[GameSpot] - Battlefield 2042's Orbital Rework Is Live Now

[343iBot]

The latest major map rework for Battlefield 2042 is now live, bringing big changes to one of the game's most iconic maps, Orbital.

Like previous map reworks, the new Orbital features new cover, better gameplay flow, and visual improvements to make various areas of the map stand out more from each other. In the Conquest game mode, various flags on the map have been moved or added. The map should now feel more war-torn, with areas like the Crawlerway and the Launch Pad now littered with debris, destroyed tanks, and craters.

The new Orbital is the star of update 2.2, but it also introduces three weapons from Battlefield 3 (which have long been available in the game's Battlefield Portal mode) into Battlefield 2042's core All-Out Warfare game modes. Those three weapons are the ACW-R assault rifle, the AKS-74u assault rifle, and the MP412 REX revolver.

Aside from various bug fixes and a few other minor changes, the update's other major addition is that of persistent servers for Battlefield Portal. Previously, a server would disappear from the server listings if no players were currently active in it. That will now be changing, with the ability for premium battle pass owners to enable a persistent server that will stay online for up to a week, even without any active players. Developer DICE in the patch notes said the feature has been a much requested one from the Battlefield 2042 community, and that allowing persistent servers will help "enable communities to stay together across their favorite servers, without needing to wait for the server owner to come online and activate the server."

Battlefield 2042 got off to a rough start when it launched nearly a year ago, with critics and fans taking note of the game's various bugs and online issues. The game's cold reception caused DICE to delay the game's first season of content to the summer of 2022, using the months following Battlefield 2042's launch to instead stabilize and improve the core experience.

One of Battlefield 2042's three experiences at launch, Hazard Zone, is still technically playable but stopped receiving developer support back in May, with the team instead shifting to focus on the modes players were "engaging most with." DICE also removed the 128-player version of Breakthrough in favor of the 64-player version in the name of providing a more tactical and less chaotic experience. More recently, DICE has worked to deliver reworks for many of the game's core maps, and will be ushering in major changes to the game's controversial Specialists in the near future.

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