Battlefield 2042 will host 128-player combat on PC, next-gen consoles Oct. 22 - Ars Technica

The word "reveal" should be taken with a grain of salt, as we don't know much about how the game will work—and we expect that EA will tease fans with a slow news trickle until the game's launch on October 22 on PC, Xbox, and PlayStation?

For now, the game's developers at DICE have confirmed that the game is indeed a recognizable Battlefield title, complete with massive team combat, the return of popular objective-based modes, and aspirations to deliver the series' biggest battle arenas yet.

The developer is finally—fiiiiinally—raising the maximum player count to 128 combatants on a single, super-sized map in the game's PC, Xbox Series X/S, and PlayStation 5 versions.

The series has famously maxed out at 64 players since its very first entry, and over the years, DICE reps have explained away the limitation by saying that more players doesn't always mean more fun.

But EA isn't ready to ditch the previous console generation, and that means PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions of the new game will launch with a 64-player maximum per match.

Instead, EA and DICE recommend that fans who want a break from online combat should play the game's multiplayer modes against AI bots, either alone or with real-life squadmates.

In an attempt to downplay the lack of a campaign, DICE's developers said that plot nuggets would appear in the ongoing multiplayer modes. But these plot points fit into what is arguably the series' most cockamamie story yet.

It appears that some major combat abilities—like using zip lines, grappling hooks, and wingsuits to get around the game's huge maps—will be restricted to a few specialists each, but exactly how those abilities will play out remains unclear?

Dynamic weather events will appear on every map, and we saw a tornado lift and carry players across at least one of the game's seven launch maps, but what other natural disasters may befall combatants.