What is Battlefield 2042 Hazard Zone?

I kinda miss the days when Battle Royale games were just an excuse to make a Hunger Games reference, rather than an entire subgenre of video games in themselves. I guess as long as Fortnite keeps making the mad dollars, everyone else will keep trying to chase the Battle Royale dragon. On that subject, what is Battlefield 2042’s Hazard Zone?

In a similar vein to Call of Duty: Warzone, Battlefield 2042 will have its own baked-in Battle Royale mode titled “Hazard Zone.” Or, well, if you asked EA, they’d say it isn’t a Battle Royale mode, but the next stage of Battle Royales. According to DICE Studio head Christian Grass in an interview with GameSpot, Hazard Zone is a “high stakes squad based game mode with a lot of high tension. It’s not your classic battle royale, it’s a really contemporary mode.” 

“It’s also something the team has been thinking about for many years. It has some really special components, and it really leans into the super powers of Battlefield and DICE at the same time,” DICE’s Oskar Gabrielson added.

What is Battlefield 2042 Hazard Zone?

So what exactly sets Hazard Zone apart from your typical Battle Royale? To be honest, we don’t know. Details of the mode are being kept secret, for the time being, so all we really have to go on is conjecture and rumors. While the consensus seems to be that the game will utilize some Battle Royale hallmarks like shrinking clouds of gas to restrict player movement, some believe the mode could bear some similarities to Escape from Tarkov, emphasizing long-term squad survival over quick-shot matches.

Whatever the case, we won’t know for sure until the mode actually releases, and before that can happen, the game has to, y’know, come out.