According to a recent Eurogamer interview with KMT (Karl-Magnus Troedsson), DICE's studio GM in Stockholm, the guys and gals at DICE are unsure why so many want a new Bad Company game, since apparently it's so many things to so many people, and it's hard to pinpoint exactly what it is people love about it - and they won't make a new one until they feel they know.

I know my answer to this question, since I've pondered it often over the years, and I shall answer, but I'd also like to put this question to GiantBomb's forum community. Why do you want a new Bad Company Battlefield game, and what makes a Battlefield game a Bad Company Battlefield game?

First-off, direction-wise my favorite Bad Company game is the first one. The console exclusive one, that introduced both Rush mode and the Frostbite Engine with its emphasis on destruction. Sure, subsequent Battlefield games play better, and Bad Company 2: Vietnam eclipsed Bad Company 1 in my esteem, mostly because I love flying its helicopters and listening to a banging soundtrack while doing so, ontop of it getting the core Bad Company strengths perfectly right, but Bad Company 1 got it all right the first time.

Singleplayer-wise, it's easy. I think that the semi-open-world/sandbox approach of Bad Company 1 fits the shoe of a Battlefield game the best, and its none-too-self-serious tone was refreshing and fun. I think DICE should have further pursued and refined Bad Company 1's design template, rather than starting to chase after the linear cinematic experience Call of Duty does so well. By now, I'm sure they'd have created something really special, rather than the mostly forgettable campaigns of recent Battlefield games.

The meat of the matter is multiplayer anyways. If I'd put my fondness for Bad Company's multiplayer direction in an EA-style marketing slogan, I'd say the words SIMPLE - DIRECT - POWERFUL - EXPLOSIVE.

• SIMPLE - as in the absence of bloat. Instead of an abundance of customization, we had clarity and elegance instead. My favorite example of what was lost? The ability to pick up a kit from the ground, and know exactly what that kit was capable of. These days, it's quite impossible to know what exactly I'll pick up due to too extensive customization. A medic that can't heal or resuscitate? An engineer that can't repair vehicles? A support guy who can't drop ammo? All of that can and will happen in BF3 and BF4.
• DIRECT - for the most parts, it means to me that anyone who could kill me, I could kill back. 100% line-of-sight based combat. None of that fancy lock-on warfare. No indirect fire warfare playing out on the minimap. No invulnerable vehicles. No tablet-app commanders. In short, no nonsense!
• POWERFUL - as in pointing my finger at something, hearing the distant thunder of artillery, and then seeing hard rain fall on whatever I've pointed at, and it leaving behind nothing more than a smoldering crater. I think that's the perfect example of how that sense of player empowerment has slowly erroded from Battlefield since the Bad Company days. Powerful is also the answer to the loss of clarity and elegance due to too extensive customization. Completely empowered kits and vehicles are automatically less fractured and more clear. For example, if every Assault kit comes standardized with a resusciation tool and a med-kit for healing, as well as a 40mm underslung grenade launcher - that'd be both empowering to the players, as well as vastly increasing the clarity and elegance of the design.
• EXPLOSIVE - as in blowing up everything! DICE has shied away from wholesale destruction, has become more selective of what can and cannot be destroyed - in favor of balance and old-school conceptions of good level-design. What I want from a Bad Company game? I want everything to blow up. The more destruction the better. The better shit blows up, the better I like the game. Fuck baked-in balance. In Bad Company, we make or break our own balance - with a whole lot of explosions!

There's lots and lots of other stuff that I could say, but I think the whole SIMPLE - DIRECT - POWERFUL - EXPLOSIVE slogan would lead anyone who speaks these words as a mantra to the place where I'd want a new Bad Company game to go.

...and that's why I want a new Bad Company Battlefield game!

P.S. For the love of all that's good, finally have a lisenced music soundtrack for every Battlefield game, not just the Vietnam ones. Start with Hardline. Slap some gangster shit on there!

I just want more of this.

They're pretty much the only Battlefield games with a fun campaign. I love the characters and how the game doesn't always take itself seriously. Plus the last game ended on a cliffhanger if I remember correctly and I'd like to see how the series ends.

Both ended on a cliffhanger. Part One with the Gold, Part Two with the Russian Invasion of Alaska.

I guess it would be only right if Sweetwater and Haggard & Co. would embark on an all new lark, and it to end yet again on a cliffhanger.

I wanted a new Bad Company before BF4, I guess since BFBC1 was sort of my first Battlefield game that I remember all the crazy moments while playing the single player and multiplayer.

Glad to heard they making a new one!

Once they figure out what makes Bad Company so special...

...which could just as well be never, I guess? I'm rather disparaged, since it pretty much confirms that DICE currently isn't working on a Bad Company game.

I want to blow shit up that smells clean.

Because it means I can dust off the "Braddlefield: Brad Company" comments when the QL goes up.

Since they don't seem to want to make multiplayer only Battlefield games anymore, and the Bad Company games (particularly the first) have been the only Battlefield games with good single player campaigns (Battlefield 2: Modern Combat had a mechanically interesting campaign, but wasn't all that good beyond your ability to switch between several characters at will).

Seemed like they knew what they wanted to do with the Bad Company series' campaigns, whereas Battlefield 3 and 4 lack any real personality in their attempt to imitate the Call of Duty series, thus not focusing on what DICE and the franchise is good at, instead just highlighting all the stuff they're pretty poor at.

But, yeah, in all honesty I wouldn't be all that interested in Bad Company 3 set in the present day, what I'd want them to do is to return to Battlefield 2142 but have that kind of (or the same) characters as the Bad Company games set in that universe. That or a new Codename Eagle.

1. The single-player campaigns were creative, fun, different from the typical mold and filled with interesting characters.

2. The destruction was turned up to 8 and it made for a more fun and varied multiplayer game. (The gold standard will always be Red Faction: Guerrilla). We didn't have the large buildings that are in BF4 but hot damn did those houses crumble. Also everything could be destroyed. If it had walls it could come down. I remember Dice saying that they didn't like the fact that maps were flat at the end of matches but maybe they should've asked the players why they preferred the maps to be completely destructible.

3. The game, both single-player and multiplayer, didn't take itself seriously.

4. Dice wasn't trying to put COD in a Battlefield skin. I cannot stress that those games were very happy, and successful doing it, being their own thing instead of what it has become.

Agreed with just about everything in the second post.

Summarized, it just had a great personality that differentiated itself while still staying a great shooter.

Pretty much this.

Because Bad company 2 multiplayer was among the best of the series.

And the bad company campaigns were goofy and silly instead of overserious melodrama war garbage.

Campaigns with humor and, at least in the first game, open environments that provide an alternative to corridor shooters.

The relative simplicity of the multiplayer classes lead to the best balance of any of the Battlefield games. For example, no class was ever completely helpless when a tank rolls in. Your assault class might consider discretion the better part of valor in this situation, but you could still get your licks in if you really wanted to. I believe Battlefield 1943 falls into this category as well.

More players does not mean a better experience. 64 player matches work fine in Conquest because there's plenty of room between objectives, and many potential objectives to focus on. Battlefield 4 has really botched up Rush mode by making it a 32 player experience while still keeping only two M-COM stations to attack/defend/, and not spacing them further apart from each other. The mode feels a lot like close-quarters Team Deathmatch now.

And then there's the music. Both original and licensed songs were great.

Also, friendly fire was awesome.

Because I smell VERY CLEAN.

Because I liked the Kelly´s heroes inspired single player campaign with its open/sandbox aproach to the gameplay , also liked the destruction that you could cause on the game. Yep thats about it.

I'd like a new Bad Company for a few reasons. Some you kind of touched on already.

1. A fps campaign I actually enjoy playing. Not too many of those.
2. Not prettier destruction but more effective destruction. In the newest Battlefield games the idea of destruction actually changing gameplay dramatically is pretty slim and now basically regulated to scripted events. This leaves the levels to be unchanging for about half the match and then totally wrecked for the second half. The "totally wrecked" state isn't really that though. A few points will alter but it won't make that much of a difference. In Bad Company most of the buildings on the map could be completely nuked. Sure they were grey and completely void of any detail or flare but the point was that you could get rid of about 80% of the cover by yourself. Oh and guess what? It wasn't scripted. Was this a little unbalanced and weird? Yeah it was. It was a lot more fun though. Nothing more satisfying than looking at a completely leveled map at the end of a match.
3. Loadouts that take ten seconds to make and pick. Battlefield 4 has sooooo many guns and mods that it takes forever to actually make a class. I never thought I would miss the day where I just picked something and played it but I do. It also has so many little side things that I'm still not sure how most of them work. Could someone actually explain how all those different squad upgrades work? Do they even matter?
4. Less focus on making DLC. We still got a lot but it's starting to get silly. I miss the larger more focused expansions they used to make.
5. Bad Company is just more fun.

Man I actually agree with a lot of what you said. Especially on simplicity. This is why I loved Battlefield:1943 so much. It was so simple. They need to make a game in that vein but on a larger scale.

Everything needs to be able to be destroyed. Not dumb "levolution" or whatever garbage.

This is exactly it.

@seppli: I don't know how true this is but a lot of people were saying that the multiplayer portion of BFBC2 was the actual invasion by Russia and the U.S. fighting back

Hmmm... Port Valdez was supposed to be in Alaska. You could be on to something there.

No prone! I feel this adds balance.

As others said, the single player was great because it wasn't serious and poked fun at COD. The multiplayer was competitive, balanced, and just plain fun. I have more hours in that multiplayer than any other multiplayer game ever.

No prone! I feel this adds balance.

As others said, the single player was great because it wasn't serious and poked fun at COD. The multiplayer was competitive, balanced, and just plain fun. I have more hours in that multiplayer than any other multiplayer game ever.

man that last conversation...

Haggard :"Would you be a striking fighter or a would you be grapple, ground, and pound"

Sarge :"I would be a sneaky bastard. I'd have my bayonet right in my trunks, walk up right up behind him slap him on his ear and stab him in his back"

Sweets :"You do know that they have rules about not doing that, sarge?"

Sarge :"They wouldn't see it"

Sweets :"It's an-, It's- It's a cage, It's like an octagon, there is like people all around you-"

Sarge :"I Know"

Sweets :"-I think like somebody would see a bayonet"

Sarge :"No No, they wouldn't know. Just like those rugby players in the hurdle I'd wait right until we get on the floor- "

Haggard :"Rugby.. Rugby?"

Sweets :"Rugby, That's-that is what the English call football. Only you can't pass forward"

Sarge :" Okay. Sweets you be knownin' a whole bunch of sh!t I tell you.."

For me it's all about the fact that the Bad Company games are fun, and BF2 and on are not.. I like bf2, I like BF3, they're cool and whatnot, but I LOOOOVE BF1942, that was an amazing game back then. The hilarity experienced in that game is unmatched (well.. aside from ArmA and OFP bugs.. oh joy) and the Bad Company games had some of that chaos and hilarity. BF2-3-4 do not. Dice went from making 1942 which was an unrealistic game based purely on fun to making BF2, something they thought was realistic, but which actually occupies the space that games like GRID and TOCA occupies in the racing sim genre. A middleground not quite sim, not quite arcade, juuuust in between so everyone gets to enjoy it a little bit.. And that's the problem for me with the bf2 3 and 4.

There's just enough of that random-shit-happens fun that happens in an open world game, but not nearly enough for you to sit there with a huge grin all night. 1942 kept me grinning for a couple of years. Played bfbc2 for quite some time as well. Dice usually make great games when they don't take stuff particularly seriously. BF3 was a step in the wrong direction. If you look at it the way I do, there were a few fun bf games, then they made bf2, then they made a couple of fun ones again, and then they for some reason (money, obviously) went with the shittier option and just continued crapping out the core games that have nothing in common with the original game.. blablabla.. the whole thing is odd.

Gimme a WW2 BFBC and I'll be so damn happy. Let me fill my kubelwagen with TNT and fly off the nearest cliff into oblivion.

Because they're the only military shooters I've played that have personality I like. I love how silly the characters are in the campaigns and how they injected some of that into the multiplayer. That's about it, really.

I'm not sure why DICE can't figure out what makes those games special, as it's pretty clear to me. It's a shame that they're probably not going to make one for quite a while. But oh well, I guess.

1. I gave a shit about the characters in the single-player campaign. They made it worthwhile to play a fucking campaign. Also, THOSE CRAZY HILARIOUS FUCKING CONVERSATIONS!

2. Rush Mode was awesome, if unbalanced as fuck.

3. COMPLETE. DESTRUCTION. CAPABILITY. Battlefield 3 and 4 do NOT let me tear down complete buildings in the way Bad Company 1 or 2 did.

4. It took the best parts of Battlefield (vehicles, open-ended map design) and something like Call of Duty or Medal of Honor (deathmatch-style tactics) and mixed them together very well. Hell, I think I played Squad Deathmatch on BC2 more than any other mode.

I want another Bad Company so fucking bad that it goddamn hurts!

and its none-too-self-serious tone was refreshing and fun.

This is probably the single biggest reason why. Bad Company 1 and 2 both had really good single player campaigns, but I think they stand out more because they have actual character. Yes, they're both modern military shooters, through and through, but at the same time they had some personality of their own. They had characters that could make me chuckle, smile, and laugh a little.

Most first person shooters these days have a tone that is either deadly serious (Battlefield 3) or batshit insane (Bulletstorm) Battlefield Bad Company 1 and 2 hit a sweet middle ground between the two that we rarely see, and they both did it pretty damn well. I mean, they're not brilliant examples of character writing or anything, but they had something that stands out and they both stuck around in my mind for quite a while after I played them. I'm definitely interested in another one.

As far as singleplayer goes, everyone already said what I would have.

For multiplayer it's simple, BF:BC2 was the best time i've had with a MP shooter in my entire life, it's what got me interested in the genre again. Why does it work over stuff like BF3or4? Focus. Bad Company 2 multiplayer was focused, you had a higher player density with 32 people then mainline BF does with 64. The Rush game mode focused the action even more, everything was happening around the same place, then moved on down the map, maps felt like they had proper momentum, with one side advancing the other falling back. The tightness of the maps and the action made it more exciting, it made teamwork feel better. Secondly destruction, almost everything was destructible as a result it made the maps and matches more dynamic naturally, just by themselves (not though some gimmick) the flow of the action and the tactics would change as the game went on, as buildings were destroyed, as forests were leveled, new attacking routes created, old ones made too dangerous and it could happen on the fly gradually. Combine how close the action was squeezed together with the destructibility, the game made you feel like you were in the shit, everything around you was blowing up people dying left and right. (people may hate on the Metro map in mainline BF, but it delivered some of that BC magic not just a high spm). Because of how infantry focused and denser the action was, the vehicle stuff was made more enjoyable because it felt more bombastic and meaningful on a smaller scale, whereas in the main BF games a tank out of 6 in a huge conquest map is just another minor piece on the board. To date BFBC2 remains my most played MP game (besides years on wow) and the most played shooter.

100% this.

FOCUS! This is definitely a great word. A word to live by. Probably more fitting than my *SIMPLE*, since elegant simplicity is likely to be achieved by a more focused game. It's another thing I loved about the first Bad Company game so much. At first, it had only one mode (Goldrush, at the time), only one ruleset, only one playercount, no customization beyond the choice of primary weapon. It was super focused. A singular experience, and it was extremely rewarding for those who got into it. Every aspect of it was tailored to that one end - a great Battlefield Goldrush experience.

It was my first Battlefield game. I really liked the campaign and the characters. Their banter was always fun to listen too. The multiplayer was a lot of fun and I loved destroying the buildings in it.

@mikey87144: I agree with all your points. The destruction especially, but also the fact that I really like those characters and it's the only time the BF single player hasn't been absolutely awful (it was pretty good, actually).

I enjoy the characters from the Bad Company games. It's the closest thing to playing a real life version of Three Kings.

The single player campaign felt like you were playing a battlefield game. Especially the first game, but I will admit once you hit that desert level in BC2 it's like the heavens opened up and says "here are 3 mini levels do whichever you want in what order you want."

Plus those characters grew on me in that second game. Hell, the whole campaign in BC2 was light parody of the CoD MW games.

@spoonman671: damn forgot that BC1 had some great music, good memories.

@seppli: Wait, quick question do people still play BC2 on any platforms anymore, or everyone moved on?

@mannymar: Yeah, I really liked the open areas in those games. It was a little weird how you'd straight-up respawn when you died in the first game but that also contributed to the feeling that you were just playing a heavily scripted singleplayer Battlefield map.

People talk about the writing and tone, and that was important for sure, but the underrated part as far as the campaign went for those 2 games was how it was more open and gave you some options. It was structured more like Halo over Call of Duty 4.

Also the scale was small in multiplayer but the destruction was very high and really made an impact (you could blow up whole key buildings in the match). It moved at a pretty snappy speed.

I like the larger scale of other Battlefield games more but I think in reality a lot of players would rather have small player counts, whether they realize it or not.

I don't want a new one. I just want the Battlefield 5 campaign to deal exclusively with Haggard and Sweetwater.

Not in the military, just as beat cops or something. No multiplayer in the game at all. And mostly no shooting. LA Noire meets End of Watch.

@spoonman671: You mean you want an actual soundtrack and not just a jumbled mess of farts noises?

The core games on vanilla maps? All Battlefield games on PC (except for those that went down together with GameSpy) should still have a large enough global playerbase to fill a couple of servers. Hell - I bet there's some BF1942 community out there, that somehow keeps playing that game even without GameSpy support.

On consoles, I'd bet there's still sufficient traffic for all vanilla maps and core modes from Bad Company 1 upwards. Probably not for the paid DLC and more exotic modes though. Honestly, I haven't played anything but the latest Battlefield games in a good long while, but if experience serves right, Battlefield games die hard, if you will.

Bad Company 2 definitely still has lots of players on all platforms. Many reportedly went back to it from BF3, since it wasn't what they wanted. I guess the same holds true for BF4, which is pretty much just a bigger and bolder BF3.

@badsniper52: 680 in steam right now which is fairly active

Rush mode is better than conquest mode, but the maps in BF4 have not been designed around rush, and the core Battlefield players are too stubborn to realize what's good for them and usually play conquest. Maybe the experience is better on consoles.

Because the campaign actually had personality.

Aaron Sampson over at Gamespot put together a pretty good list of what made Bad Company 2 a better experience then the newer Battlefields.

http://www.gamespot.com/videos/top-10-reasons-bad-company-2-was-the-best-battlefi/2300-6420059/

i dunno, i liked the characters and personality of single player campaign, quite different from what they tried to do in BF3 and BF4. Can't say what i liked better in the multiplayer though, it's been a long time since i played it.