DICE ponders: what did people really like about Battlefield: Bad Company?

Saint_Dee

Saint_Dee

The Phantom Poet
Battlefield fans have long called for another Bad Company game. In fact, before this year's Battlefield game was announced, some had hoped it would turn out to be Bad Company 3, not Battlefield Hardline.

"We hear those comments as well and see them," DICE boss Karl-Magnus Troedsson told Eurogamer. "There were some people who were saying, 'why are you building Hardline? You should build Bad Company 3 instead.'"

DICE has of course heard the calls for a new Bad Company game, but when it comes to making new games in the much-loved shooter spin-off series, there's a bit of a problem.

And that problem is, DICE isn't sure what people really liked about Bad Company, and thus isn't sure how to go about making a sequel.

"We take all this into account when we think about the future, and do franchise strategy," Troedsson said. "But there's one thing that lingers with Bad Company that we've been asking ourselves: what is it that the people really liked about Bad Company?"

Battlefield: Bad Company, which launched on PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in June 2008, was the first in the series to feature a fleshed out campaign with characters and the first to be built specifically for consoles. It revolved around squad combat, with a story that was praised for its humour, and competitive FPS multiplayer some said was the best on console at the time.

It was followed by a direct sequel, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, that launched in 2010 for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. Like its predecessor, Bad Company 2 was critically and commercially successful. Eurogamer reviewer Dan Whitehead wrote: "Battlefield: Bad Company 2 is quite simply a superb package, with neither single-player nor online feeling like it's been given short shrift. They come together in the most robust, nuanced and carefully crafted game of its type this hardware generation. Modern Warfare is the obvious benchmark, and Bad Company 2 meets and even passes it with ease. But it's the high bar it sets for a genre mired in complacency that makes it so invigorating."

But we haven't heard a peep out of Bad Company since then, with DICE focusing on Battlefield 3, then Battlefield 4 and now Battlefield Hardline in partnership with Dead Space studio Visceral.

So what's up?

Troedsson goes back to the problem of struggling to pin down exactly what it was about Bad Company that was great.

"Some people say they found the multiplayer controls faster and more direct," he said. "Some people liked the single-player and the characters and the humour. People love different things about it. It's starting to almost get to that place where, if we were to make a sequel to Bad Company, what would than even imply?"

He continued: "It's scary to go back and try to remake an old fan favourite when actually no-one can really put their finger on what it is people love. Bringing back the characters and creating a great single-player out of that, sure, I can understand that.

"But some people say this: the Bad Company 2 multiplayer is the best you've ever done. Okay, why is that? It's hard for people to articulate what that is, which is actually hard for us. It would be hard to remake something like that. Can we do it? Of course. We have our theories when it comes to the multiplayer."
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Source: Eurogamer


These guys... I don't even...
 
What I liked, the: Humour, Style, Aesthetics, Class system, Weapons, Destructible environments, Tracer Dart, Artillery Strike, Carl Gustav, M93R Burst Maps where interesting.
All of the weapons.
You could take out chopper pilots with a slug and the Neostead 2000, I can go on...
 
Idunno , come to think of it everything I liked they improved on in BF3 and then BF4
I have to date not even completed BF4 single player just never interested me , and now after the latest BF4 patches its pretty much awesome .

What I would love is a sequel to 2142 , TITAN mode future weapons that I loved
 
I liked that it was mostly wide open spaces...BF3 was all indoors and cramped like that metro map. So nothing but spamming explosive rpgs/nades etc.

BFBC had more opportunity to move around strategically...spamming there just didn't work except maybe from the chopper....and those you can take down too.
 
Yeah, I loved the Bad Company 2 maps. They were all really good for Rush and it was my preferred gamemode in BC2. Rush on the BF3 maps just never 'clicked' for me. Haven't even tried Rush in BF4.
 
czc said:
Yeah, not really gonna happen again.
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Hahah that was the last game that allowed such things.

I liked being able to hit my targets in it :p
Also rush was mad fun.
And squad death match was a lot of fun as well.
 
czc said:
Yeah, not really gonna happen again.
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I don't know, the fact they wondering why so many like Bad company, seems to indicate BF4 has not done as well as they expected. And looking at the servers, BF4 without the DLCs are still the most popular servers by a long shot, at least locally. I don't think its impossible for them to consider changing how they do DLCs.
 
Grievous said:
I don't know, the fact they wondering why so many like Bad company, seems to indicate BF4 has not done as well as they expected. And looking at the servers, BF4 without the DLCs are still the most popular servers by a long shot, at least locally. I don't think its impossible for them to consider changing how they do DLCs.
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But, how will they milk people for money then?

EA doesn't really care about customers at all. Their bottom line is getting as much money as possible out of a product and then making a run for it.
 
I just really enjoyed the destruction physics of Bad Company 2, was awesome, especially in Multiplayer.

Im a sucker for physics in games
 
Personally, Bad Company 2 had more personality as a game, both in terms of the SP (I enjoyed that campaign immensely :D), and the MP.

The story and it's characters, the shooting mechanics and the destruction, the MP maps, etc. All in all, this was a game that didn't take itself too seriously. I mean there wasn't too much emphasis on realism in how you played the MP, just think about how crazy the destruction was, and then the SP kinda left you to your own devices (as much leeway as a linear military shooter could give you). It struck the sweet spot in terms of all these elements and offering that large scale "Battlefield" experience.

Now don't get wrong I enjoyed BF3 as much as the next guy, but in terms of personality it doesn't compare to BFBC2, especially considering how generic the story felt. BF4's a tricky one for me to assess, because it's MP is fun when it works but most of my attempts to play have been met with obstruction after obstruction and frustration (I have less than 4 hours in the online component and less than an hour playing the SP).
 
Graal said:
But, how will they milk people for money then?

EA doesn't really care about customers at all. Their bottom line is getting as much money as possible out of a product and then making a run for it.
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At the end of the day it is all about how much money they can make, it is a business after all. But I think they have been burnt by the latest release and will be considering alternative ways to make money. More sales of the out of the box product I believe will be their focus on the next release. You can't milk customers with DLCs if you don't get them to buy the original product.
 
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