Battlefield 2042 players looking for some hard news about DICE’s plans for the future of the game or any hints about upcoming content, will be disappointed to learn that we might not be getting any of that for a while.
Though the embattled developer did post its first official word in 2022 earlier this week, much of it wasn’t particularly well received. DICE announced and released a small new Battlefield 2042 patch, made a few adjustments to XP earn rate in Portal, and showed off a new scoreboard design that’s set to arrive in mid-to-late February as part of a bigger patch.
Unfortunately, the developer did not bring up any of the myriad of design problems many players take issue with. We also didn’t get any hints about what new content we can expect, an estimated date for when Season One might begin, or really anything to stop the most cynical from declaring Battlefield 2042 dead.
The absence of solid details about the future of the game, and the lack of high-level design discussions, had another effect, too: stealthily confirming a leak from December. Battlefield dataminer Temporyal, who’s been one of the most trusted sources when it comes to uncovering unreleased content in Battlefield games, shared a few details about Battlefield 2042’s first season, based on what can be found in the game files.
According to their findings, Season One of Battlefield 2042’s post-launch content will introduce a new map, seemingly named Exposure. The map is set in British Columbia, Canada, where a landslide has “exposed a secret research facility” and caused a conflict between the US and Russia.
First image of the unreleased #Battlefield2042 map “Exposure” (no high resolution available). Lore recap:
???????? Set in Canada (British Columbia)
???? Landslide has exposed a secret research facility
???????? Russians suspect a military weapon insideExposure seems to be part of Season 1. pic.twitter.com/gj51UdZTaP
— temporyal (@temporyal) December 22, 2021
More interestingly, they also found references to the first season kicking off in March, four months after the game’s release. According to Temporyal, 12 pre-season Weekly Missions exist in the game files, which corroborates that March target – unless some of those were created to fill the gap in case the season gets delayed.
When this information was published towards the end of last year, many assumed March would be too late for Season One to start, and dismissed the findings as outdated or placeholder. Now that DICE has already talked about what’s coming in February without addressing future content, it’s safe to assume that March is likely when the first season will indeed begin.
It’s worth keeping in mind that Season One could start earlier than that, of course. DICE may have simply wanted to hold back on revealing any details before they’re finalised. That said, the way the developer has been going about this whole thing certainly doesn’t inspire a lot of confidence.
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