than the other. But what the zombies can do is they run incredibly fast. And if you melee another person, now they're infected. And so the

whole thing is you're trying to infect everybody on the map at once. That's nothing novel. We've seen that in other games, but it's a blast. People also programmed gun game. I was going to say gun game. That did not surprise me. Yeah. So there are some neat things in there, but I'm kind of with you in that I don't know

if enough people are going to stick around to figure out fun modes to make. And by the time those people do make them, I think a lot of people are already going to quit. And there's a lot of people who are just never going to leave Conquest. That's all they're going to play. Conquest is the default. It's the base game. And those are the ones that cue you in quicker. And in my experience, it just kind of feels like everyone's only playing Conquest.

It is the main game mode. I mean, that's what Battlefield has always been. Now, previous Battlefields have had your giant Conquest maps with your five different points. The maps are so big that you have jets and helicopters and transports and stuff like that. My favorite mode was always Domination because what it did is it took a slice of a map and there were no vehicles. Maybe there was a Jeep that you could take or drive around to stay fairly mobile or try to run people over. But that was it. And so it was all infantry-based combat. You didn't have to worry about all the other stuff.

And domination was always my favorite mode because that's a lot more of the tacticalness in how your squad plays together. Does your squad leader hide and let people respond? Did you win your firefight? Did your medic maybe get that clutch res off? So now it's 2v1 versus 1v1 or something like that. And guess what? Battlefield 2042 does not have, Paul. They don't have domination. They don't have domination mode. And so it's just, this is another thing in the long list of stuff that 2042 did not revive from the previous entries in the series.

Yeah. So, all right, before we start jumping into the worst of the worst, even though I think up to this point, we haven't said a whole lot positive about Battlefield. When Battlefield 2042 is clicking and it's working well and you're having fun, like what's going on? Like when is Battlefield at its best? Battlefield's at its best when your squad is working together, when you have vehicles at your disposal, because let's be honest, all we're talking about is conquest mode here, you know? And so it's like, if you have two buddies,

we were playing last night, you know, we had two tanks with this little tank convoy going on with two people in one tank, two people in another tank. And we were tearing through these points. We're wrecking the enemy team, you know, where we, our buddy shot down a helicopter with the tank. It was an amazing shot. Boom. All four people in the helicopter dies. Yeah, exactly. And it was just like, you know, we all lost our minds and it was just like, so that's when it's working when you're, when your squad is trying to capture point a, and there's another squad, you know, the enemy squad is there and you guys are going back and forth and you're killing each other, but not fast enough so that people are respawning on their teammates. And so the skirmish is constantly going and there's all this, it's just nonstop action. That's when

Battlefield shines. When everybody's working together and you have the mobility that you need and the fun. That's where it really, really stands out to me. There's a lot in this case where it doesn't work. And I have a feeling we're about to get into the reasons why here in just a minute. Yeah, let's do it right now. Okay. It's wine time. And I don't mean that delicious Pinot Grigio.

I'm talking W-H-I-N-E. All right, Josh, let's do it. Okay, whether it's a big complaint or a nitpick, I don't care. Let's just have a wine fest. Let's just talk about everything wrong with this game. Because, Josh, you and I, there are games that we deep dive where we cannot wait to play again. Like, Satisfactory, I was building factories in my sleep. Couldn't wait to play again. Like, satisfactory. I was building factories in my sleep. Couldn't wait to play it. I feel like we put 40 hours into that game.

Yeah, in a weekend. Yes, in a weekend. We did. That's very true. And then there are entries like Battlefield, which comes out right after the release of Halo Infinite. And we have almost everyone we know playing Halo. And here's you and me saying,

well, we owe it to our listeners. We have to go play Battlefield. And it was a little bit of a chore. I don't think you or I were really ever all that excited to double-click this game. I was excited initially. I was very hyped when they were showing off all the trailers for this game and all the cool throwbacks to the different battlefields. It seemed like they knew exactly what the players wanted. And what I'm realizing is that they knew exactly what to put in a trailer to get people to buy this game. But completely let them down on just about everything else, man. Every time our buddies would hop on,

I'd get messages say, hey, you down for some Halo? And I would literally sigh and just go, I wish. I can't, man. I have to go play Battlefield. And then they'd be like, I thought you loved Battlefield. And I go, not this one. So let me give you a few things that I do not like at all about 2042. First of all, there are no persistent lobbies. You have to matchmake after every single match. And you know what I used to do with old battlefields? Favorite your servers.

Yep. You get to know all the names on the global scorecard, which, by the way, spoiler alert, they got rid of as well. There is no global scorecard now. And you would get to know all of these like random people because you would play 10, 15, 20 games in a row. And you would be like, oh, yes, I got that guy on my team this game. That's the guy that kept sniping me. And you would also get a good rotation of maps. So like when you click on portal,

there are a couple of featured modes. And I would say at this point, I've spent more time playing 1942, but it's only two maps. And I would keep getting the same one over and over. And I was like, dude, I just want Battle of the Bulge. I don't want to play on this other map. And normally when you can sit in the lobby, it would cycle through them and you would get a good mix of all the maps. So it's like even just something as simple as a persistent lobby, I don't know why they got rid of it.

The global scorecard, like why are we even playing at this point? All I can see are my own squad mates and even then I can only see like four stats and half of them don't even matter. Assists don't count as kills. I mean, there's so many things that are just so annoying that they got right in old entries. I don't know why we lost them in 2042. Laziness.

100% laziness, man. I'll tell you, I don't know how long we have for this episode because my list of wines goes on for a very long time, man. I complained initially about the shooting in this game. Felt very off. I told you that I felt like I just couldn't aim anymore. And you guys trolled me for that and I deserved it. But then they come to find out that there was a major issue with bloom in this game. We've talked about that. I, you know, I deserved it, but then they can't come to find out that there was a major issue with bloom in this game. We've talked about that.

I'm not going to beat that dead horse. They fixed it. The shooting does feel better, but the, the weapons, there's not this massive list of weapons. I think like battlefield four, if I remember right,

launched with something like 83 weapons. It launched with more than 20, you know, right. And 2042, I think has 23 weapons total. Now, that's between every specialist in 23 weapons. That's your pistols, your ARs, your SMGs, your LMGs, your snipers. That's not a lot of guns, man. And let's remember that the guns are not

unique to the class system that no longer exists. So here we go. You did away with classes. That was always the heart of Battlefield. One of the worst mistakes I've ever seen them make. The specialist system sucks. I get that you want people to play and unlock stuff, and I get that you're kind of prepping your game for paid DLC and battle passes and things like that because people are going to want to unlock these specialists,

but that's not Battlefield to me. There's no scoreboard. When you were popping off in Battlefield, whether you were playing Sniper, Engineer, Medic, Assault, whatever, I remember playing, I think it was Battlefield 3 on the ocean map and sitting up on a radio tower on one island and sniping people that were 400 yards away on another island and checking the leaderboard, you know, all the time to see how I was doing, you know, are we running around playing the capture the points and our squads getting a ton of points that way? Or are you just murking everybody and you racking up a ton of kills, but you could check the leaderboard to see how you were doing.

There's no leaderboard. Like, I don't remember how many kills I have, but guess what? I want to know that. That's part of the fun of a game like this is to see how good you're doing. I don't understand the removal of the leaderboard at all. I can only assume that they don't want to make bad players feel bad. Sure. But then fix your matchmaking. It's online gaming, man. If you're that sensitive that you can't look at a leaderboard and see yourself at the bottom, maybe you shouldn't be doing online gaming.

You know what I mean? That fuels me, man. Halo Infinite, they have a leaderboard. You can actually look to see how to do it. If I'm down at the bottom, I'm like, pick it up, Josh. You're bringing your team down, man. You know, the biggest complaint I have, because I can go on for hours on this, Battlefield 2042 feels like it has absolutely zero soul. It is a game that is a video game. You can shoot, you can run, you can look around, you can lay down, you can chuck grenades.

But everything that always made Battlefield unique does not exist in this game. It is the most generic game that I can think of. They touted all these huge, destructible, changing environments. They showed off the tornadoes and the sandstorms and the weather. None of that matters, dude. When you're playing this game, none of it matters. You don't pay attention to that. The lighting changes on Hourglass, which is the desert one. This big sandstorm rolls in. Everything just looks orange. It doesn't change the game.

The game sucks. You know, it's just everything that they touted in the trailers looked really neat. But when it comes to the game itself, it does not translate, does not compute. It's terrible. The game is buggy as anything. I mean, we can talk about the technical aspects for days, but I don't want to get into that because people will say, oh, well, they're going to patch it. There's patches coming. Well, you know what? They released it. This is not a beta anymore. This is full release. Here you go, world. Here's Battlefield 2042. Oh, and by the way, this game's not finished.

Well, yeah, and that's the thing. There are some features that they're saying will be coming out eventually, but they still delayed this game again and again and again. They did not have to program a campaign. I don't understand why we lost so many features and it just feels so terrible i mean even just something as simple as when i die i have no idea if there's a medic anywhere around me or if anyone knows that i died and if anyone's gonna res me now if we have a squad of four i can say you know josh are you able to give me a res i'm safe and you say yes well now i know not to respawn but there's there's no way to know and there's no voice over ip comms in this game you can't talk to anyone you can't really communicate i can press a button that my dude yells for a res no one hears that no one cares you can't

switch squads remember in the past if you had a terrible squad leader you would ditch that squad something fierce man you could start a new squad. You could have your friends join and then lock the squad. They got rid of all these options. What about sound design? Dude, this sounds terrible. No lie. This might be the worst sound design I have ever heard in a shooter ever. It is terrible. The footsteps sound like I don't even know what they are, man. You can't tell whether they're enemy footsteps, ally footsteps. You can't tell how far away they are. The guns don't sound good. Even the chatter is just cheesy, man. It doesn't sound like wartime chatter. It's like they tried to give these specialists some kind of personality, but I feel like it's

like the kids bop music version where it's like, yeah, I know that song, but that's not the song, man. Like, what is this terrible sounding thing that's assaulting my ears right now? It's just a swing and a miss all around. I mean, even this is, this is okay. I feel like this is getting nitpicky, but I don't care. This is still important. At the end of matches, the music used to crescendo, right? And it felt epic, and you're at the end of a match, and it was kind of that warning. They got rid of it. I don't know why. It's in Halo Infinite. You know when it's the end of a match, and as it's getting close to a close, it makes it feel more epic, and you understand that the game is coming to an end,

and you have to pay close attention. Even just getting rid of stuff like that, I just don't get it. If Battlefield 2042 just released and we never had another Battlefield game before, maybe we would feel different. Maybe we would say, well, you know what? It's not Halo, but maybe the next entry is going to really knock it out of the park. They had some awesome ideas. I like the teamwork. But it's like, you already had working products. How did we lose everything that made those good? I don't get it. I don't. I mean, the code exists, right? Somebody made the code. And I get that you can't take code A and mix it with code B necessarily. But they understood. This is the part that really, really bugs me the most is in the trailers and the demonstrations that they gave. They showed so many things that players

of the Battlefield series, we talked about them, man. When they were hyping up the game, we bought the hype. I said, dude, this is going to be the best Battlefield. They know what players want. Look at this stuff they're showing off. Look at these moments. The guy jumping out of the jet, bazooking another jet, and then landing back in his jet. These insane things that you could always do in these games. C4 on a Jeep, run it off a ledge and blow up a helicopter. All these things that you could do. Great trailer.

They were showing these off. And it's like, okay, so you get it. And then they release this game. And it's almost, I feel like they just kicked me right between the legs, man, because it's like, you knew what I wanted and you gave me none of that. I felt like this was the biggest bait and switch that I've ever seen in a video game. I feel super bad for the artists and the coders and the programmers or all the people that were on these teams that probably poured their heart and soul into this. I feel really bad for those

people. But this game was 100% ruined by the publishers or these CEOs or whatever they are that just wanted to say, hey, we need a way to make money. I know it's not done. Just release it anyway. Don't worry about a leaderboard. Don't worry about class-based system. Don't worry about sound design. Don't worry about having an all chat. Stay out of all chat if you're a kid. But you know what? Those are the things that sometimes made the games great. Don't worry about a server browser list. All of these things- Yeah, there's still server browsers. Yeah. All of these things that were always a part.

Like, it's not that hard to add this stuff, man. You're charging $60 for this game. And you stripped it down. You took away everything that made Battlefield. Battlefield, you lied to us. You released a buggy unfinished product. I mean, it's terrible, man. Like, if people aren't picking up what we're putting down at this point, we've never had a Wine Time segment before. Oh, I know. You know what I mean, it's terrible, man. If people aren't picking up what we're putting down at this point, we've never had a wine

time segment before. Oh, I know. You know what I mean? And it's like, yes, I try to take a step back and go, well, has Halo, has it tainted us, right? Has it changed our opinions on something? This is why you started this episode by saying, between you and I, we have played almost every single Battlefield that has

existed. I have loved the Battlefield series for many, many years to the point where I never even played Call of Duty. I was a Battlefield guy. You Call of Duty guys are weird, man. And it's like you have completely just ruined something that I was very passionate about and I loved a lot. And you gave me something. You hyped me up for it. And then you gave me something that is absolute hot garbage. Yeah, I can't disagree with anything that you just said.

We're not asking for new big ideas. You had all the big ideas in the past. Why did we lose them? That's what a lot of it comes down to and we're not alone in these complaints i mean battlefield is getting review bombed we know that there's a lot of complaining all the battlefields released bad all right that's the history of this franchise series but the fact that we're missing so many foundational things really has me worried. I mean, do you think at this point, 2042 can be saved? I don't. Can they? I'm going to tell you right now. I don't.

I'm okay with bugs. Do you know what I mean? Like I get it. We played the beta. They made huge progress from the beta to where I couldn't even drive a vehicle or shoot people, you know, to the release. Now I can drive vehicles and now I can shoot people. But the problem is not just the bugs in this game. It is fundamentally flawed in ways that I do not think that they can fix. Either they're not willing to fix them because they designed the game this way and they've stood by those design decisions. When the beta came out and the world got to try this out, everybody went, dude, the specialist system nicks it, go back to class-based systems. You've already got the

different classes. You know what I mean? Just go back to it. And they went, oh, no, no, no, no. Trust us. Oh, by the way, you guys only got to play six of the specialists. We have 10. And it's like they doubled down and everybody went, dude, you're not listening. Like this system sucks. I don't care if you have 50. Right. Yes. It doesn't work.

Where's the leaderboard? Oh, well, we don't want players to feel bad. So we took the leaderboard out and everybody went, no, no, no, no, no. It's a competitive shooter. Right. Exactly. And so they went, well, we'll think about a leaderboard. Maybe we can enhance the one we have.

You don't have a leaderboard. You have an end of match tells me how my squad did and that's it. You know? So no, I don't think there's any hope for this game. Honestly, I'll be honest. I can't wait to uninstall it, Paul. I literally cannot wait to go play Halo Infinite and uninstall Battlefield 2042. All right. So here's the thing. I played way more than the two-hour limit. I requested a refund. I didn't care. I was like, I'm going to request it, and Steam said no.

Oh, I kind of figured they would. They said, you cannot play this game this much and then get a refund, but I did try. I remember working at Harkins Movie Theater. One of my favorite moves is when people would wait until a movie was over, and they would come say, hey, that movie really sucked. Can we get our money back? What? No, that's not how it works. But people did it all the time. Really? So I tried doing that here with Steam. I got in my dozens of hours and they said no.

Oh, man. You got to still pay that 60 bucks. So I don't plan on playing it anytime soon. And I don't know that I ever will. If you said that the game could be saved, I was going to ask, is there any way that they can patch this game to compete with Halo Infinite? And I think the answer is absolutely not.

No way. Nope. Scrap it. Start working on another one. They already have, Josh. They already started working on the next Battlefield. Here's the problem. And I don't want to sound like... I'm not trying to sound vindictive, right? Because I've always loved the Battlefield series. I remember... It's so funny because now,

Battlefield 4 was a good entry. I think it was the last good entry. There's a part of me that wants to go back and play Battlefield 4 at this point, because I really do love the series. But I will not buy another Battlefield game that comes out until it is released. And I see that the reviews are showing that this is a complete well-done game that is not released in a buggy state. You've ruined me. You got me hyped up. You slapped me in the face. Fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, shame on me. You fooled me once. You're not fooling me again on this. I know they'll release another Battlefield because it's a cash cow, but I'm not saying I won't play another Battlefield, but I can 100% guarantee you I will never give them my money up front until I know what I'm getting out of it. You know what I mean? At that point.

So, I mean, that's the only thing I can do as a gamer is to say, hey, look, you know, this is your fault, not my fault. And so I'm going to, I'm going to, you know, I'm going to respond with my wallet, you know, and I'm not going to buy your game unless you show me that you've made a game that is worth my money. Well, to quote the great Michael Scott, fool me once, shame on you. Fool me twice, strike three. You know, like, unfortunately,

if we're running this podcast, we might have to play the next Battlefield. No. No, no, we're just out? All right, yeah, yeah. We boycotted Call of Duty Vanguard. We can boycott the next Battlefield if we have to. All right, you know what, Paul?

Here's the thing. People might be listening and going, yeah, well, you know what? You're just two guys. You're two old dads. And so maybe the new Battlefield, maybe you guys just don't get it. You're out of touch. You're not hip like us. So allow me to dive into some of the Steam reviews.

Let's hear it. I have not looked these up but i can i can just sense that they're probably more brutal than even you and i were okay number one i had to filter these because boy were some people really upset like way more upset than you and i um so what we do is again we always go to the steam reviews because hey like i said we are just two people maybe you'd love battlefield 2042. If you love the game, I am so happy for you at this point. You're having a blast. That's all we want for people to do with games. So I'm very happy for you. I'm sorry that we don't feel the same way. But if you're enjoying

it, great. But we always go into the Steam reviews. So I did pull some. To be fair, I found two good reviews. I found two bad reviews. I'm going to do it just like we always do it. All right. So the first review, this is recommended 44 hours on record, decent bit of play time. And it says this game is like reconnecting with a long lost childhood friend.

And when you finally get together to hang out, the guy busts out a meth pipe and repeatedly lights his hair on fire. Could be good needs rehab, but despite all the flaws and bugs the game has, I am having fun, and that's what's most important for me in a video game. Fun. It has potential to be something good

if DICE listens to the community. Wait, is that a positive or a negative review? It is a positive. He said it was recommended. What he's saying is that I get it's a dumpster fire, but I'm having fun watching the fire burn, and if listen to the community there's hope for this game so this is a guy that's like you're asking hey do you feel like there's hope for this and the guy goes yes yeah right well yeah uh keep dreaming okay this next one not recommended 15 hours on record i'm a battlefield

fan and veteran since battlefield 2 this game is pure disappointment all the great features from previous battlefields are gone i have a feeling that this game is not even made by veteran dice developers feels like an intern graduation project it's sad to see this franchise being ruined oof yeah now i can't disagree not to slander interns and graduation projects, but I get what this guy's saying because there's no heart. There's no soul to this game whatsoever. Well, don't forget, Splitgate was a graduation project. Yeah. And it's a fantastic game. It really is. Okay. This next one recommended 46 hours on record. Holy bleep.

Some of the most fun I've had in a long time. And this game brings back all the nostalgia of Battlefield. Teammates not doing their jobs, parachute assassinations, and snipers galore. Despite some very minor glitches, this game can hardly get better. 15 out of 10. Edit. People need to stop being babies. Unpucker your butt for a little bit

because this game is intense and way too much fun i will not be sleeping for a good bit edit two works fine on my machine hey you know uh i i'm i'm glad that they're having fun i i i cannot agree with very much in that review other than the uh teammates not doing what they're having fun i i i cannot agree with very much in that review other than the uh teammates not doing what they're supposed to be doing that's absolutely a staple of battlefield no matter what you do that's going to be a coat there is nothing like having a medic literally standing over your body and shooting the enemy team and then just go running off and not rezzing you oh either that or they can't res you because it's the same button to switch weapons with you as to res. So sometimes they'll just keep switching weapons and they literally can't use the paddles.

Yeah, they look like they're robbing your corpse, but they're trying to res you. Yeah. All right. And then last one. This one is not recommended. 130 hours on record. Well, I've put 80 hours into the game so far and i could never recommend battlefield 2042 to anyone in its current state i've been a huge battlefield fan since day one and this does not

feel like battlefield i grew up on it feels more like call of duty with a mix of battle royale specialists are garbage maps are garbage netcode is broken frame issues on high-end pcs low-res images on destroyed stuff, server issues, rubber banding, etc. Tons of game-breaking bugs. I could list stuff all day long. We went from an insanely great game like Battlefield Bad Company 2 to whatever this garbage is today. Might be my last Battlefield game I'll ever buy. Yeah, I think a lot of people feel that way. You know, I will piggyback on one thing about maps since we didn't talk about that a whole lot. In previous Battlefields, it always felt like they

designed maps where they knew people would fight. So there would be choke points or there would be an important bridge and things of that nature. This game, I don't feel like there's any rhyme or reason. It's like, let's just plop down a couple buildings here, and then there's the objective. Now go have fun. And it doesn't feel like it's designed to make for a good competitive fight. I don't get it. One of the biggest issues and one of the larger complaints, and this goes again back to the fundamental stuff, is when they increased the player count to 128 people per map, they made these absolutely gigantic maps in this game. Now, Battlefield's always been known for having large-scale warfare and these decent-sized maps, but these maps are way too big. I have never in my life,

and it's funny because a lot of the reviews call it running simulator. Battlefield's always been heavy action. If you die, you can respawn right away on a point or your squad leader or whatever. You're right back into the fight. In 2042, I feel like I spend a solid 50% of

my time running to try to find combat. And that is not what battlefield is like at all. And so then that combat is a helicopter and you're running around the desert. Right. And I guess he's going to win that fight. Yes, exactly.

Because I can't spawn vehicles or I can't get a vehicle. You know, there used to be that all the vehicles would be spawned in the base and you could, you could, you know, spawn there and grab one and then you could go infiltrate the enemy base and steal their vehicles you can't do that anymore guess what you have to you have to click a gear that just plops you into this phantom

vehicle that's already in the sky like if you spawn in a helicopter you don't actually spawn on the ground and then have to actually pilot to hell you just start flying in the air like how did i get here you know it's just like none of it makes sense, man. So, all right. Well, that's some steam reviews. What we do next is we try to guess what the steam user score is overall for a game on the scale of zero to 100. And it's funny because we both knew that this game got review bombed. And I asked you before the show, I said, Paul, are we guessing what we think the game should be rated? Or are we guessing what it actually is rated? And you said, well, we've always done what it is rated.

So let's keep rolling with that. So what do you think the actual user rating is? And then, well, we'll give our guesses. And then we'll talk about what the actual rating is. And I think I'm on a hot streak now. You've won two or three. Yeah. I feel like I'm on a hot streak now. You've won two or three. Yeah. I feel like I'm on a three streak right now.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. So you get to go first. All right, me go first? Okay. I knew it was low. I did not cheat. I will say that. I did know it was low.

I know that this game got drastically review bombed in the beginning. It's been out a little while longer. I think you're going to find people that do enjoy it. My guess was 22%. That's so low. I was initially thinking somewhere around 30. So as fun as it would be to say 23, I'm just going to say 30%. That's my guess. The actual poll is 35%. You took the championship from me, buddy. Okay.

35% is the lowest game that we have seen, the lowest review score that we have seen out of any game that we have reviewed in all of the episodes that we have done. Yeah. We've seen a couple that are rated very low, but it is very rare to see a game that is rated this poorly. All right, Paul.

Well, as the newly crowned champion, you get to take us into our next segment, buddy. All right. Sounds good. Let's hit that music. Hey there, Ms. Maria Felk. If I had to rate you from one to 10, I'd give you a 9. Because I'm the one you're missing. Alright, so this is Make Love, Marry, or Murder.

This is where Josh and I decide to rate this game. Is it a game that we want to marry? Is it marriage material? We want to commit. It's a lifelong partnership that we're going to enjoy and cherish and we're you know willing to take a vow for it or is it something that you just want to have fun and ultimately you know leave it by the wayside or is it a game that you want to murder josh i think it's pretty safe to say this is a double homicide this is yeah i mean if i could if i

could be a serial killer with this game, I would be. Yeah. Yeah. I was going to say, I started watching the new season of Dexter. I don't know why. But the first thing I thought was, yeah, I would wrap up Battlefield 2042 in a cling wrap, and we're going to dismember it and drop it into the ocean. I don't know that there's been a game that's an easier murder for me, to be honest with you. I mean, we have played games that we just are not good. I mean, people can look at our leaderboard. You can look down at the bottom of our leaderboard and see some of the games that maybe didn't quite click with us.

For whatever reason, the problem with Battlefield and why it's such an easy murder for me is it's nothing. You had the blueprints. All you had to do was build the building. Do you know what I mean? It's like it literally, you had it in front of you. You had the information and you built like, I don't even know what you build at this point, man. It's something, it's a game, but it's not battlefield. They read the blueprints upside down or something like that. That's yeah.

I don't, I don't know how I don't know how you mess it up this bad, man. I really don't easy, easiest murder of, of potentially my life. He's just murder in a while for me. That's for sure.

Oh boy. All right. Well well i guess it's time to go to the leaderboard oh see where this game stacks up we're gonna find out how much we really hate this game oh let's do it all right so if you're a new listener to the show, Josh and I have a leaderboard that we update after every deep dive episode. We have now done a total of, boy, it's almost like I wasn't prepared for this. 61 games on the 61 deep dives up to this point.

We, we've got a couple on the list here, like rust at number four, destiny two at 16, verintide 2 at 30, Phasmophobia at 44, The Forest at 56, Overcooked 2 at the very bottom at 61. And we have to come to a consensus of where we think this game ranks. So if you ever want to take a look at our leaderboard, you can do that at multiplayerpodcast.com. It's right there on the main page.

You just have to scroll down a little bit there. Josh, safe to say this game is not going to be in the top 30. Certainly not in the top half. No. Lower! No? Lower? So as we're looking at, 40s, the 50s,

the 60s, where do you think we need to put 2042? Let me ask you this, Paul. Would you rather play Battlefield 2042 in its current state or would you rather play PUBG in its current state? I would rather play PUBG. I would too. I would too. I would too.

I would too. Even with all the hackers. Now, I know how much you hate Sea of Thieves. I do hate Sea of Thieves. Would you rather play Sea of Thieves or would you rather play Battlefield 2042? We're definitely in the right range here, Josh. It's a tough call for me.

I don't know. It's one or the other. Would you rather get assassinated repeatedly in the back from Marianne in Hood Outlaws and Legends, or would you rather just glitch out in a map and have a medic not res you while missing an entire magazine worth of bullets because the gunplay sucks. Oh, and not hearing that there's an enemy walking up right behind you. So here's the thing. Hood had a lot of things to like.

Battlefield does not. I would rather play Hood, Outlaws and Thieves. I would too. Or Outlaws and Legends, whatever it's called. Who cares? Oh, man. So is it an overreaction to put it dead last i don't okay so here's the thing right i don't want to jump on the the the train of negativity here you know what i mean like yes it's it's currently fun to bash battlefield 2042 right i

get it that's the thing to do and I want to be very conscious of saying like, I don't want to jump on that train at the same time, being a battlefield fan for as long as I can remember, this is the worst battlefield that I have ever seen. It upsets me to no end that they tried to trick us with the trailers in this game. Do you know what I mean? Like, I literally feel like this was a bait and switch. Like you can't show me these videos and say, we know what you, what the gamers want.

And then give me something that is completely different. Talk about hood more like hood wing. Right. I mean, honestly. And so it's like, I, to be fair,

I don't want to put it at the very, very bottom because overcooked to makes me hate my friends. See, there are parts of Overcooked 2 that I like. There is not a single thing I like about 2042. So if we're going to bump it up like a spot or two, I'm totally fine with that. But honestly, for me, it is dead last. Sea of Thieves, I enjoyed vomiting all over you when you were trying to tell us on port side, lower the sails, and I'm yelling, I don't know what port means. That was actually a fun experience.

I could go to bed tonight, and I'm not going to remember a single 2042 experience. Let's put it at the bottom. I'm fine. Honestly, I'm fine with this because I want to, like I said, not jumping on board the let's trash it train. I legitimately am so disappointed in this game. You know what I mean? That it's like, I don't want to play it ever again. I don't want to think about it ever again. It's kind of like that girlfriend that you really liked that dumped you back in the day

with no warning whatsoever. And it's like you're better off if you just completely put it out of your life and don't think about it anymore. That's legitimately what I feel like with Battlefield 2042. You and I would eternal sunshine of the spotless mind erase all of it from my brain.

I don't even want to remember it existed to begin with. And we're not going fight it we're gonna let all that go uh yeah yeah so we'll plug it in dead last this is not a good reason to put it dead last but it also means that i don't need to reorder 60 other games like when we put something in the top five man where i have to remember all of them on the website i I get to just type 62 Battlefield 2042, bottom of the barrel. I mean, I hope people understand, right? We rarely ever trash a game. I don't know that we've trashed a game quite like this one, but you can't treat gamers this way. You can't release

games like this. You can't say, oh, well, we'll patch it. You can't charge $60 for something like this. Again, if you're having fun with Battlefield 2042, I am super happy for you. That's all we want is for gamers to have fun. But for myself, and I'm sure for you, Paul, based on what you've said, as lifelong Battlefield fans, this is the biggest miss that I can think of, man. And it breaks my heart. It really does. And the only thing I can do is cry and kick and scream about it and say, well, you're at the bottom of the leaderboard, buddy.

And contrast this with people's issues with Halo Infinite. People were literally crying their eyes out because I don't level up my battle pass fast enough. I mean, think about if that was the only complaint about Battlefield. were literally crying their eyes out because i don't level up my battle pass fast enough i mean think about if that was like the only complaint about battlefield like we are complaining about core mechanics you know halo infinite we rated at number seven on our leaderboard it's fantastic imagine having the choice to play halo infinite for free or $60 for this steaming hot pile of dog poop. Yeah. And that really is your choice.

It's one or the other. Paul, I figured it out. If we get hyped for a game, the game's not good. We did not have high expectations for Halo Infinite. Remember, we were like, oh man, I don't know. And then it's great. So from now on, if I like a game, I'm just going to be like... God of War Ragnarok is going to be garbage.

It's going to be... Man, there's no way that they can get that game even remotely close to the first one. You don't even need a sequel. Why would they even make one? I'll probably pick it up when it's on sale for like half price or something. Oh my goodness. Oh, Battlefield. I cannot wait to forget you.

All right. So that's all that we have here for today for Battlefield. Next week, we will have a bonus round episode. Our plan as of now is for that to be a draft and tournament, which I believe is still on the table. And then something that you guys can look forward to is that when we are done with our holiday break, we are going to be breaking down all of 2021 in gaming. We're going to talk about some of the games that we enjoyed the most some of the games that we enjoyed the least i think you guys know what game is going to pop up on that list and then we will also the following week cover what

games we're looking forward to in 2022 so we always enjoy recapping the current year what to look forward to in the next year and so we'll have that for you guys once we are back that's all right that's it we got one more man this next bonus round is going to be great do not miss that one it's going to be fantastic uh go ahead and skip battlefield 2042 go ahead and pick up halo infinite come play with me and josh check us out on discord and please consider subscribing in apple podcasts or on patreon at multiplayer squad.com you can also hit us up on all social media at multiplayer pod thanks everyone for listening hope you're all having a great christmas season and we'll see you on thursday all right see you everybody See you, everybody.