Or how I can't accept the fact that Battlefield is just another franchise in the book of EA

Where do I even begin with? I guess I should address the subtitle first. I have a really big problem with Battlefield. I really love it. I probably like it a little bit too much. But that's only half of my issue with the franchise. What else bothers me is that it's really hard to like it anymore. It has become more and more frustrating to try to appreciate it with each iteration. Let me explain.

Looking at and understanding the history of Battlefield can be challenging. But in order to get my point across we need to look back a bit.

Main Canon

Battlefield's origins are murky but the earliest game in the series was released in 1999 and it's called Codename Eagle. It was a WWI themed, proto-Battlefield game developed by Refraction Games, who also developed an engine called Refractor, which was later used in what we now refer to as the early, or classic Battlefield titles.

Shortly thereafter Refraction Games was bought by DICE and the newly expanded studio started working on Battlefield 1942. A publisher was found for the funding too - Electronic Arts.

So Battlefield 1942 was released in 2002 and it amazed everybody with its simplistic, yet addictive and innovative combined warfare gameplay. This was the real beginning of all there is and where we are now is actually a little bit more complicated than you might expect. That's because there are 2 ways to look at Battlefield. The first is the lineage we are all familiar with - starting with BF1942 and going all the way to Hardline.

It includes main games like 2, 3 and 4 but also spin-offs like the Bad Company series or one offs like 1943. One of the many and great things DICE abandoned in recent years is giving any indication with their titles as to which time frame we are working with in these games.

If Codename Eagle was BF1912, then Battlefield 1942 continued onwards in time. The Korean War (supposed BF1952) wasn't covered but then we see BF Vietnam (BF1962). The Gulf War would've been BF1992 and then we come to BF2 (BF2002). Notice the constant 2 at the end of the dates. DICE started it, I can't stop now.

And these titles with numbers don't have to be historically accurate. The most highly rated game in the series (BF2) had a setup that was fictional. Looking at the chart I made will give you a better picture of where the main games stand. Keep in mind that most of these specific years are incorrect with the time frame covered in a given game by few years but the overall series has no interest in being consistent across its span anyway.

Giving Battlefield 4 a sub/working title of "2022", even though it's set in 2020 is just to keep up with the previous logic of 1942->2142. "TBM" (or "to be made") is given to games that don't exist and if made could cover specific wars conflicts in the past.

Alternate Reality

The second viewpoint of where Battlefield is now starts with a divergence from the possible time frame plan DICE was going to follow. Instead of going to the Gulf War after Vietnam, we jump right into modern times with a mod for BF1942 called Desert Combat. It was inspired by the, then current, War in Iraq and consequentially even more so by modern military warfare.

The Desert Combat mod was developed by Trauma Studios. It became pretty successful and the team behind it was eventually hired by DICE and they helped shaping what would become BF2 in 2005.

"Cool story bro but what does BF2s development has to do anything with a supposed second lineage of Battlefield games?" you might say. Well, you see, while BF1942 was all fine and dandy, it was in a market saturated by WWII games. With some inspiration and creativity someone took what was already there and made it way better. And that applies to both BF1942 (which we already talked about) and BF2.

In BF2s case a very particular portion of the moders (not Trauma Studios) weren't completely satisfied with what was already at offer. So they decided to make something that would further continue what BF2 started.

Battlefield has always been put in the middle of the arcade-realism chart for shooters: way more realistic than Quake but nowhere near ArmA. And with BF2 at the time it was in the perfect middle.

So the same people who weren't satisfied with the amount of realism it offered, they decided to make it as realistic as possible. By now I'm sure you are familiar about what I'm talking about - the Project Reality mod. It's the military simulator version of not only BF2 but Battlefield itself.

Most people are unfamiliar with the details so here is a short summary. The mod expands upon every aspect of BF2 the way BF2 expanded upon BF1942. It adds more depth to every mechanic, while introducing countless others. It makes communication way more necessary and rewarding. It has the most realistic gameplay and it offers more content than several modern titles from the series combined, with bigger maps and 100 people in a single server.

And in my opinion the Project Reality mod is the best the Battlefield franchise has to offer as of right now. It's the most fleshed out game, with nearly 10 years of development. Most people avoid it because it's made in an old engine (Refractor 2) or because it's a mil sim. And those are totally justifiable reasons.

But fear not. Modern video game development and distribution is finally allowing someone to make a spiritual sequel to Project Reality. And once again I'm sure you know what I'm talking about - SQUAD, developed by ex-PR devs, now under the name of Offworld Industries.

Made with Unreal Engine 4, they are setting up to make a better and bigger in every aspect PR, without technical limitations. It's going to take them a long time but it's going to be worth it.

So what's the problem? Oh wait, you lied to us!

I guess I did. But did I really? The two directions Battlefield has taken are completely different at this point. On one side we have SQUAD and on the other... Hardline? Like WTF? With this huge contrast created between those who tried to continue the legacy of BF in a particular direction it was heading anyway and the new people who have no idea where they want to take it, it's hard to believe everything started from an unsuccessful WWI game.

What I'm trying to say is this a fucked situation we have here. Just before BF2142 was released EA completed their acquisition of DICE and the games after that in the franchise became so much different. EA made so many, really strange, calls to be honest. Console only BF? Which I'm still not sure how EA got away with. SP story? Totally unexpected. Removing essential features like VOIP, modding, commander mode? This is ridiculous. Focusing on a completely different gamemode? Cool but also what?! Completely unnecessary and dull SP stories (Bad Company doesn't count)? What's the point of them?

The way I see it is EA wanted BF to be big, way bigger than it should've. And they got what they wanted. They gave DICE time to develop its next-gen engine, Frostbite, and then start making Battlefield for consoles only. They did that for a short time and then started making them for every platform that had core gamers in them. That meant more was developed for the same amount of time, which made them cut a lot of corners.

But Battlefield wasn't enough. As a way to keep up with competition EA started releasing Medal of Honor titles in between every Battlefield release, until they completely destroyed it.

And when they decided to return to making core BF games, after half a decade and countless spin-offs, they gave us BF3. A pretty good game but nothing that evolved the core games in the franchise, in fact it was more of reboot if you think about it.

Then we got BF4, which was another disappointment for a different set of reasons, which are mostly fixed now but it's still just more of 3. And wouldn't you know it then Hardline happened, which I talked about 5 paragraphs ago.

It's basically pick your poison at this point: non-iterative (BF3), buggy (BF4), something completely different (HL). The list of things that are done differently in the older BF games vs what's there now is staggering.

So many mechanics are so much more forgiving - movement and health to name a few. But some are brutal, like unlocking everything there can be. Some aspects like stealth are gone. All of these changes led to a way faster than it should've been game. Classes are either overplayed or not played with at all and teamwork is not incentivized.

All of this just leads me to believe that all recent Battlefield games are just bad Battlefields. They don't iterate much upon anything or don't do what Battlefield has always been about: giving us unique gameplay experiences at different time periods.

You can either perceive this as the ramblings of a shell shocked mad man or a pretty balanced opinion on the Battlefield franchise without mentioning Call of Duty for onc... fuck!, it was going to happen anyway, no way of avoiding it at this point.

But the fact stands that Battlefield is not what it used to be. It has turned into just another franchise in the book of EA. They have no interest in evolving or structuring it differently as long as it breaks even. Most of EA's recent games just seem good enough, mediocre, passable for the most part: Need for Speed, SimCity, DS, Crysis and Battlefront. How in the name of everything can something be so cynical of itself? These are all great properties to have but they are arguably underutilized.

To me the good old days of BF are gone. At this point DICE can not do anything to get its good will back. Battlefield 5 won't save them and the amount of rebooting is going on, I won't be surprised if it's presented in that way as well. The audience of people who cared so much are not here anymore. Many of them I imagine got tired and went to play something else.

Perhaps it's just me.

One man's progression vs another's regression are not meant to compliment each other

This article was originally supposed to be about how every favourite franchise of ours eventually gets fundamentally changed until only the name remains. In Battlefield's case Hardline is the closest we will get to that point for some time I think. It's not the end but it's pretty damn close.

A while ago I heard someone say something really distressing (mostly to me I guess) about entertainment in general: no matter the material or by who and when it was created, it will eventually be repackaged and sold to someone, somewhere else. It's unavoidable, especially in today's corporate driven world led by capitalism.

There are countless franchises or brilliant works that have been masqueraded far worse than I make Battlefield to be. If you ever hear me again complain about Battlefield after this article, just remember Silent Hill.

The thing that makes me the most mad about myself is how late I realized what Battlefield had turned into. It hit me really hard when I actually started comparing BF3 to its prequel. I ate all of that $200m marketing budget that was allocated for 3 back in 2011. I bought into the hype and was super excited that Battlefield would return to its roots.

Alas, it was way too late - the influences from outside in Battlefield were far too apparent and the purity of what made it great in the past was long gone. The people Battlefield attracted and those who made it post BF2142 had no interest in slow paced gameplay, nor out of the box game that would engage us for years to come.

And it's not like I didn't enjoy BF3 but as time passed I realized more and more it wasn't for me anymore. Nobody made it for me in particular and it was all a business transaction after all.

It simply wasn't meant to be. I can go on and on and drivel more poetic bullshit about how much I love BF2 and how dislikable Battlefield has become to me but the takeaway message is that it's OK to change and leave some things in the past. Not everything from the past can stay the same in the future or evolve alongside you.

Looking for new and exciting things is way better than lamenting at the past like me. My love towards BF2 is near obsessive at this point and only things like SQUAD can fill the void in my soul(?).

And it's not just me who just can't let go of a favourite video game. Danny O'Dwyer made an excellent episode on this subject on his The Point series where he talked about Assassin's Creed which prompted me to write this in the first place.

What can't YOU let go of off? Final Fantasy? Assassin's Creed? Star Wars? There's plenty to choose from. What you never should forget is what kinds of completely new things are on the horizon.

Video gaming is heading more and more in the direction of niches tailored specifically for you and me. Battlefield used to be one (in some ways ) but now it really isn't. On the other hand SQUAD totally is - the people who are making it have a clear vision of what they want it to be.

In a way I would've hoped those same people from Trauma Studios influenced the future of Battlefield but they are long gone. Few days before BF2 was released they were shutdown and later picked up by the now bankrupt THQ. They made Frontlines: Fuel of War and later Homefront, both of which didn't leave much of a mark.

To me the people working at DICE right now are not necessarily completely unconcerned and DICE LA is apparently doing a splendid job on BF4 but to me Trauma Studios are the people who are responsible for the highest point of brilliance the main series has ever reached (not counting PR and SQUAD).

I'm surprised how rarely we see games like Battlefield around though. The series doesn't really have much of a competition. I've always wondered why and the only answer I can come up with is "It's really difficult to make a game like this", which is admirable for DICE and it's a wonder of its own how Battlefield has survived for this long (though the most obvious reason to me is "Because EA wants it to be around").

I'm sure someone is going to make something along the same lines eventually. I could do with a better Battlefield.