Battlefield has never been able to keep up with Call of Duty. It’s tried several times, and there were a few moments during the twilight years of the PS3 and Xbox 360 era where it felt like Electronic Arts had finally struck gold, only for it to suddenly blow up in its face.
The series began life as a PC exclusive where the focus was on massive-scale battles and intricate vehicular warfare, while Call of Duty built its reputation on spectacle-ridden campaigns with an abundance of set pieces and twitch-shooting multiplayer that would go on to redefine the entire genre. The launch of Modern Warfare in 2007 saw Activision’s series begin an era of global dominance that would take over a decade to subside, and even today it remains one of the most popular games on the planet. Battlefield is still busy picking up the pieces.
What Happened To Battlefield?
Battlefield 3 marked the beginning of a new chapter for the shooter series as DICE tried its best to replicate the campaign and multiplayer combo pioneered by Call of Duty while staying as true to its roots as possible. The gunplay was more familiar to players of its rivals, but it still made a point to feel more realistic, require greater accuracy to pull off incredible plays, and offer an array of vehicles to pilot across maps that went on for miles. It was a very different beast, and for a few years from 2011 onwards it felt like a legitimate competitor.
As the PS4 and Xbox One prepared to launch, I remember Battlefield 4 being one of its most anticipated titles, thanks to both the visual spectacle and sheer scale of the experience. I will never forget the iconic opening set to Bonnie Tyler’s Total Eclipse of the Heart, and then how boring the single-player campaign became after playing it for just a few minutes. It blew you away with its visuals, but beneath that veneer was a lack of depth and mediocre writing. While much of the multiplayer was broken at launch and took months to be properly fixed.
Its competition at the time was Call of Duty: Ghosts, so it’s no surprise that Battlefield briefly stormed ahead back in 2013.
It was a great game – when it worked – but by the time it was patched up, the community (except for a dedicated handful) was ready to move on, and given the game set to follow in its footsteps was none other than Hardline, there wasn’t much to look forward to. This new entry crammed the gameplay of Battlefield 4 into the ill-fitting body of a cop. It was pretty tone-deaf back then, but today it feels hard to imagine a triple-A game like this existing. It just wasn’t especially good either, failing to live up to the campaign or multiplayer of Battlefield 4 as the series floundered to find its place in the modern market.
Battlefield 1 would follow in 2016 and is arguably the most successful the series has been since the third entry. It offered something unique in its World War 1 setting and unexpected selection of weapons and vehicles, while the campaign being split into individual War Stories that essentially acted as an entertaining tutorial for online play was a smart idea. It was more popular than that year’s Call of Duty, the unfairly maligned Infinite Warfare, and represented a breath of fresh air for the genre by stepping back in time when every developer seemed so obsessed with the future.
Then Battlefield 5 – or V, as it was called – came out and blew away all that good will thanks to rehashed attempts at War Stories, inconsistent multiplayer, and a desire to nail battle royale trends it was already months late to punch on. This game isn’t remembered fondly at all, and today feels like a bizarre low point in a series that kept on missing shots at what should have been an open goal. But fear not, here was Battlefield 2042 ready to save the day!
It was leaving behind the single-player campaign to focus completely on multiplayer. Surely, this means there is no possible way it can be utterly broken and near unplayable at launch! Right? Oh no, that’s exactly what happened. It was incredible to watch 2042 crash and burn in the ways it did, failing to maintain an audience in a landscape of popular live service titles as it pushed expansions and updates that continually failed to keep people invested. Like a lot of past entries, there was a dedicated following, but try to see the forest for the trees and it was clear to see the series was in dire straits. Now, everything rides on Battlefield 6.
How Can Battlefield 6 Bring The Series Back From The Brink?
Reports from playtests indicate that Battlefield 6 is embracing a modern setting along with modes and gameplay mechanics we loved from much older entries. It also removes any needless fluff to create an experience you can jump into and enjoy without an ounce of prior knowledge. In essence, it’s trying to be Battlefield 3 all over again.
Over 1.3 million people tried to sign up for Battlefield Labs to take part in the pre-launch playtests, so despite past mistakes there is clearly still a thirst for new games in the series.
This is the safest route that Electronic Arts could have taken with Battlefield 6, but it’s hard to argue that it isn’t the correct one. For years now, it feels like the series has failed to figure out a consistent identity in the live service landscape, while failing to maintain the following giant titles like this need in order to stay afloat. It can’t chance being too complicated, taking many risks, or alienating shooter fans when it’s already on the rocks. When 2042 failed, part of me was convinced that was it, and DICE would be yet another studio closure atop the pile as EA struggled to figure out what to do with its biggest franchise outside of EA Sports FC.
Battlefield deserves to have a future, and the genre would be sorely lacking without it. If the sixth entry needs to sand down the more complicated edges to make that possible, then so be it. It can still be fun, ambitious, and absolutely ripe for chaos even as it returns to its modern roots.
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