DICE is Pulling All the Stops With Battlefield 3 Multiplayer
A new holiday season is fast approaching, which means developers are starting to wrap things up with their major games and will soon be marketing the hell out of their product. With many different shooters coming out over the remainder of the year, the two biggest competitors going against each other are Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3. We know the direction MW3 is going toward which is baby steps innovating off their previous titles, but Battlefield is pushing for something new. DICE is planning Battlefield 3 to be their biggest blockbuster yet introducing a new engine, new mechanics to their multiplayer, and a bevy of new features that are aiming to entice both new gamers and fans who are familiar with the Battlefield franchise.
The Battlefield name has a certain expectancy surrounding this franchise. Destructible environments, large scale battles, vehicles, all these things will be present within Battlefield 3 but to a much larger degree. Battlefield 3 is introducing the brand new engine Frostbite 2.0. With this engine, DICE has made major touches to everything which make this game more believable. Characters move with a fluidity that makes you look twice to see if this is a video game or an actual person. DICE first blew gamers minds with their initial trailer showing what the engine is capable of and to what direction the single player is heading toward. Remember the famous Killzone 2 trailer that was shown at E3 that astounded everyone? I got the same feeling watching the ten minute long trailer they released for Battlefield 3. It all comes down to the fidelity of character movement and the sound of your surroundings, which DICE has always paid much attention with.
DICE has also made improvements to their destruction engine which was already an impressive piece of technology. They want destruction with buildings to be more believable where blowing out the 6th floor of a skyscraper might not necessarily bring the whole thing down. The environment will also react more life-like when explosions go off near objects. We are still unsure to how far this will go and if everything will be destroyable, but Bad Company 2′s multiplayer was impressive already.
Multiplayer modes have always been a bit scaled back compared to other shooters who always have a bevy of different game types to choose from. Team Deathmatch, a mode that most gamers gravitate toward, has not been available since Battlefield 1942, until now. Battlefield 3 will feature this and others to help flesh out multiplayer and make it an even stronger competitor. It’s fun to just hop in from time to time and just play some mindless deathmatch, even though Battlefield has always been a more strategy heavy game. I for one am glad they are providing gamers with more options.
Modern Warfare has recently introduced a new service that will offer more precise stat tracking and help the overall online experience work better. They also plan on improving matchmaking and rolling out DLC to gamers with this service. The catch is that a monthly fee is required which has yet to have a price tag. DICE decided to slap Infinity Ward across the face with a comparable service for free. Yet another reason that Battlefield plans on trumping it’s competitor.
This game looks remarkable and is a great jumping off point to see where graphics are heading for the next console generation. PC gamers need not to worry because the Battlefield series is strictly a PC game where the console versions gets stripped of features that aren’t possible. This means smaller teams and graphics that will still look great, but not like you would see on a beefed up PC. It will still be great on PS3 and Xbox 360, but the full experience will only be enjoyed on the PC. Unless that rumored Wii U port blows our minds.
This holiday will be another amazing year for multiplayer games. Battlefield is making sure it’s leading the pack coming out earlier that all other shooters and packing the most content. MW fans should definitely check this game out when it releases because it’s apparent that Battlefield will not be satisfied with second place.
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