Battlefield 2042’s mysterious new mode has been unveiled, and it’s taking Battlefield into a more sandbox-style, do-it-yourself direction. Battlefield Portal will allow players to use maps, vehicles, and loadouts from classic Battlefield games and add their own custom-made sets of rules, then share them for anyone to use.
A new trailer for the multiplayer game debuted at EA Play Live today, and it highlights how strange things can get. You could, for example, set up a match between 40 Supports from Battlefield 3, armed only with defibrillator paddles, and 40 knife-wielding German Assaults from Battlefield 1942.
At launch, EA says Battlefield Portal will include the seven warfare maps that come with Battlefield 2042, plus another six pulled from classic Battlefield games. These include El Alamein and Battle of the Bulge from Battlefield 1942, Arica Harbor and Valparaiso from Battlefield Bad Company 2, and Caspian Border and Noshahr Canals from Battlefield 3. These maps have all been rebuilt in the latest Frostbite engine, EA says, and in several cases feature new events and details.
In the trailer below, you can watch the massive antenna in Caspian Border tumble down in the midst of a fierce firefight. Bad Company 2’s Valparaiso now has a ‘low tide’ version that will allow the map to accommodate many more players than the original did, EA explains.
Battlefield Portal will also give players a robust logic editor that allows them to create and tweak the rules of their matches or trigger events. You can determine the number of players on a team, limit which loadouts and vehicles are available, determine the order of maps in the playlist, and much more. You’ll be able to start with an established template, like Team Deathmatch or Free For All, or begin building your own mode from scratch.
Perhaps the wildest thing about Battlefield Portal is that you’ll be able to do all this editing from any web browser. You’ll log in to your Battlefield account, and on the landing page you’ll find all the modes you’ve created, plus some of Dice and Ripple Effect’s own custom modes and a curated list of the best community modes – so even if you’re not feeling particularly creative, you can still enjoy some of the weirdness that Battlefield Portal will undoubtedly elicit from fellow players. You’ll also be able to share anything you create with the wider Battlefield community – while you can’t actually edit the levels themselves, just about everything else is fair game.
EA says using the web-based editing tool means the studio can quickly update and iterate on Battlefield Portal without the need to frequently patch the Battlefield client. You’ll also be able to access the Battlefield Portal landing page from within Battlefield 2042, of course.
Battlefield Portal will arrive on the Battlefield 2042 release date, which is set for late October this year.
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