Last week's
unveiling of Battlefield 4 was met with a mixed reception from the community, perhaps largely due to the technical showcase of DICE's Frostbite 3 engine --with only a year and a half of lead time-- not offering the same kind of generational leap that it's predecessor presented with Battlefield 3.
Many are also only interested in a Battlefield sequel for the series' strength in multiplayer, and a walkthrough of single-player content seems to hold little relevance to that side of the game.
With some of these reservations in mind, AusGamers spoke to DICE Executive Producer Patrick Bach a day after the reveal event in San Francisco, who provided some insight into why the developer has made some of the choices it has, and the studio's goals moving forward with the series.
There’s several reasons why we reveal with single-player. One is that it’s really hard to showcase multiplayer without giving hands-on, and we don’t feel like we’re ready right now, to give hands-on with the game. It’s also hard to, in seventeen minutes --like we did now, which is quite a lot for a first reveal-- to prove a point with multiplayer. Because like you said, multiplayer you play that for hundreds of hours, and it might not be until after 10 hours, where you actually start to feel like “Ok, now I know what this game is”.
So I think revealing with multiplayer would actually be hard from a presentation standpoint. Then on top of that, I think we are showcasing a lot of new... both features, but also new ways of thinking, by showcasing single-player.
And the third thing that I think is also important, is that we see more issues with our single-player than we have seen with our multiplayer. That doesn’t meant that we’re not innovating, or giving you great surprises with multiplayer, but I think it’s important to understand that our multiplayer has sort of been great, but single-player has only been good. And I think that discrepancy, we need to keep working on.
Bach also explains why support for community modding has not been offered in Battlefield 3, and isn't likely to in Battlefield 4, and much more.
Click here for the full interview, in both video and written formats.
Posted 12:21pm 03/4/13
Posted 12:37pm 03/4/13
Posted 01:16pm 03/4/13
Frostbite is a highly efficient engine, with lots of brilliant features. Giving it to people is a huge risk and isn't in their business model. Epic, Crytek and id do have that risk factored in; they've all simultaneously produced games and engines for licensing from their first titles - typically using their games as showcases for potential licensees. EA has never (to my knowledge) taken part in developing a flagship engine before.
As he says, they've also invested a lot of time ensuring their internal staff understand the tech and no one else. From a business standpoint it absolutely makes sense.
I miss BF mods too, but I think these days Bohemia are doing amazing work on the Arma series being open and Steam-only (which should eventually allow for Workshop support) and you can get all the military fix you need with mods covering a huge range of conflicts, scenarios and national armies (including huge support for ADF mods).
Posted 01:46pm 03/4/13
The main thing that'll hold back Origin in the long run is no support for community content. Steam Workshop is thriving with new stuff added all the time. It's something Origin and EA need to get on top of if they want to contend with Steam properly.
Posted 02:02pm 03/4/13
All they needed to do was show some screens from maps, some video. Explain some new features or something.
What's also really funny is those teaser trailers for the reveals, with tanks, subs and stuff. Which had nothing to do with the reveal.
Some of the comments i've seen around has DICE suggesting they know how to nail MP and so don't need to worry about it. They certainly made a good game, but did not nail it with BF3.
I clearly think MP is probably still in such an early stage in developement, they simply don't know what it'll be that's different than BF3.
Posted 05:11pm 03/4/13
I've actually stopped playing BF3 cause I'm waay over it and am back playing Bad Company 2, having so much more fun and no prone is f*****g win. Like Erisus said, bring on the BC3!!
this is f*****g bulls***, the game play videos that were released prior to each DLC for BF3 made me jizz, they looked awesome!
Posted 05:23pm 03/4/13
Posted 06:15pm 03/4/13
You can count me your first person outside EA then. I thought the singleplayer was good. It wasn't groundbreaking or anything but I found it highly enjoyable with some really nice cinematic moments.
Posted 07:27pm 03/4/13
Perhaps they should have not made BF3 and saved time and energy making this new one which may be a more full featured Battlefield game.
Aside from that, They should have made Battlefield 2143 instead. I want Titan Mode and those mech things.
Posted 10:07pm 03/4/13
get it done already..
Posted 08:48pm 07/4/13
Posted 09:14pm 07/4/13
So which BF game with commander system was BF2 a "true successor" to, itself?
Posted 09:43pm 07/4/13
I remember the team work for BF2, it was awesome and worked so well and even on pub servers!! In BF3 everyone just runs around on solo rambo mode, really over it..
Posted 12:54am 08/4/13
Posted 09:27am 08/4/13
Posted 10:41am 08/4/13