#Battlefield 2042 metacritic full#
#Battlefield 2042 metacritic trial#
#Battlefield 2042 metacritic series#

#Battlefield 2042 metacritic full#

I don’t know if it had something to do with full cross-play being on, or if some of the issues were more noticeable because now we were forced to play against PC players, but something felt different. The real trouble started the next day, when the “early access” version launched for everyone. Except it was even better because I was playing with my friends, all of whom are lifelong Battlefield players, too. However, that bit was soon ironed out, and the version of Battlefield 2042 I played on that day, against whatever console players were aware enough to redeem their free trial, was about as close to the version that I reviewed as Battlefield 2042 will probably ever be again.

#Battlefield 2042 metacritic trial#

When I booted up Battlefield 2042 on November 11th thanks to a free trial through my Xbox Game Pass Ultimate subscription, there were already issues, the worst of which was an error that prevented players from even joining servers. Or I just shouldn’t have given the game a score when I did. Obviously, I should have published that caveat in bolded, 1,000-point font.

#Battlefield 2042 metacritic series#

Ultimately, we decided that, as someone with a ton of passion for Battlefield, who has played and written extensively about the series as a whole, my opinion on the latest game was worth getting eyeballs on it, and that meant giving it a score-albeit with a caveat written at the end that I did not experience the game in a live environment. Given the amount of time I played the game, and the amount of content I’d experienced, I felt that I had a pretty good handle on the actual design and gameplay to give my opinion, but I was concerned about the game’s launch. We played on every map at least once, and we played all three modes-All-Out Warfare, Hazard Zone, and Portal. The review was based on a three-day online review and capture event that let critics and other content creators go hands-on with every aspect of the game, including all of its characters, weapons and gadgets.

When it came to my 6,500-word review of Battlefield 2042, the other EGM editors and I went back and forth on whether to give it a score when we did. They also give me a bit of freedom to view games not as a product to be judged but as a piece of media to be observed, analyzed, and critiqued. Frankly, these are my favorite reviews to write, mostly because I know that if people read them then they will have actually read them and not just looked at the score. However, I have published scoreless reviews before, but we tend to call them “impressions.” Most of the time, I do this because I haven’t played enough of a game at embargo to fully assess its score. It’s the only way anyone is going to give a shit.

For the rest of us, who rely on clicks from strangers rather than a dedicated base of readers who follow us for our actual voices and opinions, we need the score. Unfortunately, the reality is that only certain outlets can get away with reviewing games in a scoreless manner, where the words of the review matter more to readers than the number attached to it.

When EGM reworked its review system in 2019 and switched from a 10-point to a five-star system, I was yelling from the back to drop the scoring system altogether. I’m going to be honest: I hate review scores.