Battlefield Briefing: Progression and Cosmetics

Good news, No-Pats: Early Access for the Battlefield 2042 Open Beta will be available starting October 6, with full access starting October 8th* and running until October 10th. For many of you this will be the first hands-on opportunity with Battlefield 2042 and we’re excited to see you there!

During the Open Beta our intent is to provide you with the kind of experience where you can focus on enjoying the sandbox. That means that we’ve made some adjustments to systems and features you’ll otherwise encounter in the full game, so you’ll find that we’ve pre-unlocked a wide selection of hardware (weapons, vehicles and gadgets) for you, and let you make the most of the time you’ll have with the Open Beta.

You’ll be playing Conquest on the map Orbital as one of 4 Specialists: Boris, Casper, Falck, and Mackay.

For further details on the Open Beta, visit the Battlefield website.

In the Open Beta you’ll start to get a sense of our approaches to Progression and Cosmetics in Battlefield 2042. That means a first glimpse of how much XP you’ll be earning, and the different ways that you’ll be able to earn it in gameplay, the return of Ribbons, and all new features like the Player Card.

In this briefing, we’ll take you through how these systems will work when you go from the Open Beta into the full game, and by taking a closer look at how you can customize your Specialists, weapons, and vehicles with various cosmetics.

Progression

Earning Experience

Our design approach for earning XP in Battlefield 2042 is to reward the most XP to players who play the objectives and stick with their teams and squads until the match ends, followed by further various actions such as kills, assists and other support actions.

On top of that, Ribbons are a great way to earn XP, and we are excited that they are back in a new way for Battlefield 2042. Ribbons are earned by completing different gameplay objectives, and have up to 3 tiers which each will grant a greater XP reward. The more progress you make on a specific Ribbon, the more XP you’ll earn at the end of round. Here’s a few examples of some of those Ribbons:

Objective Ribbon - Play the objective
Wingman Ribbon - Support teammates with revives and various assists
Logistics Ribbon - Heal and resupply others and repair vehicles
Intel Ribbon - Spot and disrupt enemies, such as via EMP’s or destroying drones
Combat Ribbon - Score kills and destroy vehicles

An example of the aforementioned Ribbons – work in progress

At launch you’ll be ready to jump onto the Battlefield and start earning XP, up to the max Player Level of 99. During your journey of leveling and progression, you will unlock Specialists, weapons, vehicles and gadgets and a variety of cosmetics. But once you reach that milestone, your adventure isn’t over. You can continue leveling up through what we call S-levels, starting at S001 and ending at S999. While there are no further rewards tied to the S-levels, they are the ultimate way to show off your veterancy on the Battlefield!

Unlocking your weapons

Once you earn enough XP, you are promoted to the next Player Level. With every new level comes new rewards, including weapons, gadgets, cosmetics, and more.

When first starting your journey you’ll have access to a varied set of Specialists, weapons, vehicles and gadgets. This allows you to discover several playstyles before you come across further unlocks during the leveling up process.

There’s a lot of hardware for you to unlock in Battlefield 2042 as you progress through Player Levels. However, the journey doesn’t begin and end with just collecting weapons and gadgets.

Mastery

Hardware you unlock has its own mastery-based progression journey, with you earning new unlocks for reaching certain criteria with that hardware. For example, score enough kills with the M5A3 assault rifle to unlock a new scope. Or for a vehicle, gain new equipment as you use it to accomplish goals (like capturing points).

At certain Mastery milestones such as performing 40 kills with a weapon, you’ll also gain cosmetics for that hardware such as a new skin, and a new tier of Mastery Badge you acquire to decorate your Player Card and boast about your achievements.

Earning the top Mastery rewards for hardware and Specialist is a monumental task, with each cosmetic acknowledging your dedication and skill level. A great way to show off your skills to your fellow players!

“To help you show off your mastery of different play styles, we created a unique unified color scheme (black and red) across all the Mastery cosmetics, whether it is the Player Levels, Badges, outfits for Specialists, or Weapon Skins. Whenever you see those colors on a player, you’ll immediately understand they are one to be feared” says Feras Musmar, Design Director.

The Player Card

With Battlefield 2042, you’ll have a customizable Player Card that will allow you to show off your Player Level, Player Icon and Title, Player Card Art (background) and up to three Badges you’ve earned by mastering your weapons, vehicles, gadgets and Specialists. Your Player Level, or later S-level, is determined by your overall progression, with no separate levels tied to class or weapon and vehicle performance.

You’ll be able to see and customize your own Player Card via the Play screen. Of course, when you are killed by another player you’ll be reminded that they got the better of you through seeing their Player Card in the kill screen. Lastly, you’ll be able to view the Player Cards in the end of round screen, and various other areas throughout the game.

"We’re excited about Player Cards as a way for you to self-express your identity and showcase your achievements across the game. With such a wide range of different play styles from our Battlefield players, we can only hope we have enough variety of awards to match that creativity of play! We’re looking forward to seeing the unique customized Player Cards you’ll come up with”, says Musmar.

Here’s an example of a Player Card you might see in-game:

As you play, you’ll earn customization items (such as new Player Card Art, and Player Icons and Titles) for your Player Card through Player Level progression, or unique action and discoveries you make while playing the game. As for what those actions and discoveries entail, we’re looking forward to you exploring and finding out for yourself when the game launches.

Cross-progression

As a reminder, we also have cross-progression functionality within Battlefield 2042, which will be shared across all platforms and travel with you wherever you go as long as you play on the same EA account. This means your unlocked progress and completed purchases in your PlayStation® copy of the game will carry over onto the Xbox or PC version, and vice versa.

For example, your new unlocked skin for your M5A3 assault rifle on PlayStation®, alongside your in-game progress such as Player Level and Mastery, carries with you if you now choose to jump into the action on Xbox Series X|S.

While there are a few limitations to cross-progression we want to make you aware of, such as Special Edition cosmetics, the Digital Artbook & Soundtrack, unspent Premium Currency and pre-order items not carrying over, we’re excited about giving you the freedom to play and progress wherever you choose to play.

Cosmetics

Battlefield 2042 will have a wide variety of cosmetics to give you flexibility when it comes to choosing appearances for your Specialists and Loadout, enabling you to express yourself on the Battlefield in a way that’s important to you.

You’ll be able to earn cosmetics through gameplay, or by purchasing them.

Skins

There are multiple ways of earning skins and cosmetics for Specialists, weapons and vehicles. These cosmetics are available in the following rarities:

Common (Grey)
Rare (Blue)
Epic (Purple)
Legendary (Gold)

Rare and Epic Specialist skins have both a Headgear component and a Body component. You can mix and match Headgears with different bodies if you wish. However, Legendary skins are a single outfit and cannot be mixed with any other skin.

Here are some examples of cosmetics you’ll earn and unlock by playing the game, through the Mastery:

An example of a Tier 1 Outfit – work in progress.

An example of a Tier 1 AH-64GX skin – work in progress.

An example of a Tier 1 PKP-BP skin – work in progress.

Weapon skins apply to the whole weapon. Whatever attachments you have on your weapons will be affected by the skin you have applied. You’ll also be able to unlock weapon charms, all of which can be equipped on nearly every weapon in the game.

Specific to vehicles, you’ll also be able to modify your vehicles with skins and decals.

Battlefield 2042 will also have unlockable melee weapons earned through Player Levels and progression, all of which have their own unique Takedown animation tied to them.

Dev Corner

During the Open Beta you’ll be able to experience the all-out warfare of Conquest, on Orbital. We sat down with Level Designer Kalle Nystrom and Lead Level Designer Shashank Uchil to talk more about what you can expect when you’re ready to jump onto the Battlefield.

We also caught up again with Michael Hartin, Narrative Designer on how Orbital adds to the story and The World of 2042.

Michael: Orbital is set in Kourou, French Guiana where it’s a race against time and hostile conditions as you battle around the site of an imminent rocket launch.

Since the catastrophic blackout of 2040, America’s mission has been to regain a foothold within earth’s orbit. The former EUSA spaceport in French Guiana had lain dormant since the collapse of the EU, but with the facility still operational it made the location an ideal target for the US to reestablish their space program. The Americans worked in near secret for months, preparing an unprecedented number of rockets for blast off. But when launch day arrives, leaked intel enables Russian forces to undertake a last-minute attack to ensure America's space race crashes and burns.

What served as art and gameplay inspirations for Orbital?

Kalle: The launch center is inspired by a mix of the Kennedy Space Center, and the Tanegashima Space Center in Japan. The terrain itself is inspired by New Zealand even though the map itself is in French Guiana.

For gameplay inspiration, we looked to Caspian Border, which was beloved by the community. It’s just a great circular compass map; everything works there. You have infantry spaces, you have vehicle spaces; if I was going to speak grandly, I’d say that Caspian Border is an example of a Battlefield experience where all the pieces click together and everything just works.

Orbital was designed with these same sorts of spaces in mind

How did the team approach designing a map that is so much bigger than anything DICE has done in the past?

Kalle: The key thing is ensuring you know where to go. In Battlefield V, it was essentially 150 meters per flag. With the addition of Battlefield 2042’s Sector system it’s “I’ve fought a long time for this flag. Now where do I go?” Maybe there’s another flag 500 meters in one direction, or 200 in another. You have to decide how to get there; by vehicle? On foot? By the air? We want to make players’ objectives (and how to accomplish them) more readable.

Are you able to share some cool details about the map with us?

Kalle: There are some really cool moments, big and small, in the map. As far as big moments go, the rocket either taking off or...failing to take off are very exciting.

You also have one of the flags on top of the assembly building, which will result in a lot of aerial combat and fighting against helicopters. It’s a key strategic point because you can fly down to several other capture points.

When bad weather hits the map, the lighting across Orbital will shift. The map will get dark, and big lights will turn on giving the whole experience an ominous, tense atmosphere.

Why are you excited for players to play Orbital?

Shashank: In Battlefield 2042, we want our maps to have something for everyone. Orbital, in particular, does that very well. If there’s a particular playstyle you like, you’ll find it accommodated in Orbital.

It’s also a very vertical map. The tallest thing in the whole map is in the center, so traversing by air is super satisfying.

Kalle: The map is truly meant to be a big sandbox. That’s why you have all of these aircrafts and high points where you can parachute to other capture points. Orbital is a map where if you want to jump into the action you’ll quickly learn where to go and how to get there quickly.

Shashank: Here’s an example. I’m near the launchpad, and can go either right or left, climb the radio tower, or go straight across. I never go from A to B, but always fly from flag to flag, which is something you can’t do on every map. Once you learn the map, you can really avoid the chaos that’s happening at the lower levels.

Do you foresee immersive, player-driven moments when you design specific areas in a map or do they just happen organically?

Kalle: It’s a mix. Sniping spots and traversal-related moments are designed but some of it is very organic. There’s also careful balancing that happens in these maps based on playtesting.

Shashank: In Orbital, we knew the radio towers were going to be a sniping hotspot but we didn’t plan for players to go to the hangar and launchpad, as we saw them do during the Technical Playtest. That deviation was organic. But we knew people would use the towers as sniper nests, so we had to make sure other players could get up there. That’s why you have ziplines to provide easy access.

Another change we made is to how tall each capture area is. Previously they were 100 meters tall. Then we noticed helicopters could float and capture those points easily. We went in and dropped the max meters to 50. Helicopters can still try to capture, but have to get low and players can easily shoot them with rockets. That’s an example of how we balance capturing points with helicopters and airplanes.

What gameplay can players expect from Orbital in the Open Beta?

Kalle: After the recent Technical Playtest, we’ve made several edits and quality of life changes based on player feedback, such as to the rooftop flag now being on the assembly building. It used to be inside the building, so that’s a pretty big difference.

In general, the map plays smoother now and just looks better. This means that during Open Beta you can expect the full launch experience. We’re super excited for you to experience the rocket and weather systems!

Anything you’d like to say to the community

Kalle & Shashank: We’re looking forward to seeing you play the map in different environments that you can experience there. We think it looks especially cool in the bad weather since it becomes kind of a night map. We’ve put a lot of love in the creation of this map, so we hope you’ll enjoy it, and we’re excited that you finally get to play it.

That’s all for today. As always, we’d love to hear your thoughts and questions and we’re excited to see you join us during the Open Beta in October. We’re looking forward to you sharing your favorite Battlefield moments with us.

Stay safe, No-Pats.

*CONDITIONS AND RESTRICTIONS APPLY. SEE https://www.ea.com/games/battlefield/battlefield-2042/disclaimers FOR DETAILS.