“Battlefield 2042 should have been delayed again,” reads a blunt headline from The Washington Post‘s Mike Hume, who’s joined by many others in being surprised by the state in which the game launched (early access is live now). It has only just been discovered that Battlefield 2042 does not have a voice chat feature at present – a glaring omission in a modern multiplayer shooter.
According to players and reviewers, the lack of voice chat is most noticeable in 32-player Hazard Zone where you’re in a squad of four battling other squads. Electronic Arts told The Washington Post that most people use applications like Discord, and console party/chat features to communicate so it’ll add in-game voice chat “shortly after launch.” One problem: if you don’t have friends playing Battlefield 2042 and you’re queuing up solo to match with players outside of your friends list, then you’ll be stuck using the quick chat menu to communicate with your team, which will naturally then be at a disadvantage against players who are verbally communicating. Yikes!
Battlefield 2042 may not come with in-game voice chat at launch, but it does come with a plethora of technical issues. EA acknowledged as much, and wrote that while DICE has worked “extremely hard to get Battlefield 2042 into as smooth and rewarding a state as possible,” there is no launch “ever without its flaws, and you might still encounter some bugs and issues during these first few weeks.”
A lengthy list of known issues is available on EA’s website, for those interested.
Battlefield 2042 will launch globally on November 19th.
