While I have been invited to many previews for Battlefield 2042, due to the current state of the world, those have all be via calls online and as such, left no chance for any hands on. Thankfully, with the Open Beta happening this weekend, the team at EA and DICE invited me to get hands on early, and the short answer of how fun it was is simple, it was great fun, but it was more than that.

What we had access to is the exact same content that's available for players this weekend, should that meant one map in Orbital, and one game mode in Conquest and while I did get in a good dozen matches, by the end I was hoping for some variety. None of this is to say I thought either the map or mode were bad, there's only so many times you can witness the kill-cam on yourself in the same locations before you want to change things up.

Of course, going into it and you have battlefield played, I have been playing it since the original game back on PC and I expected to be able to drop in and just enjoy 2042 without any issue and for the most part that's accurate. start of the round you can drop into a vehicle, or on foot at your base and then push towards an objective, but it's the set up before you drop in that is more important this time. one of the big changes is that you have Specialists, with each specialist having a unique skill set to make them play very differently from the others, the big catch though is it it's only that single skill. early on my first few rounds were with Mackay, who has a grapple gun, so in a map where there is a lot of verticality he would shine and while he's considered an assault class do you can swap out his assault rifle for any other weapon you choose.

In later rounds I swapped out to use Boris, who has a massive gun and by that, I mean as his technical skill, so while Mackay can zip up to great heights, Boris carries a massive, automated turret. When I first went to him, I wasn’t making proper use out of his ability, which lead me to die a lot, but in the weapon loadout screen, I realised that I could make better use of things, by changing my main gun. So instead of using a shotgun, I swapped to a sniper rifle and then placed my turret behind me when I went to use it, specifically when I was laying down on the rocket launch platform. From that vantage, I was able to get three incredible shots and survive one attempted knifing and I had a blast.

Rather than keep talking check out some gameplay videos below, including one with me commenting on my lack of skills, though I do manage to get some sweet kills later on.

Battlefield 2042 is coming out on November 19 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, PlayStation 5, Xbox One and PlayStation 4, those who purchase any digital console offering can upgrade to the next gen, should they not have one of those now.