Matthew Chmiel

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I wasn't a big fan of Battlefield 3, but I loved Battlefield: Bad Company 2. Why couldn't we have a sequel to that?

Interesting that EA and DICE mentioned nothing about the next-generation consoles during their announcement for the game this evening. I wonder if we'll hear information regarding that once we hear official word on the next Xbox?

I still think EA is worse than Hitler, but I might consider a purchase if the next-generation consoles can pull off 64-player similar to that of the PC equivalent. I always thought that was weird that the 360 and PS3 maps were still as large as their PC counterparts (despite EA and DICE originally saying otherwise) and you'd still have a player cap even with dedicated servers doing a lot of the heavy lifting.

EDIT: According to Polygon, Battlefield 4 will be on the PS4.

19K

If this is a PS4 launch title, then that'll be reason enough for me to buy one. I've easily spent more time playing BF3 than any other game in my life. That being said, I could care less about the single player campaign that is shown in that video. I'll probably only play the campaign once. Multiplayer is really the ONLY way to play a BF game.

redrum

building collapsing part dayum

lordwow

I did not expect to have that gameplay to open with "Total Eclipse of the Heart" but it was pretty good

RocShemp

Well, here's hoping the SP campaign is far better than that of Battlefield 3.

I'd rather have a Battlefield: Bad Company 3.

chess

This.

19K

Remember these games are published by EA, and Battlefield 3 is their best selling FPS... EVER. By a landslide. As in, it has sold more copies* than ALL the previous Battlefield games combined.

Title - Sales (in Millions)
Battlefield 1942 - 2.47
Battlefield Vietnam - 1.36
Battlefield 2 - 2.25
Battlefield 2: Modern Combat - 1.64
Battlefield: Bad Company - 2.59
Battlefield: Bad Company 2 - 6.54
Battlefield 3 - 18.00* (*estimated FY '13 figure)

BF3 is a cash cow for them and as much as everybody loves to hate it, it's the only game that has ever even came close to COD profit-wise. They don't care what people want, they care what makes them money. That's why we won't be seeing any more MOH games either. It's a good bet they'll be sticking with the BF3 blueprint for awhile.

chuckd21

Don't get fooled again by that.

shumway

I would definitely welcome the destructible environments from BC2 in BF4. There just wasn't enough destruction in 3, period. I am also fine with it being more realistic but the recoil was a joke, unless our soldiers weigh a buck forty and can barely lift the guns to begin with.

mattysemo247

I really enjoyed Battlefield 3, both single player and multiplayer. I kind of fell out of playing it though once the map packs were being released and I didn't pick them up. At that time, the premium edition was released and Battlefield 4 was already "announced" once they reviled the box art for MOH Warfighter, so to me it wasn't worth it. But I will end up picking this up for the next XBox, might have to wait for the premium edition with all of the content though

Also, I'm game for another Bad Company. I really enjoyed the past two games in the series.

Matthew Chmiel

Battlefield 3 won't hit 18M units. Without digital sales, it stands at 15M units moved. With all of the criticism Origin has gotten since its inception, launch, and even post-launch with the SimCity debacle; I don't see it moving an additional 3M units (and we will state since the game's launch in 2011) when most gamers are still critical of it. That platform isn't getting Steam or Battle.net-like purchase numbers, nor do I think it ever will.

I'm just hoping we'll see Battlefield: Bad Company 3 as the next release to the franchise after this one. 6M+ units moved for a video game is fantastic, especially since the Battlefield franchise hasn't had the longevity or success that Call of Duty and other FPS franchises have had.

Then again, I do get that FPS franchises might be on the downfall and their way out. MW3 sold over 30M units before digital sales whereas Black Ops 2 has only moved 22M units before digital sales. Halo 4 also sold significantly less (8M units) than Halo: Reach (10M units) and Halo 3 (12M units).

19K

BF3 sold 15 million copies as of May 8, 2012. It was released on October 25, 2011. That's only 7 months. It's been 10 months since that 15 million figure was announced so I think 18 million is well within reach but I guess we'll have to wait and see.

Also, they released 4 DLC packs after May 2012... the last of which was just made available to all platforms last week.

dse2010

This game looks pretty sick and this is coming from a COD fanboy. Water battles >>>

Nausicaa

I felt a little burned by BF3. The game didn't pull me in like previous entrants in the series, although it improved with the addition of Armored Kill maps, and Back to Karkand maps were also pretty solid.

I played the hell out of 1942 and the numerous mods that came out for it back in the day. I played a bit of BF2 and then didn't get back into the series until Bad Company. I really enjoyed both of those games because of the Frostbite engine. Destructible environments are awesome.

I think the problem with BF3 is the maps all feel too boxed in and 'structured' with combat choke points baked in. Not being able to actually destroy the entire environment was also a problem, although it varies from map to map. Still, in Oasis from BC2, for example, you could level every single building on the map if the battle was hot enough, and it felt much more organic and flowed better than any of the BF3 maps, which just feel like a constant grind.

I also didn't like being charged for maps. I remember getting lots of new maps in BC and BC2 for FREE (although most were variants on single player environments and maps from other game modes). Plus the 'Premium' nonsense after a bunch of us already bought the game.

Other than that, I can't put my finger on what made BF3 less fun than BC2 for me, although you guys seem to agree. I bought BC2 three times (360, which wore out, then 360 again, then PC) and played it for probably hundreds of hours over the years, I stopped playing BF3 after 30 or 40 hours. I think part of it is that the BF conquest game mode is inherently kind of silly and unrealistic, so when the devs tried to add elements of realism to the game, it made the game more of a chore than it should be.

All that is a long way of saying I'm not really thrilled by this BF 4 announcement. I'm also perplexed by the focus on single player. The campaign in 3 was universally panned. No one buys these games for the campaign guys. Seriously, just spend all that wasted time expanding the MP maps or something. These linear COD-style campaigns are soooo boring.

Matthew Chmiel

You can thank Call of Duty for that.

I still believe what separated the Bad Company games from the others in the franchise is that your team actually had to function as a team to win the game, similar to Team Fortress 2. Unlike Call of Duty or Battlefield 3 where it's every man for himself.

fumanstan

There was an article today on Kotaku mentioning how there's no Wii U version, and that the Frostbite engine doesn't support that console. So much for big 3rd party support.

Matthew Chmiel

Black Ops II sold less than 200,000 units on the Wii U, which is right up Battlefield 4's target audience. I'm not surprised they're not supporting it.

chess

I can't tell you how much I agree with this, and bless you for using a map as an example. BF3 had as many maps that I hated as it had maps that I liked, and the destruction was almost entirely aesthetic, as opposed to the Bad Company games where it was integral to the flow of the maps.

And on your "boxed in" comment, I wholeheartedly agree. The linear maps in BC2 were almost entirely great because they had multiple paths to travel and lots of cover. Atacama, White Pass, Oasis, and Arica Harbor fit this mold. The only ones that didn't were Heavy Metal (not enough cover) and Port Valdez, which had natural choke points on both sides of Bravo.

If the core mechanics of BF3 had been good, I would have gladly paid for maps. Unfortunately, the core game had all kinds of problems too...crazy recoil, blinding lighting effects, gimping the knife and annoying choke points amongst other problems.

Ditto this. I think I leveled into the 40s on BF3 and now I've gone completely back to Bad Company 2. It's simply more fun.

Matthew Chmiel

Just a heads up. For anyone who pre-orders Battlefield 4 from any retailer, your copy will include an access code to download the Drone Strike expansion pack when it's released in late 2013. I'm assuming it'll be similar to Battlefield 3 where the first-pressing of the title was a "limited edition" that included the access code to Return to Karkand DLC and future pressings will have no access code included.

Decker

I think this is something additional : Amazon is offering a bonus code to be sent within two day of pre-order if you pre-order the game by 4/13. I figured it was worth the pre-order now to grab the code at least. Can always cancel later.

mattysemo247

Yeah, the Amazon code was sent minutes after I preordered it. You have to log into Origin to redeem it.

Decker

You redeem it at a site called : www.battlefield.com/dogtagoffer so I guess it's just bonus dog tags. BFD.

mattysemo247

Yep, sorry, you're right Decker. It just asked you to log onto Origin from there so it's tied to your account. Which I thought was nice since preorders were not up for the next gen versions at the time.

Decker

Oh, I wasn't correcting you at all. It's just Amazon described it as "Limited-Time Bonus Content", which it technically is, but certainly that's less exciting than Amazon lets on. If their pop-up ad said "Preorder now and get bonus DLC dog tags", I probably wouldn't have bothered.

Matthew Chmiel

It looks like the game will be confirmed for the next-generation Xbox tomorrow.