EA and DICE pulled the curtain back on Battlefield 2042 over the past couple weeks, revealing well-received trailers and gameplay footage, but they’re still being a bit sneaky about some aspects of the game. Most notably, the Battlefield 2042 website lists a “Redacted” game mode, which is described thusly…
Created as a love letter to our core fans, a new way to play Battlefield is coming. Discover unexpected battles and enter the wide universe of Battlefield with this experience.
Hmmm, so what could be going on here? Well, noted leaker Tom Henderson, who’s been batting pretty much 1000 when it comes to Battlefield 2042, has stepped in to provide some more details in a new video. Apparently, the Redacted mode will be the “Battlefield Hub” or BattleHub, a new fun celebration of the franchise in development at DICE LA. The Battlefield Hub is reportedly being built on the 2042 engine, but will be a standalone experience ala CoD Warzone, that will mash up remastered maps, weapons, and vehicles in unexpected ways.
[Battlefield Hub] is going to contain remasters of maps from old Battlefield titles. It’s going to be [maps] on the Battlefield 2042 engine. The movement and stuff like that is going to be exactly the same, but you’re essentially playing on a remastered map with different weapons and vehicles from past Battlefield titles.
Specialists will be moving over to the Battlefield Hub and there will be no traditional class system [like] we’ve seen in those past Battlefield titles. The majority of the maps will be 64-players only, but the Battlefield Hub will support up to 128 players on current-gen consoles and PC. It will just depend on the map. 64-players only on last-generation consoles, which confirms to me as well that this Battlefield Hub will be coming on both past and current-gen consoles.
Sounds interesting, but it also seems like it might be kind of a mess. How will DICE be able to maintain any semblance of balance with all these maps and elements being thrown together? Apparently, they won’t really be bothering, as this mode will be all about the sandbox craziness…
The Battlefield Hub is going to be the ultimate sandbox experience and is going to be the “fun” game mode. The reason [my source] has described it as a fun game mode is because they say that this isn’t necessarily going to be a competitive experience or a balanced experience. Instead, this is going to be the ultimate sandbox experience when players are just going to be able to have fun — a Battlefield 1 tank vs. a Battlefield 3 tank.
Henderson also provided a bit more information about Battlefield 2042’s announced Hazard Zone mode, specifically that this will be the game’s free-to-play component (implying Battlefield Hub won’t be). Of course, take all this with a grain of salt for now, but Henderson has delivered the goods so far.
Battlefield 2042 launches on PC, Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, and PS5 on October 22. The game’s Redacted mode, whatever it ends up being, will be revealed at EA Play Live on July 22.
