Alright, so, this year's E3 has been a bit of a bombshell. You can read all about the highlights in our content coverage, but the important thing today is the game that kicked it all off: the new Battlefield title from DICE and Electronic Arts. There's a lot of ground to cover about it, for sure, but the thing we'd like to discuss today is the Battlefield 2042 single-player evolution. Namely, its removal of the campaign and a new focus on bot matches for solo players.

That's right - the next Battlefield game will have no campaign mode of any kind. Scandalous as this might sound to Battlefield newbies, the truth of the matter is that original Battlefield games never had campaign modes, either. In fact, it wasn't until Bad Company, the franchise's console-oriented offshoot, that DICE began experimenting with solo narratives. In a way, this is a return to form for the long-lasting series.

The question that remains, though, is simple. Are bots really a decent replacement for solo modes in Battlefield? Our answer is - yes. But for reasons that might not be obvious at first. In the next couple of sections, we'll explain why we believe this was the right choice for DICE. With just a few caveats to boot.

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Will Battlefield 2042 Single-Player be Enough?

Here's an honest question - when was the last time you played a Battlefield game purely for its single-player campaign mode? Our bet? Your answer is probably 'Bad Company 2', which - as you may recall - was built from the ground-up to offer a fun and enticing solo campaign for players. Bad Company 2 came out way back in 2010, and the newer Battlefield single-player modes have arguably been merely side-shows, with multiplayer coming in center-stage.

Now, don't get us wrong - Battlefield campaigns have often been fun, and we're glad that we played through them. The gist of it, though, is that it's multiplayer that dictates how a Battlefield game is made. Doesn't it make perfect sense for DICE to embrace this fact for mainline BF games and use this incredibly strong core for its single-player experience, too?

Hypothetically, if BF2042 bots were mostly indistinguishable from other players, there's literally no reason for DICE not to pour all of their manpower into getting the multiplayer mode as good as it possibly can be. Remember about 7-8 years back when virtually every game that came out had a weird offshoot multiplayer mode attached, one that added virtually nothing to the experience? Most players agreed back then that developers should focus on one or the other if it makes sense. What DICE is doing with BF2042 is precisely just that.

Battlefield 2042 Single Player Will Not be Offline

While we do generally have a solid idea of how things will function for solo players in the upcoming Battlefield game, more information is always pouring in through various interviews and data drops. Recently, for example, we learned that "while you can play solo against AI soldiers if you'd like to practice, it will be in an online setting." In other words, there's no offline mode in BF2042, sad as that might be.

Instead, it seems that DICE may be experimenting with an entirely novel type of AI - one that's offloaded to the cloud-based server infrastructure, rather than being calculated client-side. This hasn't yet been officially confirmed, mind, but it seems to be a reasonably likely solution.

At the same time, the game will support both solo and cooperative play across the board, so this might not be as big of a problem as you may suspect.

What makes Battlefield 2042 Bots a Decent Idea?

All of the above leads to the core of our argument - by adding bots over a campaign mode, DICE can deliver the trademark Battlefield combat experience even to solo players. In truth, it's multiplayer that comes to mind when we think 'Battlefield'. In our book, this is a good decision when all is said and done. However, execution will be what makes or breaks the premise of bots in Battlefield 2042.

If AI-controlled units react and behave in a way that's reasonably similar to how players react and behave, we've got a winner. Now, of course, we don't expect BF2042 bots to pull off things shown in the reveal trailer. If they could just act mostly like real players act, we're going to be thrilled.

DICE's goal, from what we can tell, is to make the entire experience reasonably seamless. Ideally, players shouldn't be able to discern bots from players in moment-to-moment gameplay. This could easily go either way, depending on how well developers integrate AI into the experience. It's somewhat unreasonable to expect industry-defining AI developments from BF2042, but it'd be nice if DICE could push the envelope just a bit with Battlefield 2042 single-player.

Battlefield 2042 Co-Op: How's that going to work?

According to DICE, players will be able to join forces and fight off bots exclusively, if that's what they want. Bit of a shocker, isn't it? The premise is basically identical to that of Insurgency games. Now, we don't expect dedicated cooperative game modes, but DICE did say that bots will be available in all of the game's various modes. This means that they'll be capable of completing objectives! Sounds simple, but it's actually pretty unprecedented in this niche.

Since the game will support up to 128 players per match, this means that servers should be able to push up to a whopping 127 bot instances simultaneously. Concerned about performance yet? We are, a bit, though we're sure DICE has something up their proverbial sleeve. In co-op, up to 64 human players will fight against up 64 bots. While it's still impossible to tell whether the game will play mostly the same as it would with a full player-based server, we're hopeful.

Should We Be Worried, At All?

Well, arguably - no. We do have some potential concerns that we'd like to see expanded upon, though. Here are the caveats that we're looking forward to seeing explained:

From what we've seen so far, these questions haven't been tackled just yet. Disappointing as that would be, it does make sense that actual progression would be locked behind pure multiplayer matches, much as it was in Call of Duty: Modern Warfare. There, bot matches offered players a chance to use all the game's weapons, attachments, and gadgets by default.

The obvious issue with this approach is that BF2042 aims to mingle regular human players with bots to bolster player counts on each individual server. Therefore, killing a bot should be no different from killing a player. Right? Sounds a bit too good to be true if you ask us. If this is the case, then solo or coop players will be entirely capable of ignoring "proper" multiplayer combat and duking it out with bots instead. While many other games, such as Insurgency: Sandstorm, do function like this, we can't help but wonder if there's a catch.

We'll have to wait and see how things pan out, but we're eager to get started with BF2042 regardless. Stay tuned for more - right here at 2Game!

Secure your access to the early Battlefield 2042 beta and grab pre-order goodies with a discount!

Alright, so, this year’s E3 has been a bit of a bombshell. You can read all about the highlights in our content coverage, but the important thing today is the game that kicked it all off: the new Battlefield title from DICE and Electronic Arts. There’s a lot of ground to cover about it, for […]