Battlefield 2042 is set to launch on November 19, but those who preordered the game’s special editions received early access to the full game last week, opening the floodgates for waves of criticism. Xbox players, in particular, have voiced numerous complaints about the game’s crossplay feature — specifically, the inability to turn it off.
The main cause for concern for not being able to turn crossplay off is the console versions’ lack of noticeable aim assist. Aim assist is a feature typically employed in shooters that helps controller users to aim more accurately; aiming with a controller’s analog stick is often a great deal more imprecise than aiming with a mouse, so the feature generally serves to help even the playing field by granting those playing with controllers a little more accuracy.
Players on console versions of Battlefield 2042 are claiming that the game’s minimal aim assist is resulting in an unbalanced competitive experience when facing off against PC players, who generally have an easier time aiming with a mouse. Reddit user Intrepid_Pudding4554 shared a video last week demonstrating this issue. In the clip, the player fired 15 shots while targeting an enemy, but only one appeared to hit.
Players on PlayStation consoles are able to mitigate this issue by simply turning crossplay off, but for Xbox players, it’s a little more complicated. Numerous users on the Battlefield 2042 subreddit have pointed out that the option to turn the feature off is greyed out in the game’s menu, preventing folks from disabling the feature. A representative from developer DICE responded to this criticism last week, suggesting that players change their Xbox account settings to disable crossplay; however, doing this also deactivates crossplay across all games played on one’s Xbox.
The community was not particularly pleased with this solution, especially when the feature to disable crossplay on Xbox consoles was present in Battlefield 2042’s beta.
“This affects all games [though]. In beta it was possible to deactivate crossplay for BF2042 only. Why was that changed? I shouldn’t be forced to change Xbox settings every time before & after playing BF2042 if I want to play BF2042 without crossplay & other games with crossplay,” wrote Reddit user Cyshox.
This is but one of the issues currently afflicting Battlefield 2042. The game has also come under fire for its lack of scoreboards and missing voice chat features. DICE previously stated these features will arrive in a post-launch update, but it’s unclear if or when the community’s complaints about crossplay or aim assist will be addressed.
