It was the 13th title in the series and was the first one set in the modern era. The series made a return in 2010 with Medal of Honor. As of February 2022, the player base had dropped well below Battlefield 5.
Instead of being a triumphant return for the franchise, it quickly received overwhelmingly negative reviews on Steam. On top of that, the game was missing many staples of the Battlefield genre, including a scoreboard, and had extensive bugs upon release that made the game virtually unplayable. Many disliked the specialist system and felt like the maps were less than stellar. Upon release, Battlefield 2042 was met with mixed reviews from critics and panned by the playerbase. These specialists turned Battlefield 2042 into a hero-shooter-like title instead of a Battlefield game, and that alone angered many fans. However, instead of allowing players to select a class to play as, they had to select from ten different specialists with their own abilities. Battlefield 2042 was the first Battlefield to offer cross-platform play and included the iconic modes of conquest and breakthrough. The loss of single-player was not a huge loss for some players, as they came for the multiplayer shenanigans.
