Battlefield Portal remasters Battlefield 1942, Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 content for Battlefield 2042 custom game modes

Stefan L 22/07/21 Comments Closed

Ripple Effect and EA have revealed Battlefield Portal for Battlefield 2042, remaking a bunch of Battlefield 1942, Battlefield Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 content in the new game engine and then binding it to some impressive user generated content tools.

This is a big mash-up of Battlefield content, allowing creators to mix and match maps, factions, weapons, vehicles and fully customise the game rules to create new game modes. If you want to play knives vs. Medic defibs, you can, if you want to recreate a ‘gun game’ mode, you can… if you want to play Rush, that’s built into BF Portal from the off.

What classic content does Battlefield Portal feature?

In addition to the new maps from Battlefield 2042, Battlefield Portal features six additional maps from across the three classic games:

Battle of the Bulge – Battlefield 1942
El Alamein – Battlefield 1942
Arica Harbor – Battlefield Bad Company 2
Valparaiso – Battlefield Bad Company 2
Caspian Border – Battlefield 3
Noshahr Canals – Battlefield 3

The maps have been recreated in the Battlefield 2042 version of Frostbite, and updated in some ways to reflect that. There’s obviously updated visuals, but the Battlefield 1942 maps have been enhanced with destruction that was not there previously – BFBC2 and BF3 levels of destruction are maintained for their maps – and Valparaiso has a variant that lets you play at low tide.

You also have all of the different factions from each of the games, all of the weapons, classes, vehicles, gadgets and more, all of which is available in Battlefield Portal alongside the new Battlefield 2042 content and gameplay.

Battlefield Builder: A custom game mode creator

How can all of this fit together? Well that’s up to you. Ripple Effect is putting all of this content into players’ hands and then giving you the tools to mix and match to your hearts content through Battlefield Builder, a web-based tool that lets creators customise maps on both a simplistic and deeply detailed level.

This works on multiple levels, at the most basic letting you pick a game type – Conquest, Conquest Small, Rush and Custom – maps, factions, and then letting you boot up a fresh server. However, you can customise everything that’s available, removing elements you don’t want, tweaking the fundamentals of player motion and damage, and fiddling with HUD options and more. You can enable 128-players (or 64 on last-gen), if you want, even on a smaller map. Balance is also in your hands.

Much more in depth is the Rules Editor, a visual scripting tool that gives users even more possibilities. This can be used to force equipment, define rules by player or team, add weapon restrictions, send messages to players mid-match, and more.

Battlefield Portal offers a deep suite of customisation tools.

Once you’re happy with a mode, you can play with AI to test it – AI backfill is optional here, but not in the main game – and then publish it to play with friends privately in a password protected form, or release it for anyone and everyone to play.

At launch, Battlefield Portal will have Official Experiences that have been created by Ripple Effect to recreate the original games or create basic remixes like Bad Company 2 vs. 1942. Alongside these will be curated Community Experiences.

Battlefield Portal post-release updates

Ripple Effect will be expanding Battlefield Portal over time, to user feedback. At launch, there will not be a way to modify objective placement or edit levels, for example, but this could potentially be added if enough users request it. While they’re not talking about additional historic maps at this time, the mode will expand with new Battlefield 2042 maps, through the game’s live service.