Battlefield 4 is a prime candidate to get the gaming cynic's full ire, with its boilerplate Modern Military setting, and its supposed linear FPS-rollercoaster/shooting gallery campaign, as well as the fact that it's a predictable biannualized gaming franchise with a huge pre-installed fanbase. It's safe to shit on, even if it weren't warranted.

Assuming DICE speaks true, and will have more levels with multiplayer-like player agency, with a choice of land and sea and air vehicles to commandeer at will, and countless ways of tackling the mission objectives - similar to how some levels in Battlefield : Bad Company 1 were structured, would that be recognized as the achievement it is?

Let me put a player-controlled helicopter into perspective by using the example of Skyrails in Bioshock Infinite. Skyhooks are a tremendous achievement, Irrational Games met the expectations of their target trailer in this regard, and gives the player full control of all that highspeed-on-rails-high-in-the-sky action, and adds a meaningful and interesting new way of interacting with enviroments and enemies, which allows for wholly fresh-feeling and novel combat encounters.

Fully controlling an attack helicopter in the context of a full-blown combined arms warfare level *that's also prone to be blown to smithereens* is the ultimate skyhook. Yes, it's less designed-to-be-awesome-by-design, but given proper piloting skills and enabling circumstances, gameplay might even exceed the magnitude of awesome of Skyhook gameplay.

Good god, I really wish DICE (more likely whoever was/is in charge of the corporate mandates in this regard) would have known Battlefield : Bad Company 1's campaign for the gold standard template it is. If only DICE would have iterated and refined upon what was done with that game in terms of singleplayer campaign, eventually true and irrefutable greatness could have sprung forth.

Will BF4 be it? I doubt it. I'm almost unfairly cynical about it myself, I'd even go as far as saying it's effort best spent elsewhere, but after the disappointing - and hence sobering - opening hours of Bioshock Infinite (don't worry, I ended up loving it by the end), and the contrast to the unanimously glowing reviews out there, I think BF4 deserves so much better than the cynic's worst ire. I should have been blown away by what I've seen, but my cynic heart didn't let me - and I fear the gaming press at large are much worse cynics than I.

It indoubitably will suffer the cynic's ire, regardless of how well-put together the campaign will be. As a Battlefield fan, I hope it's not going to be all too toxic.

We're living in the age of sequels. It is far easier to just create another numbered title than actually try to be original. It involves far less risk taking and you've already got an established brand to base sufficient sales to break even at bare minimum, in the case of a title such as another Battlefield that's "money" right there without a second thought. I can't say how much I detest the way Battlefield games are promoted now, I'm afraid to admit it but I am still interested in this simply because of all the cool shit I've experienced in this franchise of games throughout the years. Its certainly lost focus of the path it was on and what it used to be, but isn't that the direction all things seem to head these days?

I think by now Battlefield's biggest problem is that it's many things to many people. Between BF1942 and BF3 there's almost as many tones and directions, as there were iterations. I've been there from the start, but it's the Bad Company games, that truely made me a fan. I'm none too happy with the direction of BF3 & BF4. Others love BF2142. Many swear on BF2, with its commander and highly specialized kits and all that serious military business. And so forth.

I believe EA is incapable of reading its history properly, since it's forced to see everything with the eyes of shareholder value. The last thing EA did that worked, is the thing EA keeps doing, regardless of what set the foundation of said success - hence we seldomly see EA iterating on long dormant IPs, of which there are countless legendary entires in the IP graveyard of their past. Based on BF3's great success, BF4 will be extremely predictable.

It's the next iteration on the template BF3 has set.

@seppli: This is really cool and unusual to me, as I've never seen anyone say that a Bad Company game was the game in the Battlefield series that made them a fan of the franchise. I didn't mind BF2142 but to me it felt like the developers hearts weren't ever truly committed enough to make it great. It was a side-step, more in the name of science and exploring the tastes of fans than a true new branch of Battlefield. That may change. Yes, my favorite was BF2, but I don't "hate" the other entries to the series, I just feel that BF2 captured the gameplay I felt I wasn't getting anywhere else. With the story focus, which seems to be a Medal of Honor/Call of Duty branch, Battlefield is moving more towards those types of games, of course tapping into their story origins stemming from Bad Company 1 in the process of doing so. Multiplayer is where Battlefield should excel, again that's my own opinion. Others will probably tell you differently, but you're right in that a good series of games will always have many aspects and nuances to it that either intrigue or annoy depending on who you ask.

I just beg them please, try to make Battlefield stay unique, I know it is hard, but even with vehicles if the FPS gameplay gets more similar now I'd even dare suggest a merge with Modern Warfare because in essence the experiences are near-identical with the rank-ups and focus on stats almost to the point where the actual result of the match you're fighting becomes a faded second priority.

Will Battlefield 4 get a fair shake? Doubt it. It's cool to hate on modern military games now, and has been since Medal of Honor's reboot came out. People would say "but Call of Duty!" but that franchise is practically fatigue proof with how burrowed deep into the mainstream zeitgeist it is.

I suppose all of that is to say that Battlefield had a charming and new direction with Bad Company that was squandered. We had four characters that were funny, fun to be around, and didn't annoy you with comments like "let's go Gordon! Time to go Gordon! Come on Gordon!" They also took care of their own business and the "invasion" of Fake Russia by Haggard was pure comedy gold. Hell I still play the first Bad Company on occasion for its fun, light-hearted tone. However someone got scared and decided to make Bad Company far more serious than it needed to be, and now Battlefield is the poor-man's Call of Duty.

Yay.

So are you angry at Battlefield or are you really just upset that they're not making a Bad Company 3?

@connerthekewlkid: Angry? Not really. More perturbed that DICE had a unique niche they could have filled and instead wasted time trying to chase that Duty Money. Call of Duty 4 blew up because there was nothing like it before, just as there was nothing like Bad Company before. It sucks that they traded on the fan base they were building to make another Call of Duty clone. The problem is not even Call of Duty clones do much of anything these days. The bubble on that one burst.

i dont think it deserves a fair shake... its an obligatory sequel continuing in the direction of 'look how much better we are than call of duty, mluuahhhhgh' these 'fair shakes' are what is allowing video games to be driven into the same shit abyss the film industry is in.

If it's good people will like it. It's how it always works. There aren't any great games people shit on just because they thought it wouldn't be any good.

Well here I am, the gaming cynic you have so accurately foresaw foreseen. We obviously don't know a whole lot yet except for what we saw in "Fishing in Baku" so it may be premature to make predictions but here is my read on things anyways.

As far a single player campaign, BF4 looks like another eight hours of crap. Enemies will just hide behind a piece of cover and pop up every few seconds. They won't employ tactics anymore than those little whack-a-moles at Dave and Busters. Likewise, the player will be encouraged to use this style most of the time. Sometimes there will be a sniping segment. Sometimes there will be on-rails vehicle chases. These segments will be totally indistinguishable from their numerous ancestors across the genre. It will never matter what weapon you have unless you are trying to decide between a shotgun or a rifle. Apparently there is now some mechanic whereby you can tell allies to attract the enemies' attention and thereby flank them. But rush/flanking enemy bots in the bad company games and in BF3 was already available so I don't see how this is any real improvement aside from cosmetics. As expected, your allies can't really do damage (at least not that we've seen) and they certainly can't execute a plan you lay out for them like "breach these two doors to the house simultaneously while one dude covers the windows from a sniper's perch". And of course they are invulnerable, just dropping to the ground and playing dead for a few seconds before getting resurrected.

But all this goes without saying when the developer is intent on delivering another Michael Bay style clusterfuck as opposed to something that tries to resemble modern military science. The player is thrown out of moving cars, crashes through collapsing buildings, runs from an enemy helicopter circling at 100 feet above the ground before it spectacularly explodes for no reason. This is not the kind of game that embraces player agency. You don't play through twice with a different experience. It might kind of look like the multiplayer experience, but in terms of gameplay it is the complete polar opposite.

As to multiplayer, well like I said we don't know much but the short development cycle would lead one to expect that they aren't changing much. That's fine with me because BF3's multiplayer was great. I've heard rumors they will add the Chinese as a faction and that seems great. My own opinion is that BF3, like it's parent BF2, worked best when played as a kind of "simulator of a military simulator". The player always knew they weren't flying a plane or helicopter in a complicated aircraft sim, but it kind of felt like that nonetheless. They knew they weren't pursuing realism through tactics like in the Arma series, but when they played with their friends in squad it kind of felt like that. This is why it feels like a deeper gameplay experience than COD. The Bad Company multiplayer had a distinctly different feel from BF3 in that things were faster, more "jumpy", more arcade like, less simulator. I liked Bad Company but I liked BF3 too and hope that DICE doesn't try to take BF4 back in this direction but keeps the franchises distinct.

And no offence but having helicopters in on-rail segments sounds like a bad idea. Remember how anticlimactic the aircraft carrier level was in BF3?

BF:BC 1's campaign was semi-open-world. It often left free choice of route, vehicle, weapon, gadget. One level even had a golden Mi-24 Hind in it, and players had full control over it, if they chose to use it. Too few BF fans have actually played BF:BC 1's campaign, because its core design template captured some of the multiplayer's essence, and made up for the lack of the sheer insanity of true dynamic *Battlefield Moments* with humor.

So it's just a misunderstanding. I don't suggest that an on-rail chopper segement might be as awesome as Bioshock Infinite's skyhook gameplay. I'm saying a BF4 singleplayer campaign level leaving the player the choice to board an attack or scout chopper and tackle mission objectives that way has the potential to be even more awesome as that, at least for players proficient with such a tool of destruction.

If you've got a 360 or PS3, and are a Battlefield fan, pick up BF:BC 1 for cheap, and check out how much potential its campaign template has. It wouldn't take much to turn its formula into pure gold.

The gameplay seemed too "bro" for me.

@seppli: Oh I've played BF:BC1. It's not semi-open world at all. The levels are a little more spaced out than your average Modern Military FPS corridor level, but it's still a pretty bland. At most I'd say that it sometimes feels a little bit Halo-like in the way you drive vehicles from point A to point B. That's not open world. And yes I've flown the Hind. I think you might be exaggerating when you say that the campaign captures some of the multiplayer's essence. It really is just another FPS campaign. Or at least that's how I played it.

Campaign and Battlefield are two words that should never mix. Make a new Ip that only focuses on campaign, and is emotionally driven. Otherwise you'll always be performing an impossible balancing act.

Sounds like you want to play Arma3 not Battlefield:Call of Duty Clone 2

You are also looking at BF:BC1 through rose tinted glasses.

Just to be clear: you are comparing helicopter piloting in a game that attempts an acute level of realism with the skyrail navigation of a game set in no such reality. I understand what you're trying to say, but both experiences have to fit within their own context. In that sense, it's not a good comparison. Still, I get what you're saying. The deck is stacked against BF4 in that it will be panned for its familiarity. Based on what's been shown so far, I'd say it looks like it's doing what it wants to do, and it's doing it well. But that's not for me anymore.

The act of aiming and shooting was too "bro" for you? What does that even mean? If you want to say that the tone is too "bro" then that's totally understandable, but I don't get what you mean by the gameplay.

The problem with most shooters really has been AI. Even infinite's AI is rather weak, taking cover and popping out for shots or running straight at me.

Its much easier to script and use linear layouts with dumb AI than build a robust one that can truly handle an open environment. And as sales figures have shown, most people don't seem to mind.

Honestly I just want DICE to work on the MP and destruction tech, so stupid AI is fine. But at least DICE is aware that the SP needs to be more open, but we'll see how that works out.

That was actually one of my favorites part of the campaign for the visual and audio spectacle it was. Sure it was a roller-coaster ride but man - what a ride. The sound of the canopy closing and the engines revving up for take-off gave me goosebumps. Frostbite's sound design is still the best out there, bar none.

I can understand people being disappointed because they expected some actual controlled flying and dog-fighting but for what it is, it's still great. As far as on-rails flying sequences I think it's my all-time favorite (which probably sounds like I'm saying it's the tastiest dog shit I've ever eaten to some players, but so be it). It's a subjective opinion to be sure, but that's my two cents.

But I would also like to point it out because I want to expand on the "simulation of a simulation" you talked about, because that is a great way of expressing what I have been trying to explain about how BF3 works for some time now. The carrier mission is a perfect example of that: you play as an F/A-18 weapons operator and a lot of what the mission shows is highly realistic. To begin with, the fact that they acknowledge that this position exists in the first place since I think this is the only game that have really done something similar outside of simulators - and those don't give you the build-up where you walk to the fighter on the flight deck and talk to your pilot. That's quite unique. Then there's the meat of the mission: the helmet mounted queuing system that you use to target enemy aircraft is a thing that exists and is actually used on the F/A-18, as is the AIM-9X Sidewinder all-aspect missiles fired using it. All this is handled in a way that clearly aims towards realism and actually goes beyond what even most simulators do. There are also tons of small touches, like radio chatter, that also aims at authenticity.

But then you filter it through action-movie logic by having you shooting down scores of Su-35s from insanely close ranges and defend yourself using flairs that never fail.

And that's essentially what BF3 is: a game that is a simulator set in an action-movie world. A lot of multiplayer mirrors this too. Weapons are meticulously crafted to appear in a realistic fashion but of course fires rounds that travel far slower than the real deal and don't do near as much damage. And I'm not kidding about the weapons: one of the first patches removed the burst function from the M416, apparently because it was pointed out that the weapon it's based on doesn't have it. The same patch added a base-plate to the mortar - because it has that in real life, and they forgot to put it in. The first and second rounds of the AN-94 is fired at the correct 1800 RPM compared to the following rounds' 600 RPM not only in two-round burst but also full-auto, which is completely impossible to notice unless you already now it's there The standard M320 underbarrel grenade launcher changes automatically to a GP-30 if mounted on Russian weapons. Every single upgrade used on the vehicles are things that exist in real life but behaves according to action movie rules. Again it's the first game that I've played that allows the tanks to fire canister shells, for instance. Or how they made the breathing of a jet pilot clearly audible, which again is something most simulators don't bother doing. And on and on.

As is readily apparent by now I'm a complete miltech geek, so I appreciate these things in a way most people don't. But it is a big part of the reason why I enjoyed BF3 more than BF:BC2 (which I still loved) From the looks of it BF4 does certainly appear to follow in this direction and that's great.

I was also extremely disappointed by the BF4 single-player showing. Sure it looks absolutely phenomenal, but it plays like... I have to say, even if i found BF3's narrative to be quite interesting it was one of the most boring shooter campaigns I've ever played, partly because I am so sick of shooter campaigns. I haven't played BC1 so I can't comment on the mission design but in this day and age I would rather prefer the old-school botmatches. I thought Star Wars Battlefront 2 had an excellent and intriguing way of presenting bot match levels that doesn't feel out of place at all. It still allowed for freedom and felt like a true unpredictable battleground.So it is possible to create "cinematic" and "like-scripted" qualities to bot matches, it's just that EA thinks boring linear campaigns would sell better. sigh...

@nivash: There's no question that DICE are fantastic at building the aesthetics for a Modern Military FPS. I remember when I played the BF3 beta for the first time and hearing the wizz of incoming sniper fire was just wicked sweet. From uniforms to weapons to just battlefield scenery, they are clearly committed to presenting something that looks realistic and serious (unlike COD).

I just wish they would take a little of that creative vision into their campaigns. It was not too long ago that the early Rainbow Six, Delta Force, and Ghost Recon games were trying to feel like something that could actually have a maybe 5% chance of happening in real life. Now we get Russian invasions of Paris and marines who escape CIA custody in NY to chase a nuke on a subway. It's Michael Bay crap. The missions in the campaign aren't really missions at all. They have no actual objective except to move from point A to point B, then to point C, etc. and kill the hundreds of enemy clones along the way. Remember when the Al Quaeda branch in Algeria captured an oil facility and held the workers hostage a few months ago? What if DICE used a scenario like that for a mission and gave you the ability to set up an attack plan for your forces ahead of time? I think it would be awesome. It'd have a lot more replayability than anything they're making now, that's for sure.

If we pre-order we get the first DLC for freeeee -inhale- ... eeeeeeee...

Prepared to get bombed in the face by drones.

Ofcourse it will, BF3 had great game mechanics the online was great I really liked having me and 3 mates working together in our squad, but also having another 28 players on your team as well.

I don't know if they should. The genre is tired and all they're doing is chasing the perceived available market share left from the decline of the CoD titles.

DICE's talent's being wasted imo. What other great games could DICE make is my question.

I, like many long time fans of the series, couldn't care less about a Battlefield campaign. DICE have been trying to emulate Call of Duty as far as the campaign is concerned and Call of Duty does it better, meanwhile Battlefield offers a unique multiplayer experience. I just want them to sort that out, there are so many things that could be improved I just hope they manage to address those issues in the relatively short space of time between titles. At least with them using the same engine they can focus less on asset creation.

Man if they make the campaign more like the original BC then I might be in but that trailer looked like the most linear boring thing

Fuck Battlefield 4. Give me Mirrors Edge 2!!

But seriously, I have 0 interest in it. Battlefield 3 is filled with player owned servers which all have the same shit maps on rotation and I hate it. I bet they'll do the same with BF4 so fuck that game.

@pie: @awesomeusername:

Semi-open world missions with Mirror's Edge-like movement and verticality in the levels, enabled by gadgets like a grappling hook and player deployed zip lines, as well as free choice of vehicles of all kinds including fully playerconrolled jets and choppers - and all of this to be optionally tackled with a full squad of friends - maybe spruced up by dynamic bonus objectives in coop.

Done right, that could be absolutely amazing. Investing the 50 million dollars (wild speculation!) EA is sinking into BF4's seemingly cookie-cutter SP campaign into something more original, that might be truely baller. I'd really love a MOBA-style gamemode with some serious depth and effort put into it. I said it elsewhere, but modern military shooter campaigns offer zero business opportunities past the initial sale. No microtransactions, no story dlc, no nothing - it's an outdated business model, and in my eyes it's unsustainable when put in comparison with what DICE could be doing instead.

Oh well, maybe for whatever Battlefield comes after BF4. This thing is way too far along to be anything but predictable.

@seppli: That does sound cool but I would prefer a straight up Mirror's Edge 2 after BF4. MAYBE gadgets, no guns, no vehicles, (kind of) open world and multiplayer where you race each other and throw each other off buildings. That'd be great.

*Sigh* Now I'm sad.

DICE runs multiple teams, it's a 200-300 man strong outfit overall. If we get a Mirror's Edge 2, it will be developed alongside a Battlefield game - just like the first one. Battlefield counts amongst EA's bread winner franchises, and it's never been much more than two years between iterations pretty much since 2001 - that won't change in the foreseeable future.

btw. did you catch the Mirror's Edge easter egg on Aftermath's Markaz Monolith map? An open world urban cityscape is definitely feasible in FB2/3.

You never know with EA and what they are forcing on DICE. I mean, that first trailer should tell you lots. Linear ass gameplay with the story trying to be some super serious dramatic soldier affair. They tried that with Medal of Honor so many times. It just does not work for games of war. The drama cannot come from the killing or the experience of war.

I know that. It's just wishful thinking for a great Mirror's Edge 2. The first was good but had a lot of flaws and I don't really want it to be a side project for the B team again. Which I know is impossible. But I'll take what I can get.

I haven't paid attention to BF3 after the huge vehicle driven expansion, which I didn't get. Only expansion I got was B2K and I stopped playing BF3 after 3 or so months of barely playing it. But, to YouTube!

It has no chance of getting a fair look from the community. I used to be a big time BF player (thousands of hours of BF2) and even I won't be buying it. They need to stop trying to be Call of Duty and actually make a proper Battlefield game. Enough with the shiny graphics and dudebros swearing. We need more people crashing dune buggies covered in C4 into tanks and crazy defences by one 6-person squad. Not to mention they need to give weapons proper spread again. In the old BF games you could not fire automatic at anything other than close range or you were wasting ammo. In BF3 it was basically hold down the button until the dude you aimed at died. No finesse. In BF2 there were people who turned using an M16 in single-shot into an art form, they could practically snipe people because they were so good. In BF3 anyone could do that because it was so easy and a 3-shot burst was basically as accurate as single shots.