“Battlefield 3”is known and respected for its multiplayer mode. The single player part, on the other hand, simply fell apart. EA DICE is hoping not to make the same mistake again.
As part of the the game's marketing campaign, the company is touting the single player as a way to get beter at the game's multiplayer.
“We had a lot of people playing single-player. Not everyone finished it, but not everyone finishes the best single-player only games either, which is a bit sad,” DICE’s Patrick Back tells Eurogamer. “Thus the debate on how long a game should be. If people don't finish them, who do they have to be 40 hours?”
“There are also a lot of people - some evil people call them noobs or lame - who don't want to play multiplayer, because it's very competitive. You end up in a session where everyone just shoots you in the head, and you feel daunted by this competitive landscape.”
Bach claims that players just want to have an experience, and if anyone doesn’t feel like taking part in a competitive multiplayer mode with “people who are flying around and shooting at you,” single-player is the right way to get that experience without missing anything.
“There are a lot of people who are really happy we are building the single-player. They don't even dare to say it out loud, because all their friends will mock them. But Battlefield is no longer a multiplayer-only game,” he adds.
As far as the new 17 minutes gameplay footage – Fishing in Baku – for the game is concerned, the company says that the demo was a pre-alpha one, and there are more improvements and optimizations waiting to happen before the final build of the title arrive.
