DICE Creative Director: Battlefield 3 will push boundaries of aging consoles

Mike Bantick
Thursday, 13 October 2011 14:19

Opinion and Analysis

Lars Gustavsson  is the Creative Director at DICE preparing to unleash Battlefield 3 on the world.  He kindly took time out  to let RadioactiveIT know a little more about one of the biggest game releases of 2011.

 

Since the last singularly numbered Battlefield game (Battlefield 2 on the PC) a lot has changed in the world of video games, specifically military shooters where the Battlefield series finds itself in a crowded market place.  Along with the obvious competitors of the Call Of Duty/Modern Warfare franchise and Electronic Arts own rebooted Medal of Honor games, there are many other 'realistic' based combat shooters such as ARMA and Operation Flashpoint.

'Battlefield has always had its own unique game-play,' says Gustavsson 'and to honest that has been the case for a long time.  There are plenty of shooters out there, Battlefield 3 really sticks with a lot of things that the competition can't match, it's everything from our destruction to our huge landscapes with the all-out war, vehicles, our new social hub, battle log , but also overall a really great engine called Frostbite 2 which allows us to really push the boundaries on consoles, that to be honest getting a bit old, to stay in the forefront and provide gamers with a really good experience'

This Battlefield is being refined, bringing back air combat, but losing the Commander Mode, amongst other changes with this eleventh iteration of the franchise:  'We have been listening to the community and our own experience with Battlefield 2 ' says Gustavsson ' We have also gained a lot of experience through the years making games like Bad Company and Mirror's Edge , it's a mixture of all that experience that goes into [this title].'

'For example, the Commander Mode could work great in certain matches while if you had a commander that didn't care, then they whole team was blocked, this time around we shared the different tools that the commander has to the soldiers on the battlefield instead, so you get a much more dynamic battlefield less dependent on one person.'

The essence of a Battlefield is this multiplayer game-play, it is interesting that the team from DICE quote the influence of a game sporting such an iconic single player element as Mirror's Edge; 'Yeah so many take aways from,  probably one of the best branded, art direction, style and tone [games] that we ever done, with Mirror's Edge, the movement, the physical connection to the in-game world is probably one of the best we have ever done.  Now we have transferred that, now you are connected to the world, you vault over everything, you don't just jump with ridged legs, there is a lot of learning that goes back to this game.'

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