More 'Battlefield 2042' Details Revealed: AI Behavior, Cross-Play And More

There’s still one week until the big “Battlefield 2042” reveal at the main EA Play event on July 22, but the developers have been sharing a few bits of information about the game, including small tidbits of how “BF2042” is designed around the massively-increased player count.

Very few details about the game were shown during the initial reveal at E3 and some smaller snippets were revealed in interviews with the developers. Here’s some more interesting information about “Battlefield 2042” ahead of the bigger showcase coming next week.

Conquest And Breakthrough Modes

The classic Conquest mode will be borrowing some design elements from the Breakthrough and Operations modes from the previous two “Battlefield” games. This was done in order to keep the action concentrated in specific areas of a map.

In the new Conquest mode, Control Points will be grouped together in areas of the map called Sectors. Players must control all of the points in a Sector before the area can be considered theirs. This works similarly to how Breakthrough’s asymmetrical assaults play out but teams will have more freedom in deciding which Sectors to attack.

Speaking of Breakthrough, senior design director Daniel Berlin said that certain areas of a map will not be available in Breakthrough mode. This will create a more curated experience and it will further differentiate the two game modes from each other.

Internet Requirement And AI Soldiers

The developers revealed that AI soldiers will be returning in “Battlefield 2042” after a very long absence from the series. This decision was made so that the large 128-player servers never feel empty. These AI soldiers will always be present unless a player occupies their server slot.

They are designed to behave like an ordinary player; they will engage players with gunfire, call-in vehicles, perform flanking maneuvers and capture points. However, they will not use Specialist tools like the wingsuit or grappling hook.

“Battlefield 2042” will have solo and co-op modes but a stable internet connection is still required.

Cross-play

Cross-play will be available in the game, but official details are scarce at the moment. Berlin mentioned that the first playtest for the game was pushed back due to cross-play issues. However, it appears that Xbox One and PS4 players will only be able to play against each other, while PC, Xbox One X and PS5 players can match against each other freely.

PC players can opt-out of cross-play against console players and vice-versa. Additionally, there will be cross-progression across all platforms.