Battlefield 1942

Did You Know?

• The game was originally proposed by DICE as a GameCube exclusive, but negotiations ended because Nintendo had no online strategy.
• An Xbox version was announced in early 2001 but was cancelled almost two years later so Electronic Arts could work on a PC expansion pack.
• The game was built on the formula of the less successful Codename Eagle, set in an alternate history World War I.

Expansions

Two expansion packs were released: Battlefield 1942: The Road to Rome, which added the Italian Front and allowed players to fight as the Free French forces or the Royal Italian Army, and Battlefield 1942: Secret Weapons of WWII, which introduced experimental weapons and vehicles such as jet packs, along with subfactions like German Elite Troops and British Commandos. Patches accompanying the expansions added content such as the Battle of Britain map to the base game.

Reception

Critics generally liked Battlefield 1942, according to Metacritic. At the sixth Interactive Achievement Awards, it took home prizes for Online Gameplay, Innovation in PC Gaming, PC Game of the Year, and Game of the Year. In March 2010, the Swedish Games Industry named it the Swedish game of the decade. GameSpot's Scott Osborne described it as a comic book version of WWII, and the site later called it the best computer game of September 2002.

IGN's Steve Butts liked the multiplayer but felt the single-player mode was lacking. Both PC Gamer US and Computer Games Magazine ranked it the best multiplayer computer game and best overall computer game of 2002, with Computer Games Magazine tying it with No One Lives Forever 2 for the latter. The Academy of Interactive Arts & Sciences gave it four honors at the same awards ceremony, including Game of the Year. By August 2006, it had sold 680,000 copies in the United States, earning $27.1 million.

Mods

An October 2004 public release from EA noted the game's modding community. Many mods were produced, ranging from minor gameplay changes to total conversions. Early mods were made without a software development kit; later EA produced the Battlefield Mod Development Toolkit. Some mods later moved to sequels like Battlefield Vietnam or other games.

Battlefield 1918, a World War I mod first released in 2004, remained in active development as of December 2022 and was cited as an inspiration for Battlefield 1 by a DICE employee. Battlefield Interstate 1982 was mentioned in a 1UP article in December 2003. Battle G.I. Joe was reviewed on About.com and was contacted by Hasbro over intellectual property issues. Desert Combat, produced by Trauma Studios, won FilePlanet's Best Mod of 2003 Award and was described by PC Gamer as set in the Middle East pitting the United States against Iraq; it was noted for increased page views during the Iraq War and had its own sub-mods, DC Extended and Desert Combat Realism.