Battlefield 5: War in the Pacific will bring back Battlefield 1942's Wake Island map
Pick up Battlefield 5 Year 2 Edition to jump in with some bonuses
Battlefield 5 entered the Pacific Theater of World War 2 today, and if the excitement of returning to classic maps like Wake Island is enough to finally get you into BF5, a new edition of the game can get you caught up quick. The fifth chapter of Battlefield 5 is titled War in the Pacific, and it focuses entirely on battles between the U.S. Armed Forces and the Imperial Japanese Army, neither of which were previously represented in the game.
The new chapter arrives with two maps: Iwo Jima and Pacific Storm, where "the weather is as treacherous as your foes" (try putting that on a tourism brochure). The return of Wake Island will come in December, and EA says it will retain the distinct horseshoe-shaped layout of the original, which should make for a cool mix of classic 1942 strategies combined with the new area-denying Fortifications of Battlefield 5.
On top of the maps, a bundle of new weapons and vehicles have been added to the game for each faction to use, and even more will be up for unlocking as the latest Tides of War season progresses. That said, if you want to charge into battle with a katana or torch some trenches with a flamethrower, you'll need to find them as pick-ups during a match.
Like the other Tides of War, all of this content has been added to the base Battlefield 5 game via a free update. If you don't already own Battlefield 5, you'll want to look for the new Battlefield 5: Year 2 edition - on top of the base game, it includes unlockables from the first four chapters of Tides of War (these would otherwise be inaccessible for new players). It also includes a few cosmetic skins for your soldiers, weapons, and vehicles. Battlefield 5: Year 2 edition is available now on PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
No sense waiting for the next sequel instead - EA has confirmed that a new Battlefield isn't coming until April 2021 at the earliest.
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I got a BA in journalism from Central Michigan University - though the best education I received there was from CM Life, its student-run newspaper. Long before that, I started pursuing my degree in video games by bugging my older brother to let me play Zelda on the Super Nintendo. I've previously been a news intern for GameSpot, a news writer for CVG, and now I'm a staff writer here at GamesRadar.