The Next Battlefield Can Have Its Cake and Eat It Too

Highlights

• The next Battlefield game must balance realism with light-hearted humor to satisfy fans’ desires for historical accuracy and eccentricity.
• Fans hope the next Battlefield campaign will bring back the beloved Bad Company vibes with comedic and rule-breaking soldier personas.
• Multiplayer in the next Battlefield should focus on realism, featuring historically accurate weapons and immersive environments for an authentic experience.

The Battlefield franchise has been going through somewhat of an identity crisis in recent years. Back when Battlefield debuted in the early 2000s, its primary identity was being a multiplayer military shooter with a dash of historical realism. That identity remained a staple of the Battlefield franchise throughout the first decade of its life, with a grounded tone being at the forefront of every entry until Battlefield 1‘s release in 2016. Battlefield V and 2042, however, took a step back from the rest of the franchise’s realism and its more grounded tone, introducing mechanics like 2042‘s Specialist system that didn’t quite fit with Battlefield‘s prior identity.

As a result, the next Battlefield game needs to tread very carefully with its tone. Many fans are desperate to see a return to the series’ grounded, more historically accurate roots, while a handful of other fans would prefer the franchise to lean a bit more into its surreal or eccentric side. But there might be a way for the next Battlefield to achieve both simultaneously.

The Next Battlefield Can Deliver Both Fan-Requested Tones At Once

The Next Battlefield’s Campaign Can Have Bad Company Vibes

Though Battlefield 3 and 4 had fairly engaging campaign modes centered around fictional present-day conflicts, and Battlefield 1 and V‘s War Stories offered a compelling set of anthology missions set in WW1 and WW2 respectively, these games don’t usually take the crown for the best Battlefield campaign, at least according to most fans. Instead, it’s often the Battlefield: Bad Company duology that gets the most praise for its story mode.

Something that sets Battlefield: Bad Company‘s two campaigns apart from those found in the rest of the franchise is their lighter tones, with both stories revolving around the titular group of rule-breaking, troublemaking soldiers. These larger-than-life personalities add a distinct sense of humor to the Bad Company games, and it’s a tone that many fans have wanted to see return. The next Battlefield could finally deliver on this long-standing fan request with its campaign, which could offer a more lighthearted, even comedic Battlefield story by following Bad Company‘s formula and bringing a new set of over-the-top heroes to the table.

The Next Battlefield’s Multiplayer Can Strive for Realism

But while many fans would want to see a lighter tone for Battlefield‘s next campaign, many more want the Battlefield series to return to its realistic roots, which is something the next entry’s multiplayer mode could offer. The next Battlefield‘s multiplayer portion should embrace realism more so than ever before, bringing back immersive features like realistic in-game chatter between allies and impressive destruction technology. It would also be great to see a return to more historically accurate weapons, gadgets, and vehicles in the next Battlefield, or if the next entry is not set in the past, then at least weapons and vehicles that feel authentic and logical for the era.

This realism also needs to extend to the next Battlefield‘s multiplayer maps. The layout of buildings and city roads needs to feel logical, environments need to look detailed, and there should be plenty of interactive features, such as functional elevators, building interiors, and moving pieces of scenery. With a multiplayer mode that strives for realism, and a campaign mode that takes itself a bit less seriously than past entries, the next Battlefield could manage to strike a perfect balance between the two opposing tones that different parts of the fan-base want to see.