After going back and forth in time with the last few entries, EA has confirmed the next Battlefield game will return to a modern-day setting. Ahead of today’s Investor call, the company revealed tidbits about the online shooter and showed off a first look at the game with a piece of concept art.
The concept art has a visual flavor of the best years in the franchise. When Head of Respawn & Group GM for EA Studios Organization Vince Zampella spoke to IGN about the game, he specifically cited the likes of Battlefield 3 & 4. Both games had a present-day setting
“I mean, if you look back to the peak or the pinnacle of Battlefield, it’s that Battlefield 3… Battlefield 4 era where everything was modern,’’ Zampella told IGN. ‘’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. But I think for me, it’s that peak of Battlefield-ness is in that Battlefield 3 and 4 days. So I think it’s nostalgic for players, for me, for the teams even. Those are kind of the heyday…although I would say 1942 also.”
The Battlefield series once looked like it would easily go head-to-head with Call of Duty by providing a refreshingly different team warfare shooter. Battlefield Bad Company 2 put the series on the map, and Battlefield 3 saw EA push it as a COD killer (which is still a laborious ambition years later).
After that, getting the formula just right was increasingly difficult, especially as the online gaming space shifted and changed over the years. Battlefield 2042 brought various choices to the table that did not go down well with players, including specialist characters over classes, and a 128-player experience that didn’t capture the required chaos.
Asked about that staggering 128-player map feature, Zampella was honest about its failures.
“Yeah, the 128 players, 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.’’
Zampella then points out how that informed the design of the latest Battlefield.
‘’So we are designing something that is more akin to previous Battlefields. I’d rather have nice, dense, really nice, well-designed play spaces. Some of them are really good. I can’t wait for you to see some of them.’’
While the Titanfall and Apex Legends head honcho wouldn’t call Battlefield 2042 a failure, he did acknowledge the next game needs to hit the ground running, saying, “We want it to be good out of the gate.”
EA wants Battlefield to be a big player again and has DICE, Motive, Ripple Effect, and Criterion all working on the latest game together.
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