How Battlefield 2042 Conquest Works With 128 Players
is expected to launch in November, but the open beta is occurring this week, giving many players their first hands-on look at the game and how 128 players feels for Conquest mode. Many changes are coming to the long-running FPS series with this latest entry, such as the advent of Specialists with unique abilities in lieu of classes, and . The biggest structural change to the game overall, though, is the introduction of 128-player lobbies on PC and current-gen consoles, which makes some minor, but important changes to how Conquest works.
For a majority of its history, Battlefield has had a maximum of 64 players per lobby. With online games, particularly shooters, frequently touting 100+ players in a game now, 2042 has made the jump as well. The open beta for 2042 only lets participants play Conquest, the definitive Battlefield game mode, which has adapted with the new lobby size. The basic objective is still the same: capture and control sectors in order to gradually reduce the opponent's reinforcement ticket pool.
Though the concept is still familiar, the game mode has had some structural changes to that add a new flair. The first is that the maps are generally larger (though only one can be played in the beta). Each team's number of reinforcement tickets has also been increased to an unprecedented 1,500. Most importantly, sectors are not uniformly captured by controlling one objective. Some now have multiple areas that need to be controlled in order to have it contribute to draining the opponent's reinforcements.
The intent behind the new sector design is fairly obvious, though it isn't necessarily put into practice in the beta's only map, Orbital. Sectors were presumably added as a way for the game to help structure the new, colossal 128-player battles. Instead of moving from one objective to the next, the sectors break up the large maps so that protracted skirmishes can unfold over control of a single sector, with objective potentially changing hands multiple times. Unfortunately, only two of Orbital's six sectors have more than one objective in them, and the map feels too congested for the design to play out as intended. Orbital is one of , and it seems to be on the smaller end of the spectrum. It's laid out in familiar fashion: each team has an HQ on opposite sides, with six sectors in between.
The middle two sectors on Orbital each have two objectives, and are by far the two most interesting places to fight on the map. It's not uncommon for each team to control one of the objectives, and what ensues is a heated battle between the two where both sides are able to respawn near the action. Every once in a while these fights feel as though they've hit 2042's sweet spot, with the sector genuinely feeling like a self-contained map in its own right, but the close proximity of the neighboring, single objective sectors frequently leads to the battle devolving into utter chaos. This isn't always necessarily bad - - but it quickly becomes plain that Battlefield 2042's 128-player Conquest lobbies were designed to capitalize on the new, multi-objective sectors.
Battlefield 2042 releases on November 19, 2021 for Xbox One, Xbox Series X/S, PS4, PS5, and PC.
