Image: Electronic Arts
Electronic Arts has confirmed the next Battlefield game is bringing character classes back.
Electronic Arts is finally ready to talk about the next Battlefield game. In a recent interview with IGN, Battlefield boss and head of Respawn Entertainment Vince Zampella discussed new details on the upcoming multiplayer shooter, which plans to bring the franchise back to its roots. Battlefield 2042’s controversial Specialists system is getting swapped out for classic Battlefield classes and 128-player maps are getting cut back down to host just 64 players.
Here’s some newly-released concept art for the game:
New Battlefield game takes the franchise back to its roots
Electronic Arts has announced all-new details for its next big Battlefield game, which is set to take the franchise back to its roots after the fairly controversial release of Battlefield 2042. Zampella spoke to IGN about taking the new game back to a modern day setting, saying “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.”
The game will also slim down its player count following the poor reception of Battlefield 2042’s 128-player maps. Its specialist system, combined with massive maps that made it difficult for squads to play objectives and traverse from one point to another, caused the game to feel like an unfocused hero shooter at launch. Zampella acknowledges this by saying:
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. 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.
The new game is also getting rid of the Specialist system which Zampella says “didn’t work. It didn’t fit. Specialist[s] will not be coming back. So classes are kind of at the core of Battlefield, and we're going back to that.” With the next game, Zampella is hopeful that there won’t be a repeat of Battlefield 2042’s troubled launch, saying “We want it to be good out of the gate”.
Electronic Arts’ new Battlefield game is in early development, but Zampella also hints that players might be able to test it out sometime in 2025. “We have a program that we're going to announce next year around getting more community in, because that's kind of the core of what we have to do - get the community back on our side, get that trust back. So I think we're in a really good place. Is it challenging? Of course, but it wouldn't be fun if it wasn't”.
The new Battlefield game does not have a release date yet.
