While attending the EB Games Expo we had the opportunity to chat with Lars Gustavsson, Creative Director at DICE, to discuss the upcoming Battlefield 4. In our interview, we take a look at the challenges and opportunities that developing for both the current and next generation of consoles presents, DICE’s decision to support their games through expansion packs rather than annual releases, and what changes have been made to make Battlefield 4 a great online experience for all players.
Stevivor: I remember that the new Frostbite engine was a major talking point when Battlefield 3 was released two years ago. Now that the developers of Battlefield 4 have had even more time with the engine, what sort of improvements has that allowed the team to make with this game?
Lars Gustavvson: A lot of things. First off, we stepped back and knew that we had the next generation of consoles coming, so to build the scalability to make the most of each platform, since the last thing we wanted was to hold back the next generation of consoles/PC because of where the current generation is. This scalability allowed us to improve a lot of unique features, like the water system, lots of rendering features to keep making the game prettier, memory handling, and a lot of other things to be able to do this on the current generation of consoles as well. There are a lot of things around the optimisation of memory handling to be able to just keep squeezing in more – so we have more weapons and vehicles than ever. A lot of work went into making it a more solid engine, scalable, and to be able to keep pushing the boundaries with PCs and the next generation consoles.
Stevivor: When it came to the development of BF4, how do you determine how much effort goes into the single-player aspect of the game, and how much attention goes towards multiplayer? Which do you feel is most important?
Gustavvson: I would probably be lying if I didn’t say that multiplayer was most important. I mean it’s the bread and butter of Battlefield, it’s what we are known for. I think that, as we’ve definitely seen with Battlefield 4, we have a lot of growth from single player to multiplayer, like the exploration of ‘Levolution’, dynamic levels, and telling the of the story, as well as the multiplayer going into single-player with the possibility of ordering a squad, scoring systems, and a more open battlefield. It’s almost 50-50. We have people working with UX/UI, we also have a central group working with core elements, so basically we have the whole running, gunning, shooting weapons, accessories, input, controls, vehicles, all of that has a [dedicated] group as well. So we try to ensure, and it’s been key for us since day one, that whether you play single-player or multiplayer, you are able to make the most of it.
Stevivor: What sort of challenges come with developing a game that has to both look and run great on current and next-generation consoles?
Gustavvson: There are a lot of challenges. *laughs* No, but I mean, we have gone through the previous generation shift, so that’s where the scalability comes in. For each and every level, to be able to define what goes for each skew/platform – so this has to go for the current gen vs. the next gen. And of course, the power of the next generation consoles allows us to go from 24 players to 64, focusing on 60 frames per second, and a lot of other things that comes with the new horsepower.
Stevivor: There was a great variety in the vehicles available in BF3. What sort of vehicles can we expect to get behind the wheel of in this game?
Gustavvson: I think we have up to 17 more vehicles – we’ve added the whole Chinese army. We introduced new vehicle classes like the attack boat which is one of my favourites. We really felt that with the new water system, that we had to bring in new vehicles. We have attack boats, which are inspired by the infantry vehicles and the tanks in the old Battlefield games, and the thinking was to make the most of the water and dynamic waves that we now network in multiplayer. Now you can play hide and seek – if you’re the weaker team, you can try and come around and kill them from the back. We also have the jet-skies and the rip-boats, which are all water-based too.
Stevivor: What is the process behind the level design in this game? How do you pick which environments to use?
Gustavvson: This time around, we very much looked at what the single-player adventure was going to be, and then we picked quite freely from there. We didn’t feel too restricted, we have a level taking place in Russia, where you have Russia taking part in the conflict but you don’t have that much fighting actually going on in Russia, but we felt it suited the game. When we built the levels, we wanted them to feel like they had a strong history, that they should feel intriguing, that you should be able to clearly tell between them, and with the concept of levolution and the ever-changing battlefield, we wanted unique things which could happen in each of the levels.
Stevivor: Obviously combat is the main focus of any Battlefield game. What is involved in making the guns and the gunplay as close-to-life and authentic as possible?
Gustavvson: This is a long process, and I guess for each game we keep getting better and better. The big part is definitely the audio department, where the team goes to the shooting range and they try to find every weapon. I’ve seen movies on how they do it – they mic it up in-front, from behind, 100 metres away, 500 metres away, to get all these distances and the ‘truth’ into the sound. From there they take the true sound, and they work with a team so they can continue to tweak it and get a very distinct and deep sound. It’s not always 100% realistic, but we try to make it better. Then we have a team that works with weapon tweaking and tuning. I mean, we never claim that we are a military simulator, but we work really hard at looking at what reality looks like, we use a lot of weapons, and then from there, we extract the perception of reality, to give the best possible gaming experience.
Stevivor: Can you tell us a little about the campaign mode in this game? Where did you get the inspiration for the story?
Gustavvson: So with the inspiration for the story, one of the key things we knew from the beginning was that we really liked a lot of things about the single player campaign from Battlefield 3, and how it was told, but a lot of it was about the grand events, and saving the world. This time around we wanted a clear focus, to not jump back and forth in time, and have instincts, motivations, and actions in the game that you as a player could relate to, that is more of what we are used to in our daily lives. We take things we can relate to, and we put them into extreme circumstances, thereby creating things that seem believable even though they are pretty extreme. From there we thought of a lot of good actors like Michael K Williams who’s done a brilliant job in depicting Irish (Kimble Graves), who is one of the main guys.
Overall, we tried to tell a story that you can relate to, is interesting, and is a journey that you embark on. We also wanted to marry it with the gameplay we have, where we wanted to bring in a bit more of the freedom of multiplayer – freedom of choice with which tools to use (instead of having just one tool to take out one enemy), provide more change (where you can use a squad to engage enemies), and add an element of score and persistence into it. Yeah, I’m really keen to see what people think of it when they get their hands on it.
Stevivor: If we compare Battlefield with Call of Duty, Battlefield seems to have a longer period between titles with a steady stream of DLC in the middle. Why have DICE decided to take this route rather than a new game each year, and what advantages do you think that brings?
Gustavvson: We’re not the biggest studio (even though we’ve grown bigger now that we have Mirror’s Edge and Battlefront), but I think we set the standard with Battlefield 1942, where we came out with expansion packs. People have a tendency of playing Battlefield for a long time. We’ve had an enormous response from people with the Premium Pack for Battlefield 3, were people kept playing and they were eager to get new content, so who knows about the future. But it is a concept that has worked really well with us. Also, when we work with premium packs, it’s not only “here’s more maps”, but we really try to work with strong themes – this one is about the aftermath of an earthquake – we really didn’t do any levels about it in Battlefield 3, so we tried to take it to the extreme, to explore new works, and new experiences.
Stevivor: A lot of gamers have problems with ‘campers’ in multiplayer. What do you think of that style of play – is it just using a sniper rifle as it should be used, or do you think it’s a cheap way to play online?
Gustavvson: I think there is a love-hate relationship to snipers. Usually I would say that we watch for it when we build the levels, but there should always been a risk-reward for being a sniper. We build the levels so that many of the obvious spots for snipers are where people will know where to find them. We monitor it during playtests, like now for example with the beta to see if it something that gets too powerful. I think all classes have equal right to exist on the battlefield, but they can never become a nuisance or a problem. Often I would argue that the community have a really great way of coming around and finding new solutions to problems, like to counter snipers.
Stevivor: What features have been implemented to make BF4 an enjoyable experience online for all types of players?
Gustavvson: One of the first things, we are fully aware that in Battlefield 3, there is an issue where, especially with rented servers, that they have pretty extreme set-ups. To be honest, even when you do quick match, you don’t really know what you’re going to get into. What we’ve done is we’ve setup a new system where we rate your settings – where you can stick to the official settings which are pretty strict. Then people will be quick-matched to your servers, and it will be an official way of playing the game. Then you can go and start changing things on customer servers, and then you can go totally crazy. We know people love it so we don’t want to take away the freedom, but we have a responsibility to handle expectations for those that quick-match in and hope to know what they’re getting.
We’ve looked at match-making and score balance to hopefully even out how people prefer to play the game. We’ve added a test range for people to be able to test all vehicle types – for example, learn to fly the transport helicopters before you have a full squad in there. You can try out things as you unlock them as well. Simple things like understanding the game, so you can start with team deathmatch for example to learn the basics of customising your kit. So a lot of things have gone into making it more accessible and more predictable experience of how to get involved, and of course, it’s Battlefield, so that’s the beauty of the game.
Stevivor: What’s your favourite weapon of yours in the game and why?
Gustavvson: I can quickly answer my favourite vehicles, but favourite weapon is harder. I usually do assault rifles or carbines. I’m not a good sniper I must admit: I don’t have the patience. Shotgun is only useful if you play one-shot but they might dodge it. I’m not the best quick-shooter, I mean, I know my Battlefield so I do a lot of playing engineer, playing medic. I love being a tanker, I love the new attack boats, and especially, I love playing with helicopters. We’ve done an overhaul of the handling of helicopters and it’s sweet.
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We’d like to thank EA Games Australia and Lars Gustavvson for the opportunity to discuss Battlefield 4.
Battlefield 4 will be available on the Xbox 360, PS3, and PC on 31 October, and Xbox One and PS4 on 22 and 29 November, respectively.
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