It has been announced that the Battlefield 2042 beta will go live starting from 6th October. As is often the case, things aren't that clear-cut; pre-order customers and EA Play subscribers will get the first taste of the beta action from 6th October (pre-loads one day earlier), with less financially committed fans only being welcomed to the open beta stage from 8th October. The beta action closes at the end of Sunday, 10th October.
If you indulge in the beta, you will get a decent taste of the game to come. Beta players will be able to partake in Battlefield's all-out warfare, with up to 128 players (two teams of up to 64), choosing from four specialists, playing in Conquest (sandbox) mode, and on the Orbital (French Guiana) map. The first specialists you can try out fall roughly into the following classes; sniper, medic, commando, and recon.
No real-time raytracing
Thankfully, you can download the beta ahead of being able to play: it is a 100GB game, even at this incomplete stage. For a franchise which previously launched a flagship real-time raytracing game, it seems a bit strange that EA/DICE have stepped back from adding such 'visual splendour' to Battlefield 2042, so you won't see mention of this in the recommended specs – see below. We don't know what resolutions/quality settings these minimum and recommended PC spec levels are targeting.
Nvidia previously blogged about Battlefield 2042 being enhanced with DLSS and Reflex technologies, with any mention of real-time raytracing made conspicuous by its absence.
Please note that any progress in the beta isn't carried forward to the finished game.
Battlefield 2042 is expected to be released on multiple modern platforms, including PC (Steam, Origin, EGS), on 19th November.
