Battlefield 2042 update fixes crashing, revives and the OP hovercraft

Battlefield 2042 has received a new update fixing various bugs, which comes with the promise of more substantial changes next week to balance and performance: detailed here. The crash problems some players have run into should all be fixed now, certain vehicles have been rebalanced, and "situations where you could not be revived or respawn as intended" should no longer happen. Apparently some bots also refused to revive players, which feels a bit Terminator, but will now behave as intended.

The fixes include a reduction on bullet spread from all weapons except Shotguns, and a nerf to the PP-29 which was apparently overperforming outside of its intended combat range. The no-revive situations were apparently happening when players were killed close to obstacles such as walls or water, and there was also a bug where players could get stuck in a downed state and be unable to respawn: both are fixed, and DICE has also added a 30 second timer to the 'downed' status that will force a respawn if required.

A few vehicle weapons have been nerfed: the MD540 Nightbird Mounted 20mm Cannons had massive splash damage and radial impact, but no more. Similarly the KA-520 Super Hokum 30mm Cannon has had its damage, range, and splash damage reduced, but bullet spread increased. The miniguns on all land vehicles have been reduced in effectiveness, while the LCAA Hovercraft has a different armour now which increases its vulnerability to certain weapon types. Regarding the hovercraft DICE writes: "we designed this vehicle to behave as an alternative to the LATV4, but not as an upgrade [...] we have balanced the health of this vehicle to bring it more in-line with its design, and made sure that its weaponry is appropriately effective."

There are also a bunch of tweaks to Battlefield Portal: the UAV-1 has been re-enabled ("It was overpowered, and we’ve made adjustments to account for that"), there's greatly reduced health regeneration delay and speed, increased missile damage against vehicles and infantry, while "the drone is now able to roadkill enemies" whatever that means.

There's a granular list of the tweaks here, which include fiddling with specialists and changes to things like how often a smoke grenade bounces. The game's third update is due next week, and promises even more substantial changes to a game that has had a rocky start.

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Rich is a games journalist with 15 years' experience, beginning his career on Edge magazine before working for a wide range of outlets, including Ars Technica, Eurogamer, GamesRadar+, Gamespot, the Guardian, IGN, the New Statesman, Polygon, and Vice. He was the editor of Kotaku UK, the UK arm of Kotaku, for three years before joining PC Gamer. He is the author of a Brief History of Video Games, a full history of the medium, which the Midwest Book Review described as "[a] must-read for serious minded game historians and curious video game connoisseurs alike."