DICE’S DESIGN DIRECTOR DANIEL BERLIN SITS DOWN WITH PLAY DIGITAL TO EXPLAIN HOW A NEW-FOUND EMPHASIS ON SQUADS, TEAMWORK AND COMMUNICATION WILL ENSURE BATTLEFIELD V IS THE BEST ENTRY IN THE LONG-RUNNING SERIES YET
IN MANY RESPECTS, Battlefield V is 16 years in the making. The iconic series may have evolved and broadened in scope significantly in that time, but the focus has never once wavered from celebrating the chaos and drama that can emerge out of all-out tactical warfare. Battlefield has always been praised for its massive multiplayer battles, tantalisingly tactical combat and its ability to strike a clear and transparent balance between its aircrafts, armoured vehicles and small arms firefights. That could be said of Battlefield 1942, the series’ 2002 debut, and it can be said of DICE’s emphatic return to World War II as a historical framing device for its action. So what is it that makes V any different, and any more deserving of your time and attention than any other Battlefield game that has come along before it?
To put it simply enough, DICE is finally at a stage in which it has the apparatus to deliver a Battlefield that is truly hinged around cooperation and coordination. While we aren’t trying to suggest that team play hasn’t been an ever-present part of Battlefield over the years, we would like to posit that it has only ever been a suggested play style rather than a core attraction of the experience – a support mechanism for those too afraid to wander the sprawling sandboxes as a maverick lone wolf.
In Battlefield V, DICE is finally leveraging the potential of squads to improve, broaden and solidify the core Battlefield fantasy. The studio is expanding upon its long-held belief that together, a small group of dedicated players can accomplish anything; that by maintaining tight threads of communication and by utilising dynamic squad interactions, players can complete any task and overcome just about any threat that they may encounter across one of Battlefield’s tightly contested and ever-shifting frontlines.
Of course, you don’t need to take our word for it if you don’t want to. It’s perhaps DICE’s long-serving design director Daniel Berlin that puts it best as we catch him ruminating on how he would like players to best approach Battlefield V when it launches this October: “PTFO: Play The Fucking Objective.”
‘PTFO’ has long been the unofficial mantra of the disgruntled Battlefield player. DICE is taking steps to eradicate it from the lexicon of Battlefield, but that is, of course, far easier said than done. There is, after all, simply no accounting for how an individual player may decide to approach any given situation, let alone whether they will want to work in tandem with another group of players, even in a game so inherently focused around teamwork as Battlefield.
While every round should indeed be a tense war of attrition, with 64 players bouncing off
