The road to Battlefield™ V has been one of iteration and fine-tuning, together with you, the community. We’ve learned a lot from our Closed Alphas, the Open Beta, our internal playtests, and other types of feedback.
Now, as we launch the game, we’d like to outline the most vital improvements and additions made to Battlefield V following these tests. There’s a ton of information to share – more than we could comfortably fit here – but you can read the full Launch Notes for all the nitty-gritty details.
To create a game and a live service that’s constantly entertaining and expandable, we’re taking some pretty bold steps when it comes to Battlefield V multiplayer. This time around, we’ve doubled down on raising the skill ceiling to create a more readable and controllable game – without scaring away newcomers. Battlefield V should be more than just straight up run-and-gun, so we’re bringing back some thinking to the battlefield. Systems like Attritionand Fortifications allow all these non-combat features to flourish.
Updates Made to Weapons
There are two major pillars when it comes to Battlefield V weapon design. We wanted a clear distinction between weapons. We've also worked towards a grounded, physical gunplay system, which can be mastered and learned. To achieve this, we've done tweaks in several areas, including the below.
- Changes to weapon balance (Example: Short-range damage of some assault rifles have been decreased.)
- Changes to ammo attrition (Example: LMGs, MMGs, and Shotguns spawn with max carry amounts.)
- Changes to weapon Specializations (Example: You now have more choice in the Specialization trees.)
Rolling Out Vehicle Tweaks
In Battlefield V, we wanted to do the iconic vehicles of World War 2 justice, infusing them with the character and feel of their real-life counterparts, while adapting the gameplay mechanics to work well with the rest of the game. Here are some of the many tweaks made to fulfill this.
- Changes to vehicle characteristics (Example: Aspects like speed, handling, ammo, durability, and maneuverability have all been tweaked.)
- Changes to vehicle Specializations (Example: We’ve introduced turret speed Specializations for improved turret traversal.)
Improving Maps and Modes
The battlefields you'll be fighting on, and the modes you'll be playing, are of course huge areas of your Battlefield V experience. Many changes have been made, but let's look at a handful of examples.
- Changes to Attrition (Example: Supply Stations are now always separated, not combined as before, and are normally near objectives in each mode.)
- Changes to visibility (Example: We added dynamic character rim-lighting to make soldiers stand out more in some instances.)
- Changes to Grand Operations (Example: We added a voice over to narrate all outcomes of the operations' in-game days.)
- Changes to Frontlines (Example: There's now a timer to prevent defenders from camping at spawned bomb areas.)
- Changes to Conquest (Example: We added a voice over message informing about the state of the game halfway through it.)
Balancing the War of Attrition
Rewarding experiences often come from a place of risk. To create a game where peril is inherently looming around the corner, powerful weaponry that does some serious damage is needed. To balance that, we need to find a sweet spot to make weapons feel dangerous but not all-powerful. This is where Attrition comes in, limiting health and ammunition, which affects both soldiers and vehicles. Attrition will mean more rewarding gunplay, resource strategy, balance between vehicle and infantry units, and fixes to long-standing issues like grenade spam. Since Open Beta, we've tweaked several Attrition-related aspects.
- The impact of ammunition and health attrition has been somewhat toned down, by giving players a Health Pouch when spawning.
- We increased the maximum magazine amount for some weapons for the same reason.
- We took a look at all the Supply Stations to make sure it was clear if (and where) they can be built.
Step into a Dynamic World
The world you’ll encounter on the maps of Battlefield V is the most dynamic we’ve ever created. Fortifications, Bullet Penetration, dynamic weather, destruction, fire effects, collapsing debris, terrain craters – the list is long. It all results in a better, more interesting sandbox that will stand the test of live service expansion and evolution without even breaking a sweat. These dynamic aspects have seen several changes leading up to launch.
- We did a full pass on Bullet Penetration to make sure bullets react as they should to the various materials in the game, we added destruction on static vehicles, meaning you'll see trucks and civilian cars explode or be crushed.
- Sizes of craters in the terrain have been adjusted with soldier stance in mind.
- Damage and the sound/visual effects of fire have been tweaked, we've added hatches to doors, changed the weather system so storms will last just long enough, and much, much more.
There are so many more details that we want to share with you. On top of specifics related to the topics in this article, there are improvements to Classes, Combat Roles, Reinforcements, Gadgets, controller settings, user interface, and more. As mentioned, the full Launch Notes will give you a thorough run-through of what Battlefield V is bringing.
We hope Battlefield V will let you experience the heart and soul of the dynamic Battlefieldexperience, combined with modernized, interesting, and fresh features. Our ambitions is that this is a game you’ll want to return to, over and over again.
Thank you for reading – and welcome to a new generation of Battlefield!
– David Sirland and Jaqub Ajmal, Battlefield V Producers, via Jonas Elfving
