I love Battlefield. There’s probably no shooter series that has shaped me as much – from LAN parties with Desert Combat (the mod template for BF2) to the saving Pacific update for Battlefield 5, I’ve been through all the highs (and lows) of the series. And am proud of it. After Battlefield 2042, however, a turning point is coming, because for the first time I’m not putting all my hopes on saving Battlefield or BF7, but on a competitor: Call of Duty.

Times have changed

And believe me, I don’t say that lightly. With Battlefield 4, for example, I just sat out the first agonizing months patiently. The bugs, the crashes, the broken netcode, the whole drama. Then it got better: Dice LA’s immense efforts paid off, Battlefield 4 became a fantastic multiplayer shooter that you can still play today.

And that’s exactly what many Battlefield fans are doing! Some, just like me, are so disappointed with Battlefield 2042 that they are returning to a game that is a whopping nine years old, as evidenced by Steam numbers in March. There couldn’t be a clearer warning signal for the Battlefield series, could there?

So is it worth waiting again? Will a patch and content offensive ultimately save Battlefield 2042 and make it the game we all would have liked it to be? Maybe, if Dice’s big contingency plan works out in the end. Maybe not, if the insiders are right, and the development team has long since moved on to the next project to let BF2042 finally die.

But maybe none of this matters, because on October 28th, a Battlefield alternative could be released that no one quite expected: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2. And yes, I too definitely see the irony in that.

If someone had told me four years ago that CoD could become the new home for Battlefield fans, I would have just laughed out loud. But times have changed. After all, no one would have believed that our release summary for a new Battlefield would be as follows not so long ago:

On the second try

CoD’s attack on Battlefield began in a big way as early as 2019, when we first got to play large-scale battles with helicopters, tanks, and infantry on large maps in a Call of Duty with Ground War from Modern Warfare.

At that time, however, the competitor still failed due to its map design, which just didn’t seem to fit very well and didn’t allow for a good gameplay flow, as our test revealed. The open fields of Krovnik Farmland became a frustrating sniper hell, Karst River Quarry didn’t offer enough space for vehicles to maneuver, and Barakett Promenade was so linear that every round turned into a pure meat grinder.

Modern Warfare 2 splits its map pool into larger sandbox levels and smaller 6vs6 arenas to allow for different play styles.

That said: Modern Warfare demonstrated for the first time that CoD could be a serious opponent for Battlefield. In the end, Warzone showed impressively: CoD can combine large maps, high player numbers and vehicles extremely successfully in one mode. And that’s where CoD MW2 comes into play for us Battlefield fans.

Geoff Smith, the design director for multiplayer, tells us as part of our big preview of Modern Warfare 2: “In MW2019, we created Ground War from locations on the Verdansk warzone map – but only after the fact. And those locations weren’t explicitly made for Ground War. For MW2, we’re making a new big map again this time, but we’re testing in advance which locations from it are suitable for Ground War.”

The bright spot

The result is a separate category of so-called “Battle Maps”, which in Modern Warfare 2 should clearly stand out from the classic, compact 6vs6 maps. Here Infinity Ward tests large battles with 50 players, vehicles and everything.

It sounds a lot like they’re finally trying to deliver on their second attempt what Ground War should have been from the beginning: A kind of military sandbox where I can let off steam with my Battlefield squad! Geoff Smith even briefly introduces two maps:

Playground? Boats? Walkable buildings? As a Battlefield fan, if I’m going to sit up and take notice in a CoD presentation, it’s going to be at these words.

Sure, we haven’t played or seen all that yet – and especially after Battlefield 2042, it’s advisable to keep your finger off the pre-order button and wait. We will take a closer look at the ambitious plans of the CoD makers in October at the latest, when MW2 is released.

And if Modern Warfare 2 really does end up with a sophisticated map design for Ground War, then Call of Duty might just be the ray of hope that we Battlefield players so desperately need.