Battlefield is one of the most iconic multiplayer, first-person-shooters ever to grace our screens since 2001, the first of the long standing series was called ‘Battlefield 1942’ and was developed by DICE, a Swedish developer at the time and was published by Electronic Arts (EA).
Ever since then DICE would present us with a new iteration of the franchise every year rivaling that of the Call of duty franchise. Now EA has released details about the newest iteration stating that they are returning to the modern setting.
No Specialists And No Massive 128 Lobbies
IGN had talked with Vince Zampella, the head of Respawn Entertainment and Group GM for EA Studios, who mentioned that the peak of Battlefield was with Battlefield 3 and 4 both of which were one of the most successful titles in Battlefield’s long history. Those two were also built on DICE’s Frostbite Engine, an engine that quickly became the one to use for most of EA’s titles later on.
Zampalla also stated that they understood that the specialists system introduced with Battlefield 2042 wasn’t working in practice if it did in theory and thus plan to bring back the traditional class system that was there before it. He also indicated that they are aiming for smaller maps, instead of huge open maps like the ones you’d see in Warzone or Fortnite, focusing on compact, well designed maps, quality over quantity.
All of the stated changes such as smaller maps, 64 player matches instead of 128 player matches and classes coming back over specialists are no doubt what the core player base of Battlefield wanted.
All of these “features” that were announced for Battlefield 2042 did not bode well at the time and the abysmal launch performance quickly made a lot of players want to explore other options such as Activision’s Warzone, EA’s own Apex Legends or Epic’s Fortnite or Overwatch, all of which had perfected the specialist formula.
The Lessons Learned From Battlefield 2042
Other than the aforementioned dismal launch performance, there were a number of broken systems that made playing Battlefield 2042 feel more like a chore rather than exciting. The servers issues were obvious to begin with due to trying to handle 128 player lobbies, most players would experience terrible connection issues which is one of the core systems that has to work almost flawlessly.
It didn’t get a scoreboard at launch either until months later, still had exploited game breaking glitches that didn’t seem like they were going to be addressed and servers issues had still persisted, soon players realized that this game was more a cash grab than what players had come to expect from the franchise.
Its concurrent player count remains well below its previous title Battlefield 5 even with 2 years of content updates which introduced new weapons, new specialists and new vehicles, the mistakes made left a permanent bad taste.
It also didn’t help when some developers had criticized the players labeling them as entitled when they had asked for a timeline to address the serious issues that were plaguing the game, something we saw recently with Sony’s Concord, which as of writing this article is a discontinued game.
Looking Forward To The Next Battlefield
While we aren’t likely to receive anymore news regarding the next Battlefield, whatever Zampalla shared is more than enough to raise the hopes of those that were felt betrayed by Battlefield 2042.
Nobody had asked for specialist systems in the Call of duty games and nobody had asked for them in Battlefield, Battlefield has always been about playing as a soldier in a war torn setting, always trying to maintain a sense of realism with the guns being used, the animations, the vehicles players can use such as tanks, APCs, attack choppers etc
This return back to the roots is sure to slingshot this franchise back to its spotlight among the greats as it clearly has the potential to stand against the likes of even the free-to-play titles. This return back to form instead of a futuristic setting is what the core audience had been asking for the longest time and they will finally get to see those wishes fulfilled.
