The first and only expansion pack for Battlefield 2. Subsequently released, ten-dollar booster packs Euro Force and Armoured Fury for the original game were four years later made available for free and added to the Battlefield 2 map pool.
Overview
Released five months after the popular Battlefield 2, developed by DICE Canada the expansion pack focuses on infantry combat and contains no jets. New features introduce all new factions and voice work. Three night maps out of eight maps total in their respective 16/32/64 player versions are available for multiplayer. Tactical equipment like grappling hook, zip line, night vision, flash grenades and tear gas open new options for infiltration of the newly introduced large indoor environments, chief among them you find the belly of an aircraft carrier, a Warlord's mansion, a space missile launch site and an airport. New equipment and machinery include among others: infantry transports, civilian cars, ATVs gun mounted pick ups and two helicopter classics: the Hind and the Apache Longbow.
(In)compatibility with Battlefield 2
The expansion includes all new badges, medals and ribbons and separate rankings and multiplayer progression.. Due to technical limitations dedicated servers running Special Forces can not include original BF2 maps in their map rotation and vice versa. Rather than expanding the experience, the expansion pack forces players to choose between two games.
Tied into the original games are only the six expansion weapon unlocks for each class. The new rifles double the number of alternative firearms available. With Special Forces installed, each promotion in the core game unlocks two guns of choice instead of one.
Criticism
Hind on Mass DestructionSpecial Forces quickly declined in popularity, even though it featured interesting new mechanics like an airborne spawn. Criticisms included major complaints about uneven graphical performance especially for indoor environments and minor quibbles concerning British S.A.S. having Canadian accents. More importantly - depressing, grey clouded weather on a majority of maps ruined the mood, and night maps in the rotation could flat-out evacuate a busy 64 player server.
Special Forces turned out to be a dead branch of the quickly growing evolutionary tree of the Battlefield franchise, because of the lack of integration and connection to the seminal Battlefield 2.
Weapon Unlocks
4 of 7 Special Forces unlocks- Special Forces - FN Scar-L
- Sniper - L96A1 (easy to aim cross-hair scope)
- Assault - FN 2000 (red dot sight for assault class)
- Support - MG36
- Engineer - MP-7 (first sub-machine gun for engineer class)
- Medic - G36-E (higher accuracy)
- Anti Tank - P90 (red dot sight and large 45 round magazine)
Factions
Vehicles
- Apache Longbow
- MI-35 Hind
- ATV
- BMP3
- Civilian Car
- Pickup truck
- Air raider
- HMMVW w/TOW
- Jet ski
Maps
- Devil's Perch
- Ghost Town
- Iron Gator (Multiplayer Only)
- Leviathan (Multiplayer Only)
- Mass Destruction
- Night Fight
- Surge
- Warlord
Tactical Equipment
System Requirements
Minimum
- Windows XP
- 1.7GHz Intel Pentium 4 or equivalent
- 512mb ram
- 4GB HDD
- 8 speed dvd-rom
- 128mb with 1.4 pixel shader support
- Direct X9.0c
- 128kbit/s Ethernet.
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