Battlefield 2042’s Portal mode created a cool zombie mode. But it lasted a very, very short time. And there’s a bigger problem behind it.
Anyone who has ever said (Hentai is art) on a date, family reunion or business dinner knows this: that feeling that you would have been better off taking the other exit at the last mental turn. Battlefield 2042 can also sing a song about this kind of mistake – most recently, for example, with its new zombie mode, which had to be taken offline again immediately after release. And the reason for this stands for a much bigger problem that has plagued the game since release.
What zombie mode?
Battlefield 2042’s Portal mode lands not only community creations, but also custom modes and playlists curated by DICE. One of them revolved around the undead: Zombie Survival confronted a team of human players with hordes of zombies that they had to clear out of the way. Actually a whimsical affair, but Battlefield 2042’s XP system broke the mode’s neck.
Portal as XP Farm
Since release, Portal mode has been plagued by XP farming. In concrete terms, this means that people use the customisation options of the portal editor to collect experience points at breakneck speed and thus unlock stuff faster. Of course, this disadvantages all those who play in the regular all-out warfare modes and unlock stuff there at normal speed.
DICE therefore disabled XP in Portal after release as a stopgap solution, but now there’s a tiered solution: You only get the full amount of XP in Portal matches officially curated by DICE. If you create your own deathmatch instead, you get fewer points. So everything is actually fine, because Zombie Survival is such an official mode.
But the developers apparently underestimated or overlooked how easy it is to farm experience points with the zombie mode, because you end up shooting countless stupid bots. At least this is confirmed by Senior Design Director Justin Wiebe from Ripple Effect, the support studio for Battlefield 2042:
We’ve removed the Zombie’s mode and replaced with Gun Game. Hopefully we can fix it in the future and keep it in alignment with standard game progression. We’ve also tightened our review process to make sure this doesn’t happen again. Thanks for your patience and understanding.
– Justin Wiebe (@JA_Wiebe) January 21, 2022
I’m not going to lie, this one shouldn’t have gotten through our review process. I think our desire to create a fun zombies mode clouded our ability to see such a simple thing like the impact it would have on progression. I’m very sorry for the hardship this has caused. https://t.co/01MXOdWGN5
– Justin Wiebe (@JA_Wiebe) January 21, 2022
A major problem
It’s possible that Zombie Survival will return in an adapted form – but with less XP payout. This incident stands for a bigger problem: The progression of Battlefield 2042 is simply broken. In regular multiplayer, for example, you have to make a ridiculous number of kills with fighter jets to unlock everything, but that’s just the tip of the iceberg.
During the review event for Battlefield 2042, the developers assured us that they could deal with the danger of XP farms – but that’s exactly what hurts Battlefield Portal, actually 2042’s most creative mode, considerably.
The first official season of Battlefield 2042 is still to come. According to leaks, the time will come in March 2022. Then we can expect new content, balancing adjustments and the first Battle Pass. Do you think the game can still get its act together?
