Following the recent multiplayer reveal event, it seems fair to say that hype for Battlefield 6 has hit a fever pitch. That’s only likely to increase when players get it in their hands, which thanks to its open beta weekends, will happen before Battlefield 6‘s release date.
At Battlefield 6‘s multiplayer gameplay reveal event, Game Rant spoke with DICE senior producer and producer David Sirland and Alexia Christofi, respectively. We spoke about how Battlefield 6‘s development differed from past projects, how important Battlefield Labs and Studios were, why the open beta is so open, and more. The following transcript has been edited for clarity and brevity.
Battlefield 6’s Development
Game Rant: David, I know you’ve worked on multiple Battlefield projects, so I just wanted to kickstart things by asking what’s been different, what’s been special, for Battlefield 6?
Sirland: What’s been special and different about Battlefield 6 is the different focus areas that we really got to spend time on. We paid attention to core combat, which ended up becoming the kinesthetic combat system, very early. Then, we did Labs pre-launch. Those two together are why you can get the quality levels, stability, and performance that we have in this build. We also had the trust from leadership that this is the right choice, to really start from the crosshairs out, and raise this core quality level.
Game Rant: So, starting Battlefield Labs pre-release for the first time. Can you tell me what inspired that decision and how it benefited everything you just mentioned?
Sirland: Obviously in the past, with BF4 for example, we had a similar setup but ran on a shoestring budget with a monthly group of random people we could get access to and utilize. Now, Battlefield Studios is like an umbrella organization, and we have enough buffer of people to be able to properly do this over time and really utilize it.
When it was after the fact, that really pushed new stuff in terms of quality, fixing issues, and finding the hard ones. That made me really want to do before we shipped the game. Sure, there are downsides. Things are leaking, and if you put something out there, someone will find it. It’s basically a matter of time, but the upside of just being able to validate with our players that we’re hitting the notes, that this feels like Battlefield, that this is a good game, that it works on these multitudes of computers and internet connections, is worth it. From a team perspective, it teaches us to release things. We basically failed at releasing a couple of times, and we’ve succeeded at releasing them hundreds of times now already, which helps us when we launch our game. Battlefield has a history of maybe not having the smoothest launch, and I think this is the best way to ensure that we get as far away from that as possible.
Christofi: There’s also a validation perspective for us. We feel confident in what we’re building, we love what we’re building, and just being able to get it in players’ hands is a big help. We can be like, “Okay, so the decisions we’re making for this thing are right?” People reacting to it the way that we want them to is super important to us, so validation is key.
Sirland: There’s also the whole feedback loop, right? It’s not just what people play and what they say, but it’s also what they do. The data they leave behind in a test environment, as well as what they want to talk about after they’ve played something, whether they like it, hate it, or love it, those things combined help us make choices and validate our designs. It helps us make decisions and accelerate things we were planning, like the closed weapons. We put that in the beta because we got that feedback very strongly: “Hey, where are my closed weapons?” We’ve always been planning that, but we didn’t want to do it before we really focused on the open ones because we also think having closed weapons, to reach the lofty goals of the classes, they need to stand on their own. Closed weapons were always a planned thing, much like hardcore or any other variant, which are fully valid and you get full experience, but we wanted to do that first, right? But feedback made us reprioritize to get it into the open beta. Since we’ve had such a strong development and have built things the right way, we could do that really quickly.
Game Rant: You also mentioned Battlefield Studios and bringing in all these other studios? Can you tell me a little bit about that process and what it means for your day-to-day? How was that worked into production?
Christofi: I may be a good example of this. I work at DICE, but I live in the UK. I live 20 minutes away from Criterion, so I actually work day to day out of that studio. My team is made up of people from Ripple Effect, from DICE, from Criterion, and from Motive. My team is a powerhouse of all those studios, and those studios, in their own rights, are powerhouses. What it meant for us is that we’ve been able to have almost 24-hour development. We’ll do something in the UK time zone, have a meeting with LA, hand off, and continue working on it. It’s been great for us to get different perspectives, different ways of working, and having people onboard from the offset. As David said before, we’ve had support from Criterion in the past, at the end, for example. This time around, we built it from the ground up into this suite of studios that know and love Battlefield, all of whom have different experiences and things that they’re good and great at, so it’s been great for us to be all able to work together.
Sirland: The focus is so much on that core gameplay loop and making sure the classes, the destruction, and the vehicles are all in there and working the way they should. That is something we are not willing to budge on in any shape or form; it also needs to be consistent across any experience, not just multiplayer. That means, given it’s basically more depth, being able to do more things with more ways to look at those things is helpful. Our feedback channels from playtests that go on in the EU and North America and all that sort of rotates. It’s different and that’s good because it also represents the world better. I mean, this is a global game. We’re trying to make this a very big Battlefield with lots of players everywhere, and it’s clear not everyone likes the same thing.
We Want to Put Our Money Where Our Mouth Is: Everyone Should Play Battlefield 6
Game Rant: On that point, can you tell me about the decision to put out Battlefield 6’s open beta, no pre-order required, and all of that? Are there any specific areas you’re focused on to see how players react?
Sirland: This game and the focus on combat are pretty hard to put into a trailer, right? You have to play it. Everyone should play this because, when you play it, you feel it. That’s the underlying rationale, I think, to just make it as broad as possible because we know this game is good and you need to play it to get the full picture. Or to feel the full picture, I guess.
Christofi: I would also say we’re really proud of this software, and our confidence level in making sure as many people can play it and get a feel for it before we launch is super important to us. We want to put our money where our mouth is, right? We want you guys to see and play and be like, ‘Yeah, this is something I want to keep playing.’
Sirland: It’s also our largest open beta, demo, or anything we’ve ever had in terms of content. It’s four maps, a bunch of modes, and it’s a lot of weapons. It’s representative. We’re also really stress testing and validating all of these things in a very broad audience. I mean, Labs is still invite-only. There’s not a massive number of players, while Open Beta is truly open and very available to everyone. Hopefully, that gives us even more insights that we’ve missed or only show up at that kind of scale.
Game Rant: Alexia, I know your team is also responsible for progression, so I wanted to ask how you’ve been approaching progression for this specific Battlefield experience?
Christofi: Progression is something that’s super important to us, and it covers a few different parts. One thing we wanted to do with our progression is make sure that our scoring systems feel really good, so we want players to play with their squads. That means rewarding them for squad play and certain other things. We’re bringing back things we know our players love, like dog tags, and we’ve got things like accolades. As you’re playing, we’re telling you that you’re doing a f*cking great job at this thing, like awesome! Keep it up! For someone who’s maybe new to Battlefield, as they’re ranking up, they’re unlocking more stuff. We’re not bombarding you with stuff straight away; we’re making sure you’ve got the core set of stuff locked down as you’re unlocking more. When it comes to weapons, we want you to have a real sense of mastery of what you’re doing. Our progression is built in a way that it’s really rewarding you for doing cool sh*t, basically. We’ve got things that unlock for weapons, attachments, anything that happens as you’re playing, so it’s about mastering your journey.
Immersion in Battlefield 6
Game Rant: There’s a sizeable part of the Battlefield community who ranks immersion as one of the most important features, sort of like the frantic dialogue from Battlefield 1 and Battlefield 5, where soldiers react to the environments and animations. What can you tell me about how Battlefield 6 approaches creating that sense of immersion on the battlefield?
Sirland: I would say there are a lot of players, especially from Battlefield 1, who say that because that game is a master class in immersion. I mean, the setting and era make it a little bit easier, but I think we need to look at it from a modern era for that same reason, that immersion. Obviously, more things are happening. It’s more frantic. It is faster paced for the very reason that there’s more stuff, faster reloading, and things like that. We also want it to feel cohesive, which means it needs to not be annoying. We’ve talked about stuff like you want to hear someone needs a medic and you need to hear that, but there also almost needs to be a spam filter so that’s not annoying. We have dials we can fine-tune so that aspect can be seen or heard, especially when it matters. We have to give you enough info to make the right choices of gameplay versus feeling like it’s taking you out of the immersion of the game.
Game Rant: While everything is blowing up.
Sirland: Yeah, exactly. You may want to do something else, so you haven’t noticed that the guy behind you had just gone down and you could revive him in a second because you’re Support.
Game Rant: One of the best things, in my opinion, throughout Battlefield’s history is the multiplayer Easter eggs. The Battlefield 5 staircase, the Battlefield 4 Megalodon. Can you tell me if Battlefield 6 is going to have a similar approach to Easter Eggs?
Sirland: The point of an Easter egg is that you don’t know there are Easter eggs. I can say one thing. That staircase and the Phantom Program of Battlefield 4, I was part of the team.
[END]
Battlefield 6
- Developer(s)
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Battlefield Studios
- Engine
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Frostbite
- Multiplayer
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Online Multiplayer, Online Co-Op
- Number of Players
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Single-player
- Steam Deck Compatibility
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Unknown
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