The team at DICE has been no stranger to commotion, and as a result has aimed the spotlight directly on Battlefield 3 with its statements over the past couple months. Even then, many people are dying for a new first-person shooter to play, and although we have to wait a few more months, Battlefield 3 looks very promising. But will it satisfy everyone? DICE seems to think so.
Daniel Matros, Global Battlefield Community Manager at DICE, has shared that the team working on Battlefield 3 is aiming to please everyone with the game’s diverse offerings. His recent Tweet stated:
Harcdcore audience, casual audience, tactical audience, esport audience, fanboys, gaming networks.. everyone is going to be happy!
Pleasing the hardcore and casual audiences with one game is an extremely difficult task for a developer, but isn’t impossible. While hardcore players tend to put quality net code, tactics, and cool things to show off their ‘elite status’ (gold guns, high rank emblems, etc.), casuals seek fun factor. We recently found out that Battlefield 3 will have tens if not hundreds of thousands of potential load-outs, and this is sure to keep both the casual and hardcore crowds entertained.
However, the one item in his statement that I’m most surprised by is the e-sport part. Games that become e-sports usually rely on basic game mechanics, such as the Quake or Counter-Strike series. Battlefield leans more toward complexity due to its huge environments, vehicles, and squad-based gameplay. Balance is perhaps the largest barrier for games looking to land in professional LAN tournaments, and in Battlefield‘s case that will require not only the standard weapon balance, but class and map balance as well.
