Battlefield 2042 Doesn’t Have a Scoreboard and Players Aren’t Happy

The Battlefield community is currently in a stir over some of the features that they are bearing witness to in the Early Access phase of Battlefield 2042, or more accurately, the fact that the game lacks the presence of a traditional scoreboard.

Battlefield 2042 saw an open beta test period from the 6th of October to the 9th of October and is currently available in early access for players who bought into EA’s subscription services or paid extra for the Gold or Ultimate editions of the game. 2042 is stated by EA to be a complete multiplayer experience, without a single-player campaign or components attached to the newest shooter of the long-enduring franchise that is set to officially hit shelves on a date that is fast approaching.

This means that players came to very quickly find out that scoreboards in Battlefield 2042 have been completely revamped, and replaced with something that they have come to consider inadequate. Instead of old traditional scoreboards which displayed the statistics of ally and enemy players en masse in a singular tab. The new scoreboard in 2042 instead opts to only show the scores of allied teams, with no way to keep track of players individually and omitting to display numbers of death entirely.

It is difficult to ascertain exactly why it is that such a change was made. But most people’s assumptions towards the matter seem to boil down to two particular factors. The fact that creating a scoreboard that outlined the statistics of 128 players at the same time would be clunky or difficult, or that this was an attempt to foster a less negative player environment by pulling the player’s attention away from kill/death ratios, and instead more towards how their side is performing altogether.

Compared to the controversial changes made to the scoreboard in Battlefield 2042, other features introduced in the title seemed less like fields of contention for the player base. Battlefield Portal, a creative platform for players to create custom games using assets from existing titles in the Battlefield franchise was released to mostly positive reception as a result of giving players the ability to visit old battlefield settings, create new game modes, and giving people the opportunity to tinker the game to the best of their personal preferences. Other modes like Hazard Zone or the decision to switch classes for specialists, characters with MOBA-inspired champion toolkits, aren’t lauded features. But neither are they features that face acknowledgeable criticism or noticeable pushback from the community at large.

Seeing as Battlefield 2042 finds itself currently in early access, it is possible to suggest that their approach to such community grievances could swing either way. Whether it is due to having their priorities on other aspects of the game, or simply due to this change being in alignment with their design philosophy. Social media accounts run by the Battlefield team have yet to formally recognize the issue. Until an official stance is made on the subject matter, the situation will be left to develop until the Devs come to a conclusion as to what needs to be done for the game.

The standard edition of Battlefield 2042 is set to release on the 19th of November on PC, PS4, PS5, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X|S.