DICE releases more details about how it’s fitting Battlefield 2042’s Specialists into classes

DICE has delivered a new Core Feedback Loop blog post about how it’s fitting Battlefield 2042‘s Specialists into the series’ more traditional class system, and in turn changing how a couple of the Specialists play.

Not too much has changed about the plan to rework the game’s class system since DICE first revealed what it was working on. Classes will consist of Assault, Engineer, Support, and Recon, but two of the game’s Specialists will be tweaked to better fit this system. DICE will slot Irish as a Support character who can revive teammates, while Season 2’s new recruit Crawford will be an Engineer. Since Crawford will no longer be able to revive teammates except if they’re in his squad, DICE is looking at giving him a new Trait that will make him better at “repairing vehicles under certain conditions.

The rest of the Specialists will remain in the same classes that they already represent: Mackay, Dozer and Sundance are Assault; Boris and Crawford are Engineer; Angel and Falck are Support; and Casper, Paik, and Rao are Recon. DICE said that it considered putting Rao in a different category since his Specialty is hacking vehicles, but he will remain a Recon character and DICE will now show teammates which vehicles he’s hacked so they can better choose their targets.

As previously revealed, in addition to designating clearer roles for each Specialist, the new class system will give each character class-specific equipment that they will always carry with them. Assault will carry the Med-Pen, Support will carry the defibrillator, Engineer will have the repair tool, and Recon will always have the insertion beacon. This equipment is in addition to the now-restricted class gadget, as well as the specific Specialist’s on specialty gadget.

One aspect of Battlefield 2042‘s class system that won’t change is that Specialists will still be able to use whatever weapon they want, regardless of what class they belong to. However, DICE will make it so that certain classes will perform better with certain weapon types. For instance, Recon will now “benefit from wielding Sniper Rifles by automatically holding breath for much longer” while aiming down the sights.

As for when these changes will go live in the game, players can expect the new class system to launch “in the later half of Season 3,” which is expected to begin in late November. Until then, DICE just released update 2.2, adding a reworked version of Orbital, three new vault weapons, and—perhaps most notably—persistent Portal servers for premium battle pass owners.

Battlefield 2042 is available on Xbox Series X/S, PlayStation 5, Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.