Battlefield 2042 update 4.0 is coming next week bearing over 400 bug fixes, quality of life improvements, and other balance changes.
As VGC (opens in new tab) spotted, DICE community manager Kevin Johnson offered a preview (opens in new tab) of the big update ahead of the official patch notes. This is an incredibly brief slice of the full update, but it does contain some encouraging tweaks for the struggling shooter, which has been a source of “valuable lessons” for EA DICE.
Three of the larger changes touch on guns, teamplay, and vehicles – pillars of the Battlefield series. For starters, Johnson says “attachments shall also receive an overhaul in Update 4.0, with a focus on ensuring they feel unique and have an impact on your loadout choice and gunplay.”
Vehicular warfare is due for some balancing of its own. The goal of this update, Johnson says, is to “ensure that Infantry/Vehicle counter play still has some bite.” This seems to be a response to feedback that foot soldiers and vehicles aren’t exactly evenly matched in some maps and engagements, so it’ll be interesting to see how individual changes factor in. The Bolte is getting “targeted tweaks,” for example, and there’s also a fix for an ADS bug that pops up “when exiting a vehicle and reviving near obstacles.”
Update 4.0 will also make ribbons easier to unlock “across modes such as Rush,” while boosting the XP rewards for support actions and teamplay “to ensure teamwork remains king.” Here again, some players have argued that lone wolfing it sometimes felt like the optimal way to play and progress in Battlefield 2042 despite its focus on large teams, so this sounds like a healthy change.
The full patch notes for update 4.0 are expected early next week.
Battlefield 2042 devs have considered halving player lobbies for some modes, and responded to “walking simulator” criticisms of some maps.