Battlefield 1942

A World War II shooter that emphasized teamwork and vehicle combat.

Battlefield 1942, a first-person shooter from 2002, was developed by Digital Illusions CE and published by Electronic Arts for Windows and Mac. As the first Battlefield game, it became a favorite among mod creators. Today, it is widely regarded as one of the greatest video games ever made.

Quick Facts

Developer: Digital Illusions CE
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Director: Johan Persson
Producer: Lars Gustavsson
Designer: Romain de Waubert de Genlis
Artist: Stefan Vukanović, Riccard Linde
Composer: Joel Eriksson
Series: Battlefield

Facts from the source article.

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 focus on a PC expansion pack.
The game was built on the formula of Codename Eagle, a less successful game set in an alternate history World War I.

Expansions

Two expansion packs were released for Battlefield 1942. The Road to Rome added the Italian Front and allowed players to fight as the Free French forces or the Royal Italian Army. Secret Weapons of WWII introduced experimental weapons and vehicles such as jet packs, along with subfactions like German Elite Troops and British Commandos. Patches accompanying these expansions fixed bugs and 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 honors for Online Gameplay, Innovation in PC Gaming, PC Game of the Year, and Game of the Year. In 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 World War II, and the site called it the best computer game of September 2002. IGN's Steve Butts praised the multiplayer but felt the single-player mode was lacking. PC Gamer US and Computer Games Magazine both named it the best multiplayer computer game of 2002, with the latter also tying it with No One Lives Forever 2 for best overall computer game. By August 2006, it had sold 680,000 copies in the U.S. for $27.1 million, and worldwide sales exceeded 3 million copies by July 2004.

Mods

An October 2004 public release from EA noted the game's modding community. Many mods were abandoned without a public release, while some became nearly games in their own right. Early modifications were made without a software development kit; later EA produced the Battlefield Mod Development Toolkit. Some mods later switched to other engines or released standalone 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; its popularity was boosted by the Iraq War, and it had its own sub-mods.