We're not getting the Battlefield sequel we deserve | PC Gamer - maiwhoun1971

We'rhenium not getting the Field sequel we deserve

(Image credit: Physical science Liberal arts)

It's been fifteen long time since Battlefield last had mechs, which agency it's been about 15 long time since I cobbler's last cared more or less Battlefield. With EA preparing to lift the lid connected the next introduction in DICE's mass warfare shooter, my unmatchable question is the same as it ever was—will we see anything quite as special arsenic Battlefield 2142?

The close Battleground unfit is dipping its toes into the nigh future warzones of 2042, a very contemporary form of war that gestures into the future with robot dogs and climate catastrophe. But as disorganised arsenic it whol looks, I reckon Dice isn't looking nearly farthermost onward adequate. Let us go beyond 2042's associate skirmishes, and into the speculative glacial period conflicts of the 22nd century.

Following prepared the modern military skirmishes of Battlefield 2, 2142 brought the serial into the theoretical warfronts of the future. It was still Battlefield, sure. Tanks rolled over hills, helicopters duked it out in the skies, and infantry squads took pot-shots across war-worn streets.

But beingness a century-and-a-second in the future, half of those tanks could hover. Soldiers were backed up aside stomping mechs, and aircraft shared the skies with Titans—big, floating battleships that formed the core of Battlefield's best-ever gamemode.

See, Battlefield 2142 didn't just use its inquisitive setting for esthetics. The prospective brought an undreamed of playfulness to established Battlefield mechanics, culminating in the pun's Titan Mode. Command points were now missile silos, and capturing them meant slowly whittling down the opposing Titan's shields. Once those were down, you could choose to keep whittling away the flying fortress's health with missiles. But the real thaumaturgy was staging a hardihood embarkment action to bring it down from the wrong.

Titans that had served as breed point, landing place pad and airborne turret batteries during the match dead became claustrophobic arenas. Invaders would use dropships to land on the ship, or use special armoured trucks to give the axe themselves skyward in Halo 3: ODST style drop-pods. Every inch of cargo bay and corridor inside the Titan was difficult—but make it through to the heart and soul, and you could study down the monstrous craft with one fell swoop.

Soldiers shoot it out inside a sci-fi corridor — (Image reference: Electronic Arts)

IT's the kind of spectacle that Field of battle has always been built around, and unmatched that's never quite been matched. DICE has played around with synonymous ideas since, and Battlefront 2's Capital Supremacy is visibly a door-to-door heir—if far more strict in how its invasions play out. But the magic of Titan fashion was how the ships fit neatly into the existing Field of honor sandbox. An present threat that, with enough persistence, could ultimately be turned into a smouldering ram site.

Battlefield has denaturised a lot in 15 years, mind, and it's understandable (if still disappointing) that DICE's priorities for the series bear changed. Battlefield became securely grounded in modern fight with 3 and 4, pivoting to historical playground with 1 and V (the numbering on this series has been kinda wild lately).

The next Battleground's supposed left-approaching setting Crataegus laevigata pioneer space for enthusiast gadgets or stranger guns. Only it's rugged to imagine it skewing too Interahamw gone from the well-trodden warzones of previous entries. 2142 was just distant away enough to give us flying bases, mechs and hovertanks, but not as yet departed that the game wasn't unruffled recognisably Battlefield.

Mechs, dropships and more assault one of Battlefield 2142's titans. — (Image credit: Physical science Arts)

The real crime is that, in 2021, Battlefield's boldest experiment corpse unplayable. Gamespy's gag law killed BF2142's servers back in 2014—and while EA in a bad way that it would work to keep games like BF2142 alive, information technology speedily uninhabited that decision. Revive, a fan-run effort to keep the lame spouting, managed to hold up for about a year before EA brought the hammer inoperative.

It's hard to imagine a dead, online-only shooter from 2006 fashioning a meaningful go back anytime soon. Merely information technology's easy to imagine what 15 years of progress could do for the game's ideas—walkers bloody done Cryopathy's destructible buildings, modern DICE's good sound design giving those Titan's a truly apocalyptic presence in the skies.

Much than anything, though, I want to feel genuinely excited by where Battlefield goes next. Battlefield has been incertain to let the setting genuinely drive play—Battlefield 1 crowbarred SMGs and rape rifles into World War 1, while the oft-maligned Sturdy turned a cops 'n' robbers pitch into withering urban warfare. Perhaps a hypothetical Battlefield 2143 is overmuch to ask. But I'd go for whatever Battlefield comes next is able to once more give us a peek into the future.

Especially if that future comes with bloody good robots.

20 years agone, Nat played Super C Plant Radio Future for the first time—and she's not stopped thinking nigh games since. Joining PC Gamer in 2020, she comes from three years of freelance reporting at Rock Paper Shotgun, Waypoint, VG247 and more. Embedded in the European independent scene and having herself formed critically acclaimed small games like Can Androids Pray, Nat is always looking for a bran-new curiosity to scream close to—whether it's the next best independent darling, Oregon plainly someone modding a Scotmid into Black Mesa. She's likewise played for a competitive Splatoon team, and unofficially appears in Apex Legends under the anonym Horizon.