It’s not just Breakthrough. My review of Operation Underground for BT and Conquest: It’s bad. So very, very bad.
Let’s start with Breakthrough. The attackers get 600 tickets and there are three secto- hold on. 600 tickets? SIX HUNDRED TICKETS? For three sectors of BREAKTHROUGH? Holy mother of God.
The first sector is fought on the streets with one objective, and the defenders stand zero chance of defending. The next sector is fought in the tunnels with two objectives to capture. This is potentially the best or worst part of the map; more on that later. Once the attackers win here, the last sector is fought in a plaza of what looks to be a NatSoc party headquarters.
My first round was as the attackers. We pretty much steamrolled the defenders and finished with about 550 tickets left. This is pretty stupid, but it was a mercy compared to what happened when I played on the defending team.
The attackers immediately overran us in the first sector, but their attack stalled on the second sector, allowing us to dig in. The limited number of paths allowed 32 of us to pretty much defend just two rooms. And we did. FOR 45 MINUTES. Not including the start of the match, it was a 40 minute stalemate. We didn’t even run out the attackers’ tickets. We straight up ran out of time. It was so astoundingly boring that I don’t think I will ever willingly play this map again in this mode until they fix it.
Up next was Conquest, what we all were waiting for. And this was probably the biggest disappointment. It’s almost completely linear, with just three objectives. Only one of those objectives is underground, and in a completely baffling design choice the other two objectives literally touch the out-of-bounds team spawns. It’s practically a Frontlines match, in the worst way. And how many tickets for this three objective infantry-only map? Why, 900 of course!
My team captured A and B immediately. Once more, stalemate set in and pretty much nothing changed in terms of objectives until the very end of the match. Even when I broke through the chokepoints, it was only to run outside into a blinding sun where an MMG camper hiding well behind the front lines or an enemy jogging from the rear objective usually cut me down. That underwater passage serves pretty much no purpose, as it’s underneath B and runs perpendicular to the map. Halfway through, I already felt like I never wanted to play Underground ever again on any mode.
Bad players will describe this map as having “explosive spam.” That’s inaccurate. It’s an EVERYTHING-spam map. Grenades, AT rounds, smoke, ammo, health, revives, and lots and lots and lots of spraying bullets. Some people might love this, and you’ll see some people start posting “epic flanks” where they snuck through and killed a ton of enemies looking the wrong way. But it’s an overall brainless spam session.
DICE needs to take this map down and rebuild it. They need to open up more avenues of approach and attack, add more objectives and move the team spawns back, and for the love of God lower the number of tickets.
What a disappointment.