As long as they are playing catch up Battlefield will never meet its achieve it’s full potential to be the best game. Battlefield should be the most complex and authentic war experience in terms of game play, visuals, story and the most historically accurate, Battlefield V is none of that. If DICE can’t understand that then there is honestly no future for Battlefield. You might think I’m wrong but time will tell and I predict sales will be down in comparison to Battlefield 1.
Battlefield use to be a vastly unique franchise. Before the Bad Company series, there was nothing like Battlefield. BF1942 to BF2142 were hardcore, strategic, (very)team play focused, large scale first person shooters. Once Bad Company came out, the franchise lost its uniqueness. The BFBC series was smaller scaled with less teamplay focus and a very casual/arcady feel. Battlefield 3 tried to bounce back, but could never touch the level of strategy and tactics that the earlier games had. Since then, the games have been getting progressively more casual as if the franchise is reverting back to Bad Company. Not to say that I didn’t enjoy the newer games, but the classics are still the best.
Meanwhile as @FORSAKEN_ESF stated, the franchise has been trying to borrow gameplay styles and concepts from other competing franchises, since Bad Company made a move to feel more like COD. Since then, its just gone downhill.
Battlefield use to feel like a perfect meld between BF4 and ARMA. Battlefield 2 is still IMO the essence of a pure “Battlefield” game. It’s realistic enough to be a serious game, but not so realistic that it becomes an ARMA-like military sim. There is a reason people still play it online.
In the future, I want to see a hardcore, tactical Battlefield game that rivals Battlefield 2. I want to see slow soldier movement, limited stamina, guns that aren’t as accurate as lasers, NO health regen, very specialized classes, longer spawn time, squad spawn on squad leaders only, a magazine-based ammo system, vehicles that are slow but hard to take down. From what I hear, I just described “World War 3” (super excited for that). I’ll give Battlefield V this; at least they are trying with the new ammo and health system. Still not even close to a classic feeling BF title, but moving in that direction.
It was fun, but not for a Battlefield game. In the same way Hardline was fun, but not a Battlefield game. Bad Company and Hardline should have just been new IP’s from EA. Again, great games, just not great Battlefield games. Way too chaotic and arcady.
Battlefield is pretty much one of its kind atm. Imo its the perfect mix of casual and skilled gameplay. Playing tactical with your squad is the best feeling I ever got in a FPS. Gunplay is awesome with unique weapons and top of the line true to life weapon re-creation in a video game.
The complexity of BF1 went downhill somewhat due to limitations of WW1 era gear, but with BF5 they’re bringing it back up it seems like. Regardless, Battlefield is still a hard game to master. There are tons of things you have to know to be good.
And was always from Dice, audio and graphics are the best in class. Simply put there is no other game right now that can compete with Dice’s Battlefield in terms of visuals, sound and destruction.
Honestly I never viewed Battlefield as someone who is catching up to CoD because Battlefield got its own playerbase, very different to Cod believe me. And Battle Royal is something we have to live through for some time. As I said already on these forums, Battle Royal is the next Moba. People got crazy about it, but in the next year or so the craze will die and everyone will stop thinking about BR.
We play Battlefield because its BATTLEFIELD, huge maps, 64 players, tanks, planes, destruction and epic “Only in Battlefield” moment. Until we have those core elements, Battlefield will stay unique. And BF5 will do just that.