Battlefield 1942 is a 3D World War II first-person shooter video game developed by Swedish company Digital Illusions CE (otherwise known as DICE) and published by Electronic Arts for Microsoft Windows (2002) and Apple Macintosh (2004). The game can be played in single-player mode against the video game AI or in multiplayer mode against players on the Internet or in a Local Area Network.  Unlike many first-person shooters of the period, it focused on multiplayer, with large maps and teamwork being paramount to success.  Each map recreates a different battle from the Second World War, from the European, Pacific and North African fronts.  In the main game mode, players are tasked with capturing command posts from the opposing team by occupying them for a certain length of time, using a variety of weapons and vehicles ranging from motorcyles to aircraft carriers.  Each team has a limited number of respawns, and these are depleted more quickly if a team occupies less command posts than the enemy.  The game ends when a team either runs out of reinforcements or loses all of its command posts.

Battlefield 1942 was the first game in the Battlefield series, which includes games such as Battlefield 2, 3 and 4, all set in the present, the Battlefield: Bad Company spin-off series, and Battlefield 2142, a sci-fi version.  The most recent entry is Battlefield: Hardline, released in March 2015, which eschews the military setting of previous games for a cops-and-robbers theme.  The series has sold consistently well throughout its lifespan and is currently one of the most important IPs in the catalogue of its publisher, Electronic Arts (EA).