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By EA’s own declaration Battlefield 2042 didn’t meet expectations, but between that, our mostly-positive review, and stuff like 155,000 players signing a petition for a mass-scale refund, things can get blurry between the game’s actual design issues and players driving themselves into an entitlement frenzy.
It’s times like these that we need a voice of reason, and there are few people who understand the series quite like Battlefield 3 and Bad Company 2 lead designer David Goldfarb, who took to Twitter to ask some serious questions about the game’s development process.
“Really trying to understand why some of these design calls were made,” Goldfarb wrote. “Why are there no smaller infantry maps? Why was 128 player count a thing that didn’t seemingly have any accommodation for infantry? Why are whole maps shipping without any detail art? Was no one in control of quality over there? Who thought this experience honored the BF sandbox experience and took it forward?”
He concluded by saying “I’m astonished that there were this many missteps even knowing the obstacles from higher up.”
That’s a pretty damning statement from one of the key people behind two of the most beloved Battlefield entries, though he did concede that he was happy to see Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 revived in their own way through the Portal mode, widely seen as the game’s redeeming feature.
Clearly, Goldfarb, who also directed Payday 2, still cares for the series, and shared some thoughts on how he believes it can move forward.
“The best thing for DICE’s next would be to make [Battlefield] 2143 and go forward in time and reclaim their mantle of combined arms badassery that they built their legacy on alongside a really unique IP they created… ultimately they need to be able to develop new IP to survive.”
So Goldfarb wants the series to go back to the future (the farther future, that is). I, for one, am still happily stuck in the part-historical part-dieselpunk past of Battlefield 1, DICE’s gloriously amped-up take on World War I. Come to think of it, here’s my five-second pitch: an alternative history where the Great War never stops, complete with lumbering iron mechs and advanced airships you can fight for control over. Don’t say anything, just think about it.
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