Launched in November 2021, Electronic Arts’ Battlefield 2042 struggled through one of the most disastrous video game debuts of the year. Riddled with technical issues, fans of the first-person shooter franchise have since absconded en masse, with many opting to return to previous installments. Battlefield 5’s concurrent player count is currently slightly higher than that of Battlefield 2042, but, as Reddit user u/J_McCoy points out, developer DICE’s 2018 effort suffered from a litany of problems at launch, as well.
In u/J_McCoy’s clip, which was originally captured shortly after Battlefield 5’s release, the player can be seen swapping their shotgun for one found in the environment, though most of the new weapon’s model isn’t rendered. Armed with a stock and two shotgun shells awkwardly poking out of half of a firing mechanism, the player takes down two AI enemies before performing a reload animation far goofier than any of the series’ famous secret ones.
Though the gameplay snippet was taken from the title’s single-player component, the clip primarily serves to remind Battlefield fans that, while Battlefield 2042 is currently experiencing a litany of issues, games in the franchise very rarely release bug-free. In fact, similar allegations of instability were once leveled at the “fifth”—technically the fourteenth—entry in the franchise, with memes from 2018 suggesting players return to EA’s Star Wars Battlefront II in pursuit of a more tolerable experience.
However, there’s no denying that the issues present in Battlefield 2042 extend far beyond the realm of minor visual inconsistencies. With vehicles behaving improperly, takedown animations bugging out, and weapons routinely failing to register hits accurately, players likely wish that invisible weapons represented the height of their in-game woes.
Unfortunately, the game’s issues extend beyond performance and playability; while previous Battlefield titles were notoriously mature and earnest in their depictions of real-world armed conflicts, Battlefield 2042 is a huge departure that opts for a more lighthearted tone in keeping with titles like Overwatch or Team Fortress 2. EA and DICE have, of course, opted to borrow elements from notable hero shooters, likely in an effort to encourage microtransaction purchases, but the development team has struggled to make these new additions feel congruous with the tone of both this game and the rest of the titles in the series.
Battlefield 5 is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
