Battlefield has become an amusement park with so many attractions you don’t know where to start. This lack of focus couldn’t help but trickle into the game production. By forcing level designers to consider 14 different game modes while creating a map, you eventually start to diminish their ability to make compelling battle scenarios. A map can’t just be designed with rush in mind; the developer needs to consider how it’s played for smaller deathmatch skirmishes as well as larger battles. Inevitably, quality and balance are sacrificed at the altar of the “more is more” approach. Some maps only end up being good for Rush mode. Others work better for Conquest.

Having this many modes seriously fragments the audience as well. When you factor in the Hardcore modifier, Battlefield 3 has 28 different player pools at once. This creates many different audiences, each of whom expects different improvements and modifications in future iterations. I wouldn’t want to be the poor sod who has to sort through splintered community feedback and find the commonalities.

The Battlefield multiplayer currently feels so bloated it’s starting to obscure the qualities that make the franchise so well regarded. In the pursuit of being everything to everyone, Battlefield has forgotten to be itself. Battlefield still promotes teamplay, but only if you’re playing in the right mode. The game still has great rush battles, as long as you’re playing on the right map. It also still has large-scale battles, as long as you are playing playing the right mode and map.

Ultros:


You: Hello, I am a 5 star general in BFBC2. I demand your attention.
Ashwini: But are you a 5 star general on BFBC2 on Origin?
Ashwini: Fuck you