Next Battlefield to Return to Modern Setting and Have a Back-to-Basics Approach

by
William D’Angelo
, posted 5 hours ago / 707 Views

Head of Respawn & Group GM for EA Studios Organization Vince Zampella speaking with IGN discussed the next Battlefield game. He revealed the game will return to a modern setting and will have a back-to-basics approach.

“I mean, if you look back to the peak or the pinnacle of Battlefield, it’s that Battlefield 3… Battlefield 4 era where everything was modern,” said Zampella.

“And I think we have to get back to the core of what Battlefield is and do that amazingly well, and then we’ll see where it goes from there. But I think for me, it’s that peak of Battlefield-ness is in that Battlefield 3 and 4 days. So I think it’s nostalgic for players, for me, for the teams even. Those are kind of the heyday…although I would say 1942 also.”

He added, “Yeah, the 128 player, did it make it more fun? Like…doing the number for the sake of the number doesn’t make any sense. We’re testing everything around what’s the most fun. So like you said, the maps, once they get to a certain scale, become different.

“It’s a different play space, and I think you have to design around that. So we are designing something that is more akin to previous Battlefields. I’d rather have nice, dense, really nice, well-designed play spaces. Some of them are really good. I can’t wait for you to see some of them.

“So I wasn’t there for 2042. I don’t know what the rationale was, but for me, it’s like the team tried something new. You have to applaud that effort. Not everybody liked it, but you got to try things. It didn’t work. It didn’t fit. Specialist will not be coming back. So classes are kind of at the core of Battlefield, and we’re going back to that.”

Zampella stated EA is “definitely betting bigger on Battlefield. It’s going in and expanding what Battlefield is. We have to have the core. The core Battlefield players know what they want. They’ve been with us forever, they’ve been amazing supporters. We need to earn their trust back and get them back on our side.

“And then it’s expanding out and getting more players into the universe and seeing what we can do, so when you want a different experience, you don’t have to leave Battlefield. You can experience more things within the Battlefield universe. So we’re expanding the offerings that we’re giving.”

He concluded, “I mean, since [Switch 2] isn’t announced and it doesn’t exist, I can’t really comment on that. But I would say absolutely, Nintendo, along with Microsoft and Sony are great partners for us, are important to us on our business at EA, at Respawn, would love to see it. We don’t have anything to announce, but is there a world? Sure. We love them as partners. They’ve been great to us. I love the [Switch].”

A life-long and avid gamer, William D’Angelo was first introduced to VGChartz in 2007. After years of supporting the site, he was brought on in 2010 as a junior analyst, working his way up to lead analyst in 2012 and taking over the hardware estimates in 2017. He has expanded his involvement in the gaming community by producing content on his own YouTube channel and Twitch channel. You can contact the author on Twitter @TrunksWD.

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