When the Battlefield franchise started out, it was primarily a dedicated FPS (first-person shooter) meant entirely for PC-based gamers. But then consoles took over the market, and completely changed the way we look at modern-day video games now.
While the Battlefield series enjoyed success with the likes Bad Company, and later with Battlefield 3, most of the impetus has remained on the PC with it being the lead platform for the series. However, that was a long time back, and since then DICE has changed its mentality toward the console platform and continued the evolution of the series – primarily due to its multiplayer value – on the likes of Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
In an interview with MMGN at this year’s Gamescom, Battlefield 4 creative director Lars Gustavsson explained this change of mentality for the series, from starting out as a PC-heavy title to re-routing its efforts to the console side of the business.
Gustavsson stated that the team will be focusing a lot more on the console versions this time as he and the team have realized that the console audience is more “hardcore” than it had ever thought.
“When we did Modern Combat on PS2 and Xbox, it was our first console experience. Then we did Bad Company 1. In some areas we were dumbing it down too much, and we underestimated console gamers," Gustavsson stated.
According to him, the plan was to create a console experience that would be in line with what was originally developed for the PC, which, as mentioned earlier, had been the lead development platform for all Battlefield titles in the past.
“We’ve come to realize that it’s [the console market] definitely that ‘hardcore’ audience that’s in line with the PC crowd," Gustavsson explained further. ”Obviously it changes how the game is designed and played, but working on PC has allowed us to evolve and change Frostbite.”
"It was always a matter of bringing that over to consoles, rather than changing it to better fit consoles.”
Given Gustavsson's sentiments, we're guessing that since EA has said that it doesn’t “underestimate” console gamers anymore, it will make all the best things available to console gamers. If that’s the deal, then there’s hardly any reason to be all worked-up about it since DICE has not really forgotten all of you PC players out there.
Technical Director on Frostbite at DICE Johan Andersson, back in July, stated that Battlefield 4′s Frostbite 3 engine would fully offer support for Direct X 11.1 and that the systems that will utilize this API can expect better CPU performance.
On the flipside, only Windows 8 systems support Direct X 11.1, so we're not really sure what will happen for everyone working with Windows 7. Hopefully, EA DICE will get rid of the problem before release.
Battlefield 4 will release on Oct. 29 in North America for Xbox 360, PS3 and PC with next gen releases said to happen in November.
