Battlefield: We're doing future now. But not TOO much future.

'The Next Generation of First Person Shooter' sure looks familiar...

What are you talking about: "Call of Duty has a competitor"? No, I'm pretty sure they're the defacto first-person military shooter franchise, what with their COD: Modern Warfare Remake, followed by Black Ops: Cold War and a little bit of Warzone sprinkled in there just to scoop up those extra little billions. Hmm? Think back to 2018? Actually, now that you mention it I do remember playing a game set in World War 2 that wasn't COD WWII. Yeah, it was sort of fun for a little bit but entirely lacking in meaningful progression and so I got bored after a couple of weeks... just as has been the case with the entire franchise ever since after 4. Yeah, of course I remember Battlefield; but by god does it feel like they didn't remember us. Do they have any idea how long it's been? Three Years! What were they doing?

Battlefield 2042's reveal was, as always, leaked before delivery so we could all let out our collective sighs of disappointment early about the setting. No, they're still not going back to that really cool 2142 setting they did back in 2006, the one that people have been begging them to revisit for years. Instead we're looking at a game set kinda in the future, as in 'just future enough that we don't have any backlash for our half-baked story and any potential contemporary parallels; but just contemporary enough to still be boring.' Battlefield: 2042? What's the point? Everyone still uses conventional weapons, most vehicles look pretty much identical, the maps don't look all that special... it might as well be 'Battlefield: Next Tuesday'. But I'm not about to judge a Battlefield game only for a shaky setting, (but it is still getting judged hard for that) there's a few good things such a setting implies and I, for one, have managed to work up just a sliver of excitement. Just a tad. Nothing crazy.

So with the Battlefield 2042 reveal trailer, the team have made the bold decision to move away from the cinematics masquerading as gameplay model that colourised Battlefield 1 and V's reveal. Does this mark a general change in overall direction, or just a riposte to the extreme negativity around the V trailer? Hopefully a bit of both. Which isn't to say that the trailer isn't still full of cinematic action to the point where it get awfully dull by the 2 minute mark, but at least they're gracious enough to admit that it's definitely not real gameplay and that the gameplay is coming presently. But honestly I doubt I'll follow up on what the gameplay has to offer unless it's truly transformative, I'm just curious how a modern Battlefield markets itself in an industry that's been owned by their competition for 3 years now; the answer: Copy them.

Now I don't want to point fingers here, but I think it's abundantly clear that in some way the Battlefield devs wanted folk to watch this and think "Huh, this looks like Warzone." All the gameplay was chaotic action with no sense of battlelines and tactical actions, usual Battlefield trailer fair, but coupling the constant action with the various scene changes really trigged my "this looks familiar" alarm. It's almost as though they're trying to instil the subliminal message that all these varied locations and battles are happening simultaneously without breaks on the same map. I'm sure that's not actually the case, as Battlefield remember how much it didn't work out for them last time they tried a Battle Royale mode, (The balancing was terrible) but they're still painting that subconscious illusion for instant recognition brownie points. I see you, mr marketing man; you're tricks and gambols ain't smooth enough to trick this casual!

But that isn't where I take umbrage with Battlefield 2042 right now, truth be told. I've already told you my issue, albeit as something of a joke, but I'm actually serious about it; the setting doesn't make sense. What's the point of setting your game in the future if it's not far enough on for you to take advantage of any speculative technology? Even games that just graze the future are usually envisioned with the sort of wild imagination we want out of our games, but this just looks like a completely modern day game with no design intent to imply otherwise. I mean, I guess they show a futuristic robot dog but- that's the Boston Dynamics dog with a gun on it's head. That thing exists today. Also, Boston Dynamics hates it when people make imagery of their AI robot as a weapon of war, so this is pretty disrespectful on the Dev's side. (Even if it's a fully accurate representation of what those dogs will be up to in a decade or two.)

I mean there's other subtle little details, but they're not really big enough to be cool. I saw some guns with that oversized barrel attachment that people seem to think is 'futuristic'. (It just looks cumbersome) There's this one scene this a snowplow which... looks really angular and... has weapons on it I guess. There's a bit with a rocket being launched... I mean we have rockets nowadays but... I guess they don't get fired everyday... Oh, and there's a tornado at the end of the trailer. My guess is that was an artificial weaponised tornado or something, but that wasn't made clear in the slightest and very well could have just been a natural disaster. Where's all the fun future tech? Seriously guys, 'Ghost Recon Future Soldier' was more ahead of the curve than this, you're putting me to sleep here. Unless the gameplay reveal is hiding every creative future item in it's footage (which, I admit, could be entirely possible) I'm going to call this a distinct failure of concept out the gate. Great start.

And yet that doesn't matter. Not really. Because the big news here, the real big news, is that with a return to a contemporary setting, DICE have literally no excuse to not know what guns are anymore. Do you remember that extended period of three Battlefield games straight where there were only about 20 guns in the entire game because DICE couldn't be bothered to research the armaments of the time? Thus laid the groundworks for a hopelessly lacklustre and depthless level/weapon progression system which paled in comparison to Battlefield's very own previous offerings. Battlefield 3 and 4 featured actual progression that tied towards your most used weapons, granting you attachments for using that weapon the more you used it and hit milestones. Now DICE have to go back to those systems or else they'll literally be a laughing stock seeing as how the slightly depthy progression system and the weightier gameplay is currently all they have on COD right now. (Vehicles are anyone's game now, buddy!)

I just think it's a shame we couldn't get creative with our future war game, it's makes me wonder if there's any creative heart left in DICE under that war game grind. I mean the villains are reported to be the Russians again, are you serious? Russians are the villains of every modern war game ever- heck, they're the enemy of each of Battlefields own contemporary games already! Make it China or something. (Oh wait, guess they can't because they want that Chinese bloodmoney) Then how about killer clowns, give me something! At the end of the day the fans are excited at least for the return of their war game so that's great for those that have started to feel a little abandoned for a while now. In fact, I do tend to prefer Battlefield's gameplay more than COD's so I'm somewhat happy about this too. That still doesn't make up for this whole reveal being a little underwhelming right now... Hope the rest of E3 is up from here... Oh wait, there's no campaign? DICE better have some rabbit up their hat right now...