Battlefield 2042 Season 5 Brings Big Changes To Vehicles

Battlefield 2042 will soon introduce major changes to some of the game’s most popular vehicles as part of its upcoming Season 5 update, New Dawn.

Vehicle loadouts are getting an overhaul come the update’s arrival on June 7. Developer DICE’s goal is to make it so the roles of different vehicles are more clearly defined. One big way DICE is looking to do that is by removing explosive weapon options from some of the game’s most-used ground vehicles, including the LATV4 Recon. Despite the jeep’s role as a transport vehicle, it’s currently able to equip multiple types of explosive weaponry. That will be changing in Season 5, with those weapons replaced by anti-infantry weaponry instead.

“While explosives have their place on the battlefield, they should be a strategic choice and not the default choice or available option for all vehicles,” DICE writes in a blog dedicated to the subject.

Other vehicles, like the M5C Bolte and the EBAA Wildcat, have also had their weaponry adjusted to better suit their specific roles. In the Bolte’s case, that means making it a stronger “hit-and-run” vehicle as opposed to one that sits back and shoots explosives from afar. The Wildcat, meanwhile, will be adjusted to better fulfill its intended role as an anti-air vehicle.

Additional changes coming to vehicles include improvements to jet gameplay to make them feel more responsive, the addition of thermal sights for vehicles, and the ability to decouple aiming and turning for tanks. The option to equip the Cyber Warfare Protection System is also coming to all vehicles, having previously only been available to the LATV4 Recon.

Like previous seasonal updates, Battlefield 2042 Season 5 will also introduce new weapons and gadgets for players to create mayhem with, in this case the XCE bolt-action rifle, the GEW-46 assault rifle, and the BFP .50 hand cannon. Players are additionally getting three new grenade types to play with, including a mini grenade, anti-tank grenade, and spring grenade. Unlike previous seasons, Season 5 will be the first since the game’s launch to not include a new playable Specialist.

A new map, titled Reclaimed, is also coming alongside the new update, which sees players battling over an abandoned factory reclaimed by nature. Though it won’t be arriving day and date with Season 5’s launch, a rework of one of Battlefield 2042’s launch maps, Hourglass, will be coming later in the season.

Battlefield 2042 has slowly been reinventing itself since its launch in November 2021, when the game was mired by technical issues and negative feedback from players over things like the game’s lack of voice chat or even a scoreboard. Since then DICE has added a scoreboard, reworked most of the game’s launch maps, added new Specialist characters, and even reintroduced the franchise’s well-known class system, something that was notably absent when the game launched.