Battlefield V [PC, PS4, XBone] - V is for Victory

[The Jackal]

Brexit Britun m8.

[Medicine Man]

[The Jackal]

1) That's a pretty shit knife to expect to slit a man's throat with through a balaclava.

2) Colonial French troops - eh, fair enough. Bit of a lazy choice* for Obligatory Minority Protagonists (Commonwealth African/Asian soldiers, say) some coverage is better than none.

3) German-based episode? People are bound to complain from all sides regardless of whether it's any good.

4) Someone watched Hunt For Red October the night before the pitch meeting, and just had to have a submarine bellying into something.

5) I take back Point #2 if they are in fact non-French troops (though it may just be the same characters as before but with resupplied Brit kit. This is the part where someone calls me a racist).

6) OI OI LEAVE IT AHT etc.

It vaguely feels like the Second World War. I guess.


*Lazy as in it's been done before, not because they- shut up.

[Jez]

The single player for BF1 was pretty good, I'll dabble with the single player for this but I'll primarily be MP.

[Animalmother]

I watched Levelcap's take on the new trailer and he kept refering to the black soldiers as "African Americans"

It looks very pretty anyway and I'll certainly be having a look. Playing as the Germans should make for an interesting change.

[DjchunKfunK]

EA have released the roadmap for BFV, their Battle Royale mode wont be out until March.

[Raid]

I have to wonder whether EA are actually trying to release finished games these days. I know Battle Royale probably isn't the headline mode for a Battlefield game, but four months is a pretty big delay if they're showing it off in their release marketing.

[Jez]

I guess it's a trade off here and in some fairness I like this drip feed in this instance. Give it all in one go and yeah you'll have full servers for a few months. Dribble it out and give people playing something to keep playing for and you level out that participation over time.

[Mantis]

Or part of your playerbase gets bored at the early doors lack of content and by the time most of the new stuff is out you've already lost a bunch of players anyway.

[Raid]

I suppose that doesn't matter if they already have your money. Perhaps the idea is that the BR mode will give them a second big sales period, away from the likes of CoD and RDR2. Either way, I'm absolutely certain it's an entirely money-driven decision to keep the BR mode back for that length of time. If it was just a month after launch, I could put it down to just wanting to give it a bit of a polish, but four months? No, that's planned, or they've fucked it up so badly that they're having to start from scratch, and I just don't think BR is that tricky to get right.

[Jez]

I think you are being maybe a little harsh. I'd rather wait and get a good worthwhile mode and if delaying injects new players then fine by me it's more life in the game over time. If the mode is a load of old pump after that then I'd concede your point but we won't know that till it releases.

[Raid]

Perhaps, but I just fail to see how a company with DICE and EA's resources can't put together a BR mode for one of the biggest releases of the year in time for an (already delayed) release date. There are tons of probably terrible BR games on Steam which have the basic BR mechanics in place, but are let down by god-awful shooting mechanics and a lack of players. Battlefield shouldn't have those problems, in fact we know it doesn't based on the beta. The map is the only other element that should take time to get right, and I refuse to believe they couldn't bring in additional staff to create the map in time for the release date.

I think it's debatable whether this is actually bad for players or not, although I suspect there'll be at least a few who've pre-ordered based on the promise of a Battle Royale mode and who will be disappointed come release day. The cynical part of me thinks it's just another method of keeping players engaged for longer in order to sell more microtransactions over time, but either way it just feels like a shame that you're only getting part of the intended experience come launch day.

[Jez]

I suppose we'll find out soon enough

All I know is that I got nearly 800 hours of playtime clocked on BF1 and going strong so if they even come close to that with BFV I'll have felt I got a great deal! added to this no splitting of the players with Premium DLC etc makes me happy.

[DjchunKfunK]

Activision only just managed to pull Blackout together in time, it's still a bit ropey and missing all the unlocks and progression you usually get in a CoD multiplayer mode, and they didn't have to bother with a singleplayer mode on top. Considering BR only became a big thing at the back end of last year I don't think it is a huge surprise that DICE need more time to get the mode right.

Additionally I don't think it is just about getting a Battle Royale mode together in the time they had and more about putting one in that isn't just a direct copy of all the others. From the tiny bits they have shown it does sound/look a bit different so maybe they are taking the time to create something that adds something new to the genre.

[Raid]

I suppose we'll find out soon enough

I don't consider four months to be "soon enough." ¬_¬

Nah, you're right, I probably shouldn't be judging until we actually see the BR mode finished, I just find it a bit sad that even as games get more expensive, the actual content they ship with gets less.