Image: DICE

Battlefield 2042 ate a lot of crap at launch, and rightly so. For a game claiming to launch as a premium shooter at a premium price, it certainly came out undercooked.

Most people just said the game was “bad”, which I’ve always argued wasn’t strictly true. Much of what was there was actually fine, it was just released in a sparse and not ready state. With a little work – the kind of work DICE could have afforded with an extra year, and without the pressure of having to release an unfinished game in the middle of a pandemic to satisfy EA executives and investors – I I definitely held out hope that the game might one day turn out better than good. Good, even.

Now that we’re two major seasonal updates into the game’s lifespan, I don’t think it’s quite there yet, but you can definitely see “Good” on the horizon. The game’s major additions, like new maps, weapons, and specialists, have of course helped flesh out the experience, but the seemingly endless quality-of-life improvements to every other corner of the game, from menus to icons, do just as much work.

Much of the game’s early reviews focused on how raw the game was, how it seemed to lack so much of what made previous games better. Stuff like dashboards and lifetime statistics. Stuff that’s now in the game. It was also a bit empty and vague, like how some maps were held together by a handful of broken menu screens. It’s fixed now too. Battlefield 2042 finally feels more like a cohesive, functional video game, instead of a series of maps held together with tape.

Everything feels more complete, more at home in the world built by DICE for this iteration of the series. After a few tweaks and tweaks, Specialists now look as serious as the weather-ravaged maps they fight forand the maps begin to take on enough size and consistency to also flesh out the world itself.

Basically, there’s enough polish and content here that you got this in October 2021, instead of what was actually rushed, you might have just thought, OK, it’s the new Battlefield game, let’s check it out -the. It’s a low bar to jump I know – meeting basic functionality standards for a AAA game release isn’t something we should be actively celebrating – but the 2042 launch was low so any progress is a progress.

Indeed, things are falling into place so well – albeit slowly – that I think once we get one or two more new maps, maybe the same number of specialists, some more weapons (the sniper rifles have been largely ignored since launch), and the process of reworking the launch maps is complete (DICE is going back and tweaking a lot of them, adding more terrain and detail), I think “Good” is definitely at the scope of this game.

Battlefield 2042 | Season 2: Master of Arms gameplay trailer

Of course, we didn’t get to this point out of thin air, as most of the game’s updates come in the form of its first two seasons. I already covered season 01 which was surprisingly fun, and Season 02 dropped last week. Luckily (?) I was on Covid leave last week so had the chance to play hard, and came away impressed with how everything is so much more interesting and enjoyable than what was available during the launch.

The new armored vehicle, somewhere between the LATV4 and the Wildcat in terms of speed, protection and firepower, was a pleasure to drive. Between its passenger capacity and its ability to drop spawn points, it’s already a favorite of recon players. Crawford, the new specialist, has a mobile minigun turret, as silly and fun to use as it sounds. The best part of season 02 however is the new map, which I was on at first sight, but which is actually in practice only three long “lanes” (a desert area for vehicles, the interior of a vessel for close-quarters infantry bloodbaths, and a sniper’s paradise among palm trees), offering three completely different styles of play that are all only a short jog away.

So yes, both seasons of Battlefield 2042 have been great, bringing to life a game that many would have thought landed Dead On Arrival. Remember though: AAA games, especially persistent online ones like this, are usually too big to fail, for better or worse.and 2042’s slow improvement after such a disastrous release is the latest example.

Image: Ubisoft

When I think of Assassin’s Creed games, I often remember big cities, cool assassinations, climbing high towers, and maybe a few sea songs. I rarely remember how these games end because they often have forgettable or boring endings, sometimes with bad boss fights. Assassin’s Creed Syndicate therefore stands out as an exception with its fantastic final mission and boss fight.

Oh, and in case it’s not obvious, spoilers for Assassin’s Creed Syndicate below.

I’m not going to explain the whole story of Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, but here’s a quick recap to get you up to speed. A bad Templar controls London and is an asshole. Twins Evie and Jacob Frye come to London, meet another stabbed man, Henry Green, and work together to defeat the big bad Templar, Crawford Starrick. (He’s got a bad mustache and things.)

Finally, after many missions and side quests, you reach the end of the game. Starrick goes to attack and kill the Queen of England in her palace during a grand ball and the two twins and Green must sneak, stop him and find an ancient Isu artifact buried under Buckingham Palace. (It’s an Assassin’s Creed game, so it’s legally required to be part of the ending.)

What makes this mission so wonderful is the way Syndicate uses both twins at the same time. For most of the game, the twins are separate characters that you swap between whenever you want. But this final mission brings them together and creates one grand final mission that uses them both in different ways. Evie, clad in a full dress, must rely on social stealth to reach the blueprints that will reveal the location of the vault, which is located somewhere below the palace. Meanwhile, Jacob must climb around the palace, taking out the impostor guards and freeing the kidnapped and tied up real royal guards.

Allowing you to play with both twins at the same time is not only a great way to use Syndicate’s two main characters, but it also helps the entire final mission feel bigger and more exciting than any other mission in the game. game. You even meet the queen. It’s a big problem.

Finally, after the wily Starrick obtains the key to Isu’s Hidden Vault, Jacob and Evie pursue him and a grand final boss fight ensues. But again, like the first part of the mission, this final fight alternates between the two twins. You attack Starrick as such, then get knocked back, then the other twin dodges Isu’s magical walls of light and attacks again. On paper, this may seem repetitive. But in practice, you tend to feel like you and your twin are working together. And that makes Starrick a more intimidating and interesting villain.

Screenshot: Ubisoft / Kotaku

This is the biggest criticism I have with this ending. Starrick is supposed to be the big bad in the game, but he’s so far removed from what’s going on while you’re playing that I didn’t really care about him or his goals. But the final mission works despite this by using the twins as tandem weapons. Maybe it would have been nice if more of the game used them as partners like this, but holding back until the end makes the final mission and the fight more exciting and compelling.

While more recent Assassin’s Creed games have allowed players to choose between male and female main characters, neither succeed as well as Syndicate. By having the two characters playable and fully realized as separate people, with their own goals and personalities, it allows the story to better build on them and it allows Ubisoft to cast them both into the final mission to create. the best ending of the series to date. .

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