Battlefield 2042: Worst Bugs Discovered So Far

Battlefield 2042’s highly anticipated release was undermined by bizarre, game-breaking bugs and glitches, the worst of which have really dragged down the experiences of some players. Since its early access launch on November 12, 2021, developer DICE’s most recent installment has received much criticism from players as they found themselves largely unable play a steady match. Though many glitches have been hot-fixed and patched, these bugs have undoubtedly made for a frustrating and tiresome experience of the new game at times. 

Battlefield 2042 is a competitive multiplayer first-person shooter set in a dystopian near future. Battlefield 2042 doesn’t have a single-player story, but the premise behind the multiplayer is that it takes place in a war between the US and Russia, gameplay is centered around large battles and objectives, with the futuristic setting allowing for ramped-up weapons and gear, like drones and turrets. If high technology comes with many hurdles as far as overcoming unintended behaviors and functionality is concerned, then Battlefield 2042 is doing a bang-up job simulating that, though if not, the bugs remain themselves a bit overwhelming.

Despite its innovations, Battlefield 2042‘s launch has been marred with bugs and controversy. Many players have criticized the latest entry for the changes it made to the series’ core formula, including the removal of Classes, but the severity of the various bugs and glitches has largely surpassed the narrative surrounding the game’s more controversial design decisions. 2042, like previous Battlefield games, has not been released in the most polished state, and there are plenty of significant bugs that players have encountered in the months since its launch.

Battlefield 2042’s Loadout & Revive Bugs

A major glitch encountered was that players simply could not spawn into the game; players could not see their character or loadout selection, nor select their spawn location. As the game was highly anticipated and hype began around its pre-production in late 2018, this was an understandably frustrating bug to encounter when just trying to play a match. To top that off, when players were able to load into a game, Battlefield 2042‘s loadout bug meant that their pre-designed weaponry loadouts were missing, and replaced with generic weapons without attachments or improvements. Quick fixes were identified by players for these glitches in a complicated process of prohibiting crossplay on the console settings or relaunching the match.

If players did manage to load into games with their specific weapon loadouts, this was not a promise that the match would play out smoothly. Another common glitch has been that players cannot be revived. After being downed by an enemy, players encountered no button option to respawn on the overlay or menu. Characters would be left laying on the ground mortally injured, unable to call for help nor redeploy manually. Additionally, other players were unable to revive the downed victim in Battlefield 2042, who was left in a helpless, miserable purgatory. Leaving the match fixed this bug momentarily, but this was far from an ideal fix, especially if players were queued with a party.

Hit Registration & Weapon Bloom Issues In Battlefield 2042

Even if a player was able to spawn and even redeploy successfully, the abysmal server performance in the early days of the game’s release meant that gameplay was far from fluid. Even something as simple as damaging an enemy was nigh on impossible at times. At varying ranges, hit registration issues would mean that enemy players would not be damaged despite seemingly being hit by bullets, and seeing blood particles exit the enemy player model. There would often be no hit markers for bullets that clearly hit, and players just could not damage enemies. Battlefield 2042‘s hit registration bug was found to improve after server crashes, which is obviously not a reliable fix.

A separate issue causing unreliable damage was encountered with the weapon bloom bug. Weapon bloom, or bullet spread, is a feature in the game to make gun recoil more realistic after being fired; its effects are unique to each weapon and can be reduced by aiming down sights. While this is a normal feature of first-person shooter games, the weapon bloom bug affected all automatic weapons, causing their bullet spread to become exaggerated and meaning that bullets would not reliably hit. During this time, the SMG PP 29 remained unaffected by exaggerated weapon bloom and became the meta weapon for a while. Patch 1.04 reduced weapon bloom on all guns (except shotguns), aiming for better accuracy during gameplay.

Battlefield 2042’s Rubberbanding Bugs

Major issues have been encountered in server-wide rubber banding problems (that being movement problems where characters pop backward to previously occupied spaces often due to high latency issues). During early access, this issue was linked to a throwable grenade, Proximity Sensors, which were shortly disabled and investigated. In turn, these investigations caused visual bugs with other throwables, as players found the incorrect items shown on in the UI when selecting grenades.

Similar server issues were encountered during early access for multiple game modes, especially All-Out Warfare, in which up to 128 players would play out massive battles on largescale maps. One of these maps, Breakaway, is a petroleum extraction complex set in dynamic Antarctica. Stuttering and rubber banding issues were commonly encountered on this map after the large silos were destroyed, causing server-wide lag on the map. These issues were addressed with server-side upgrades before Battlefield 2042’s full launch on November 19.

The Battlefield 2042 Invisibility Glitch

A final, hair-wrenching glitch encountered was the invisibility bug, which caused players to spawn in completely invisible. This made it impossible for enemies to see the character, but the invisible player could move, shoot, and interact as normal. This bug appeared to be caused by spawning in on a vehicle; if the seats filled up while the player was respawning, this caused the character model to spawn outside of the vehicle, completely transparent. Of course, this glitch was likely abused by players who could now assassinate others without ever being seen, leading to plenty of match imbalances when this glitch occurred. Thankfully, the invisibility bug was addressed in the recent Battlefield 2042 Update 3.1 released on December 9.

Battlefield 2042 has amassed just over 70,000 negative reviews on Steam, seemingly a huge disappointment for the loyal players who adored the previous games and waited years for this release. But despite the multitude of glitches that have made Battlefield 2042 a downright miserable experience at times, there’s still plenty of fun to be had, and if the game continues to improve as it has been, hopefully will end up providing a satisfactory experience for fans that have, thus far, felt like they haven’t gotten their due.

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