Battlefield 2042 has been in Early Access for a few days now, and the strengths and weaknesses of the game are slowly becoming apparent. According to many players, the interface and the menu are two of the larger weaknesses. Now, a fan has presented their own improvements, and they are being well received.
What is being criticized? In the last few days, more and more fans have noticed some issues with the interface and the layout of the menu that bother them.
We previously reported about the missing scoreboard, which even led to an “uprising” in the Battlefield 2042 subreddit. Meanwhile, other issues are also being criticized:
- Which options in the settings are currently enabled or disabled is not immediately clear.
- As soon as you die, it is not immediately obvious if there are medics nearby who could revive you.
- In vehicles and aircraft, you cannot see which direction the gunner is currently aiming or from which direction a rocket is targeting you.
- The menu for weapon attachments is very cumbersome and fiddly.
- Fire modes for weapons are not immediately recognizable.
- Your position on the map is not displayed correctly.
- Tanks, helicopters, and the like are only displayed with uniform symbols on the minimap. Distinguishing between the models is only possible visually, which can significantly influence combat situations.
Additionally, there are many other things that fans feel are missing in the interface and menus. A player has now taken the criticism to heart and quickly presented their own improvement drafts:
This is the current scoreboard, which only shows the squads. 
This is what the current menu for attachments in the game looks like. 
Here you see the HUD with information about the current weapon in a match. 
Here you see the improvements by user ibbidibbidoo in overview.
Fan designs are celebrated by thousands – “DICE must see this!”
How players are reacting: His reddit post has already received over 7,300 upvotes (as of November 15, 10:15 AM) and over 585 comments. The responses are overwhelmingly positive and address further issues that developer DICE should improve in the interface.
- la_vida_sxl comments: “Honestly, I thought about doing [a draft] myself as well, and I have zero experience with UI/Coding. I’m just shocked at how outdated the UI [user interface] is.” (via reddit)
- andreicalin612 praised the player’s designs: “As a UI designer myself, take my sincerest upvote. This is great work.” (via reddit)
- Kroosn notes: “Most of these things come from past Battlefields; the implementation should have already been done.”
Besides the praise, there is also frustration among players about the user interface in the game. Some are disappointed that so many features are missing that should actually be standard in a Battlefield game, especially since most of these features were found in earlier titles.
idee_fx2 notes: “This is what pains me the most as a Battlefield fan: that the series I love seems unable to evolve by combining all the qualities of the previous titles in a single release.” (via reddit)
Some are now calling for these designs to be forwarded to DICE and hope that they will be implemented. Whether and when that will happen is still unknown. So far, DICE has not commented on it. It is certainly among the 6 things that developers urgently need to change.
How is Battlefield 2042 being received otherwise? The first few days went overall smoothly, at least from the server side. On Saturday, there were some issues in between.
Overall, players seem to be having a lot of fun, but there are numerous technical problems, especially with performance on PC. Other issues like the interface also significantly bother part of the community.
It remains to be seen how players will take to Battlefield 2042 when the Early Access phase ends and the official release comes.
When is the full release? Battlefield 2042 officially releases on November 19 for PC, Xbox Series X|S, Xbox One, PS4, and PS5.
If you’re on PC, you can already check out 5 settings for Battlefield 2042 that improve your performance and gameplay here.
