Battlefield 2042's Season 3 Brings New Map, Battle Pass, and More Next Week - November 17, 2022 at 01:50PM

Developer EA Dice has announced that Battlefield 2042 Season 3: Escalation arrives on November 22, bringing a new map, Battle Pass, Specialist, and more.

The new map, Spearhead, puts players in the Swedish wilderness as they fight in and around two high tech weapon manufacturing facilities. Season 3 will also see launch maps Manifest and Breakaway reworked, but not until December and January respectively.

A refreshed 100-tier Battle Pass will also arrive with the update that includes new Specialist Rasheed Zain as one of the free unlockables. This Egyptian-born security expert comes armed with an XM370A airburst launcher designed to force enemies out of cover and the fastest health recharge of any Specialist.

Speaking of weapons, Season 3 brings the Rorsch MK-4 Railgun, NVK-S22 Smart Shotgun, NVK-P125 Bullpup Pistol, and the Battlefield-favourite throwing knives to 2042. A new vehicle, the EMKV90-TOR Tank, is also being added to the game, which can be switched into different modes depending on the situation.

New assignments are also being added, letting players unlock even more Vault weapons to use in All Out Warfare.

EA DICE also announced that its Specialist rework will be arriving sometime during Season 3, seeing a return of the classic Battlefield Class system. Though it won’t be finished until Season 4 is available, Specialists will be slowly but surely changed to reflect the new system.

It did share some details on what exactly will change, revealing that Irish will be moving to a Support class and taking Crawford’s trait. Crawford will therefore be changing to Engineer and receive a new, unannounced trait based on the switch.

Battlefield 2042 hasn’t had the smoothest first year on the market, only launching its Season 1 in June (seven months after launch) as it was delayed to focus on more pressing issues such as including a scoreboard, but this update was also delayed.

Publisher EA admitted around the same time that Battlefield 2042 did not meet expectations, and soon after a petition asking for refunds started online that more than 230,000 players have now signed. Battlefield 2042’s numbers had diminished in the meantime, as in early March it had fewer players on Steam than Battlefield 1, 4, and 5.

EA DICE is looking to show fans how the game has improved since launch, however, following a generally well received Season 2. It’s bringing Battlefield 2042 to Xbox Game Pass and EA Access alongside its Season 3 launch and is also hosting several free-to-play weekends throughout December.

The game can be downloaded and played for free on Xbox from December 1 to 4, on Steam from December 1 to 5, and on PlayStation from December 16 to 23.

Ryan Dinsdale is an IGN freelancer. He’ll talk about The Witcher all day.