Following up on the (initially) overwhelming popularity of the War in the Pacific season, DICE are continuing with more content set in WW2’s Pacific theatre of war for Battlefield V Chapter 6. Into the Jungle starts on 6th February, depicting the battle for the Solomon Islands.
The Soloomon Islands map has a new jungle setting for the game, blending together dark mangroves, hidden bunkers, rivers and marshes, and featuring both land and sea vehicles.
Three new weapons are coming to the game, including the Type 11 LMG, Model 37 shotgun and M2 Carbine, while the M1A1 Bazooka and Lunge Mine are new gadgets to unlock. There’s also three new elites: the assault specialist Misaki Yamashiro, pilot Steve Fisher, and Zero pilot Akira Sakamoto, with Misaki having a unique unlock mechanic in the game.
Gear can be obtained through Chapter Rank, which is earned simply through playing or with the bonus XP found through Weekly Challenges. Unlike earlier seasons in the game, you’ll no longer have Weekly Challenges leading to weapon unlocks, but can still find customisation items and full Chapter Rank tier unlocks here.
Unfortunately, while the community reaction to War in the Pacific was initially overwhelmingly positive, it’s much, much more muted for Into the Jungle. The simple reason for this is that DICE implemented sweeping weapon rebalancing that lengthened the time to kill in the game with update 5.2 in December. The reaction to this was… not good and there have been constant calls for DICE to revert the changes for the past two months.
DICE are bending to community will, but not completely reverting their changes. Announced last week, two updates are planned – Update 6.0 for the start of Into the Jungle, and Update 6.2 a little later. It’s Update 6.2 that will see DICE modifying many weapon properties back to where they were with 5.0, but will still try to have a damage drop off at range.
Will that be enough to restore faith in an embittered community? Well, probably not, especially as 11 year veteran of the company and Multiplayer Producer David “tiggr” Sirland has announced his departure from DICE. His last day will be on 3rd March, cryptically responding to a commenter about his departure that “If things were completely up to me, they would surely be different,” and elsewhere alluding to his personal gameplay preference being not where BFV currently is. Infamously the previous unpopular TTK changes were made while Sirland and other senior staff were taking a holiday in the wake of BFV’s intitial launch.
Maybe one day we’ll hear the full story of the development turmoil that has greeted Battlefield V over the past few years.
Source: press release, Reddit
