Hey everyone! Despite the competitive Battlefield scene’s recent general inactivity (due to the game’s state and lack of spectator tools), we’ve been working on ways to get things going again before the next game’s release.
In this comprehensive article, we will be more transparent and oversharing than usual about our long-term goals to help players and fans understand why we will do certain things in certain ways. We hope you take the time to read the whole thing so that the bigger picture makes sense.
ESB League arrives in 2042!
Our most popular event series, ESB League, is finally coming to Battlefield 2042. It’s wild to think that despite hosting 14 seasons of it, our last season, Battlefield V Season 4, ended in May 2021.
We want to point out that this 3-year hiatus wasn’t by choice. After the success of the last BFV season, we had multiple prized seasons planned for 2042, but the lack of a spectator mode forced their cancellation.
However, 2042 Season 1 kicks off with a more restricted format in May. This first season aims to showcase top teams and players and what top competitive gameplay can look like. It will have detailed player stats, live streams, and a solid amount of social promotion to help promote the scene as much as possible.
Ideally, we aim to have 12 dedicated teams: 6 on PC and 6 on PS5/XSX. However, even just 6 teams on either platform would make this work. While we understand that more teams may be interested in participating, teams must be carefully selected to avoid any dropouts throughout the season for this format and relaunch to work.
A separate article will be published at the end of April with more information on the event’s schedule and how to express your interest in participating.
Squad Spectator Modifier aka “Spectator Mode”
Update 6.3.0 introduced the ability to enable Squad Spectating within custom portal experiences. From the update notes:
“This will allow you to spectate your Squad Mates after dying before entering the deploy screen once more to redeploy similar to the experience within Hazard Zone.”
Sadly, this isn’t a proper spectator mode or even a barebones one, but we believe that something could be done with this tool while using the correct setup. We believe this first 2042 ESB League season will be the perfect way to try and see how much we can do with it.
The big issue here is that you can only spectate the squad you are in, so if we are playing in a 4v4, and the squad can only have four players, there is no place for a possible spectator.
This means that the formats will need to be changed for now if we want to be able to broadcast matches again (which is vital to promoting the scene).
For smaller modes, 4v4 will have to go, and either move to 5v5 (1 squad of 3 and one of 2, like the old times) or 6v6 (2 squads of 3). Sadly, both these options introduce problems in their own rights, from how we designed Flashpoint and Squad Obliteration to certain balancing aspects to how and if we can prize future events leading up to the next game.
For larger modes, this isn’t as much of an issue. Taking 12v12s as an example, 3 squads of 4 become 4 squads of 3, making it seem doable if we play these larger formats again.
A New Event Series
For a while now, we have been working on a new event series tailored to be a stepping stone into organized and competitive play for new players while still providing an enjoyable experience for our veteran players.
We believe that for the competitive ecosystem to grow and hopefully thrive in the future, there needs to be an easy and accessible way for new players to get into organized play and meet like-minded players (and even make a name for themselves).
While we don’t have more details to share with you all for now, we expect to share more information around late May / early June.
A New Large Competitive Mode
Echoing the above sentiment, we miss seeing and playing larger competitive modes from past Battlefield games. Whether you enjoyed 8v8s, 12v12s, or even 15v15s, having infantry and vehicles work together in a competitive setting felt like how Battlefield was meant to be played and was an equally important stepping stone for many who went on to play and watch smaller infantry-focused modes.
Unfortunately, Conquest in 2042 doesn’t work as well as in past games at smaller player counts. With this in mind, we have started working on our third custom game mode, Obliteration Large. However, unlike our other game modes, developing this solely in-house is too challenging because of the number of players required for playtests.
This means that the only way to develop this is together, and while it might take a bit of time to get it right, we can make it work. Think of it as a CTE (Community Test Environment) but for a competitive mode.
Vehicle balance will be a big task to figure out here, so we hope some experienced 2042 drivers and pilots will also join the conversations and testing sessions.
We don’t have an exact date for the start of these testing phases, but they will likely begin once Season 1 kicks off in May.
Rules & Experience Code Updates
We will update our ESB Flashpoint and ESB Squad Obliteration rulesets over the coming weeks. After the past few updates, some items need to be restricted, and some need to be unrestricted before events kick off again.
Once both rulesets are updated, we will apply the changes to our 4v4 Rush ruleset (now outdated) and update these experience codes so the community can use them.
As always, we want to hear your feedback on these topics. If you would like to join the discussion, head over to our Discord server and join the “2042 Update 7.0 Feedback—Weapons / Specialists / Gadgets / Throwables” thread.
Website Rework
Over the coming months, we will slightly rework our main website to streamline the user experience for the future. This restructuring will also ensure we use our resources more efficiently as we approach the next game.
We’ll announce any significant changes ahead of time so those familiar with the website don’t miss anything.
Don’t forget to use our Discord server to provide any feedback.
