EA has confirmed that the next Battlefield will be returning to a modern day setting, returning to the still popular themes of Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 after games that explored WWI, WWII and the near future. They’ve also released the first concept art for this game.
Speaking to IGN, Head of Respawn & Group GM for EA Studios Organization Vince Zampella said, “If you look back to the peak or the pinnacle of Battlefield, it’s that Battlefield 3… Battlefield 4 era where everything was modern. And I think we have to get back to the core of what Battlefield is and do that amazingly well, and then we’ll see where it goes from there.”
Battlefield 2042 had some ambitious goals to push the series forward in a number of ways. The game at launch featured huge maps aiming to cater to a new 128 player maximum game size, as well as distinct characters as a hero shooter spin on the series’ traditional class system.
Zampella said, “128 player, did it make it more fun? Like…doing the number for the sake of the number doesn’t make any sense. We’re testing everything around what’s the most fun. So like you said, the maps, once they get to a certain scale, become different. It’s a different play space, and I think you have to design around that. So we are designing something that is more akin to previous Battlefields.”
Both 128 players and characters proved to be major sticking points for fans, with the map sizes leading to even more unfocused battles, and over the course of numerous game updates, DICE rolled things back to supporting 64 players on map and restoring a class system more in keeping with previous games. Of course, they also had to deal with myriad other problems and deficiencies, such as not featuring a classic score board at launch.
With DICE having already rolled these elements back in BF2042, it makes sense that the next Battlefield has these core principles being baked in from the off.
One of the most important factors for Zampella is getting the fans on side again, “We have to have the core,” he says. “The core Battlefield players know what they want. They’ve been with us forever, they’ve been amazing supporters. We need to earn their trust back and get them back on our side. And then it’s expanding out and getting more players into the universe and seeing what we can do, so when you want a different experience, you don’t have to leave Battlefield. You can experience more things within the Battlefield universe. So we’re expanding the offerings that we’re giving.”
EA are putting a huge amount of resources behind this, with four studios involved – DICE, Motive, Ripple Effect, and Criterion – and EA CEO Andrew Wilson claiming it’s one of the “most ambitious projects in [EA’s] history.”
Sounds like Battlefield: Bad Company 3 is going to be great, doesn’t it?
I can dream…
Looking back at the launch of BF 2042, I said in our review, “There’s a good game to be found within the Battlefield 2042 and fun to be had as the spectacle of Battlefield’s signature gameplay is taken to new, more expansive heights, but it’s marred by a handful of unsuccessful gameplay design changes, hurriedly implemented features and bugs at launch.”
Source: IGN
