Battlefield 5 – What we Know so Far

Battlefield 5 has finally been revealed to the public a few days ago.

While a few leaks, such as the setting was correctly anticipated and not surprising, we did get a TON of new information about the upcoming Battlefield V.

The game will take place during World War 2 and is set to release on October 18. Putting it close to the release of Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Red Dead Redemption.

In this article, we will go over everything we know so far of the game and keep you updated all the way up to the release.

General Information

• Release Date: October 18. (October 11, early access / October 16 for Premium edition owners)
• Setting: World War 2.
• Developer: EA DICE
• Engine: Frostbite
• Series: Battlefield
• Publisher: Electronic Arts
• Platforms: PlayStation 4, Xbox One, Microsoft Windows

Battlefield 5 – Everything you need to know

We will start off with a bullet point list of all the most significant changes coming to Battlefield 5.

• The World War 2 setting has been visited and revisited so many times by multiple game franchises in the FPS genre, so they want to make sure that they are taking us to unseen locations and telling untold stories from the war.
• BF5 is not just an incoherent sequel to Battlefield 1. They have built upon Battlefield 1 as a foundation but changed and implemented a LOT of new features. Many of the changes coming are in response to community feedback.
• Dice wants to make sure that there is a playstyle for any gamer in Battlefield 5 and seek to attract a wider audience.
• Battlefield 5 will focus much more on squad play than any other Battlefield before it.
• Dice has put a lot of work into improving the physicality of the game’s engine. An example that was given was that buildings will not just crumble in a set way but will react to how it is hit. So if it explodes from within the bricks will fly outwards as opposed to when a missile hits the outer walls.
• The team wants the game to feel much more realistic and like an actual war. Making materials more scarce, having to spend more time on revivals and even being able to cry out for help when you are fatally wounded.

Gunplay

• All guns will have predictable recoil patterns. In the hopes of eliminating some random elements and rewarding skilled players.
• Larger guns, such as the LMG and stationary machine guns will have bullet penetration. Making it possible for support players to hammer bullets through walls and really suppress the enemy.
• Jump shooting will make a return which was removed in Battlefield 1. Meaning once reaching the top of your jump you will be able to use your gun on the way down. Albeit it will be very unprecise will doing so.

Movement & Physicality Changes

• Player models will now react to the environment and events around them more actively. Example: If you are moving through high water, your player model will start taking its knees up much higher and walk like an actual person would in said situation.
• There will be put more weight behind the movement and the player, so if you are sprinting towards a wall for cover and don’t slow down, you will slam hard into the wall.
• Players will now be able to semi-sprint while crouching.
• Ragdoll technology is being implemented to the player models. Meaning you can interact with them and they will react to explosions, how they are shot etc.
• Ragdoll death animations. When a grenade kills a player from the left of him, he will be violently thrown to the right, if someone is shot from the back they will fall in a frontal manner, etc.
• Ragdoll death animations also mean that medics will have to revive a player where their body lands as opposed to where they were killed.
• You will now be able to drag wounded teammates off to safety.
• You can loot dead players for ammunition and resources, but it also requires a physical animation.
• Diving is back. You can now dive backward, forwards, or to either side and even shoot while you do so. However, DICE has stated that the delay on the animation will be long enough as not to make dive shooting an effective way to fight your battles again.
• Diving also allows players to dive through windows and other squishy materials, regardless of whether its broken beforehand.

Destruction System

• Destruction physics has also received significant improvements. So if you blow a house up from the inside, the bricks, and windows will fall outward and if you hit the outside of the house, it will fall inward. Instead of using the default destruction animation for all types of destruction, materials now react to the specific situation.
• Semi destroyed buildings will now start to fall apart over time. If you blow a hole in a wall with your tank, then the rest of that wall will over time start to fall apart, brick for brick. All depending on the weight of the remaining materials.
• ”Fortifications” is a new mechanic that allows players to build different types of shelter and defensive structures. Such as bobwire or sandbag walls, etc.
• Fortifications are fully destructible, and support players will be able to repair damaged fortifications.
• You can also reinforce destroyed buildings with fortifications, such as laying down a sandbag cover in place of a damaged wall on the house.
• The idea with fortifications is to mildly reverse some of the destruction and still allow players to find shelter late into the game where everything ordinarily is ruined.

Squad Play – More important than ever

BF5 is focusing much more on squad team play than ever before.

The Battlefield franchise has always tried to focus on squad play and rewarding effective teamwork with squad members. However, lately, that fact has been lost a bit in the midst of big-scale warfare.

Body Revive

Regardless of your class, you can now revive a fallen squad member. This is known as a ”Body revive”. A Body Revive takes much longer than a revival performed by a medic, and it will not bring them back with as much health but rewards a squad for sticking together.

You will now be alarmed if you are the last person in your squad alive, allowing you to play more cautiously and wait for their return or even try to revive them.

Reviving other players now takes longer than previously and requires actual physical interaction with the fallen player. Luckily, you are now able to pull your comrade to safety before attempting to revive.

Death Loop

Battlefield 5 will introduce a brand new UI and a lot of new actions to the bleed out screen that give much more control to the player in life or death situations.

A player can now crawl and scream for help when fatally wounded in the hopes of getting revived, which could potentially make the team play much smoother, especially on consoles where text communication is difficult.

Secondly, a player now has much more option and information when choosing a spawn point. The interface will now show an over-the-shoulder view of every squad member so that you can make a much more informed decision on where you want to spawn in.

Changes to Squad Play

• Whenever you join a multiplayer map, you will be put directly into a squad.
• Teamplay between squad members are more critical than ever and thus it’s important that everyone is in a squad from the get-go.
• Dice is implementing a new system called ”War on Attrition”. Which is a type of warfare where each side seeks to wear the opposing army down over time. However, in Battlefield 5 is represent scarcity of resources to give the game a more realistic and gritty feel.
• You spawn with less ammunition, but there are also more ways to obtain it.
• Health is now divided into separate bars, and once you go below a bar, you will not automatically generate above that point. If you want to get entirely topped off, you will need a medic or to find a medic station.
• This scarcity of ammunition and health mean that sticking with your squad will be even more beneficial than before.
• Obtaining resources is now an active part of the Battlefield experience. Example: You have to interact with an ammunition crate to actually receive the ammo, instead of just running past it.
• Body revive. Squad members are now always able to revive fallen squad members, regardless of playing as a medic or not. However, it does take a lot longer for non-medic classes to revive a teammate and medics can still revive any team member, whether or not they are in their squad.
• Reviving takes significantly longer than before and also requires actual physical interaction.
• Death Loop is the new bleed out screen and gives you much more control of your spawn and death situations.

Game Modes

We also got a look at some of the upcoming new game modes for Battlefield 5.

Grand Operations

A four-in-one operation that takes the scale of the war to an unprecedented level. The Grand Operation mode is separated into four distinct days and each day is equivalent to 1 regular map.

Each day will have an impact on the upcoming ones. So if your team performs poorly on the first day, it will be reflected in the enemies resources and reinforcements the next days. So each day has a significant impact on the match outcome.

Each day will be a different distinct game mode. So day 1 might be a Conquest map, day two an Assault map, etc.

Grand Operations will last for at least 3 maps, and you won’t lose just because you fail the objective in the first map, but it will hurt you in the next one.

Grand Operations is meant to be one of the driving factors behind Battlefield 5 and DICE will continue to change up the operations and narrative in this game mode to make sure the community always have something fresh to sink their teeth into.

Battlefield 5 Singleplayer

Much like in Battlefield 1 there will be a ”War Story” campaign that will follow different individuals at different points in the war. While we didn’t get too much information on the Singleplayer mode, DICE promised that it would take us to previously unseen moments and locations of World War 2.

Other Game Modes

In addition to Grand Operations, Battlefield 5 will keep all the existing game modes from Battlefield 1.

Progression – Your Company

DICE has stated that they realize the progression system in Battlefield 1 was lackluster and seek to create a much more rewarding experience for players with more rewards and progression paths available.

All weapons will now have their specific progression path and depending on how much and in what way you use a weapon you will unlock different accessories and gadgets for that gun.

Company

”Company” is the name of the new collection and progression system coming in Battlefield 5. It will be the page where you see all of your unlocked weapons, cosmetics, vehicles, and soldiers.

Allowing to customize your soldiers, weapon loadout, and generally give more option and choice to the player. It is mostly a collection of everything you have unlocked and achieved in Battlefield 5.

Soldiers & Archetypes

Instead of just having a few different load outs you will now be able to customize specific soldiers fully. So on top of creating unique weapon load outs for different situations, you will also be able to choose a cosmetic look to that particular loadout.

Archetypes is a brand new soldier type and functions as a more focused version of each class that specializes in 1 specific area and do that incredibly well but are in turn very weak at everything else.

Archetypes will have access to unique weapons, perks, and gadgets. An example that was given was a Scout archetype that specialized in fighting behind enemy lines, using suppressed weaponry and being undetectable and silent.

Financial Model – No more Premium Pass

As of late, game developers have been punished severely for overly greedy models and the gaming community is beginning to fight back against the microtransaction model that has plagued the world of gaming for far too long, and it seems DICE is listening as well.

One of the most controversial features of Battlefield 1 was the Premium Pass and DLC model. Which essentially meant that you only got a handful of maps when you purchased the game and would have to pay additional money to unlock all of the new maps and weapons. I am excited to hear that this is going away as it is the reason many players stopped playing the game, including myself.

Cosmetics to Replace Premium Pass

As players will now all have full access to all maps and weapons within the game, DICE is betting on cosmetics to be the driving financial force of the game. Like so many others like it on the market.

So instead of forcing people to pay additional money for the full game, they will only have to pay if they want purely cosmetic upgrades in Battlefield 5. Cosmetics will come to the player models, vehicles, and weapons, such as Warpaint, clothes, weapon skins, etc.

This is without a doubt a healthier route for the game to take and as long as they don’t throw all the post-release focus at cosmetics, this new system should be a significant step up from Battlefield 1.

System Requirements

While Battlefield 5 is still a few months away, we already know what the minimum system requirements will be as it shown on the Origin store.

OS: 64-bit Windows 7, Windows 8.1 and Windows 10
Processor (AMD): AMD FX-6350
Processor (Intel): Core i5 6600K
Memory: 8GB RAM
Graphics card (AMD): AMD Radeon™ HD 7850 2GB
Graphics card (NVIDIA): nVidia GeForce® GTX 660 2GB
DirectX: 11.0 Compatible video card or equivalent
Online Connection Requirements: 512 KBPS or faster Internet connection
Hard-drive space: 50GB