All of it points to a back-to-basics approach for the next Battlefield. Indeed, Head of Respawn & Group GM for EA Studios Organization Vince Zampella is quick to shout out Battlefield 3 and 4 in the course of sitting down with IGN to talk about these new reveals. On the decision to return to the modern era, Zampella says, "I mean, if you look back to the peak or the pinnacle of Battlefield, it's that Battlefield 3... Battlefield 4 era where everything was modern. And I think we have to get back to the core of what Battlefield is and do that amazingly well, and then we'll see where it goes from there. But I think for me, it's that peak of Battlefield-ness is in that Battlefield 3 and 4 days. So I think it's nostalgic for players, for me, for the teams even. Those are kind of the heyday...although I would say 1942 also."
The return to the modern setting represents a course correction for the series after Battlefield 2042, which eventually found its footing but was otherwise widely panned for features like Specialists — characters that made it seem as if Battlefield was trying to be a hero shooter. Its ambitious 128-player maps also proved unpopular with fans who preferred a more focused experience. Battlefield 2042 eventually went back to supporting 64 players per maps, and the next Battlefield plans to stick to that approach.
I'd rather have nice, dense, really nice, well-designed play spaces. Some of them are really good
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"Yeah, the 128 player, did it make it more fun? Like...doing the number for the sake of the number doesn't make any sense. We're testing everything around what's the most fun. So like you said, the maps, once they get to a certain scale, become different. It's a different play space, and I think you have to design around that. So we are designing something that is more akin to previous Battlefields," Zampella says. "I'd rather have nice, dense, really nice, well-designed play spaces. Some of them are really good. I can't wait for you to see some of them.
Specialists are also out this time around. "So I wasn't there for 2042. I don't know what the rationale was, but for me, it's like the team tried something new. You have to applaud that effort. Not everybody liked it, but you got to try things. It didn't work. It didn't fit. Specialist will not be coming back. So classes are kind of at the core of Battlefield, and we're going back to that," Zampella says.
He's careful to stress that Battlefield 2042 wasn't a "failure of a game" despite not doing as well as hoped. He notes that the development team "really spent a lot of time learning how to adapt it and getting things back." Still, he says, EA doesn't want a repeat of the experience it had with 2042. "We want it to be good out of the gate."
