Battlefield (game series)

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Battlefield
BF-Schriftzug.png
Logo of the series
developer SwedenSweden Digital Illusions CE
Publisher United StatesUnited States Electronic Arts
First title Battlefield 1942 (2002)
Last title Battlefield V (2018)
Platform (s) Windows , Xbox , Xbox 360 , PlayStation 2 , PlayStation 3 , Xbox One , PlayStation 4 , iOS
Genre (s) Tactical shooter
Battlefield V Battlefield 1 Battlefield Hardline Battlefield 4 Battlefield 3 Battlefield: Bad Company 2 Battlefield 1943 Battlefield: Bad Company Battlefield 2142 Battlefield 2 Battlefield Vietnam Battlefield 1942

The Battlefield series is a franchise of computer games that currently consists of twelve games. The newest game in the series is Battlefield V , which for Windows - PCs , PlayStation 4 and Xbox One is available.

Apart from Battlefield Heroes , which falls into the third-person shooter category , every previous part of the Battlefield series is a first-person shooter from the sub-genre of tactical shooters . The focus is on large maps (up to 64 players in the PC and next-gen versions) as well as a combination of ground, air, and water units, with the latter having the lowest emphasis in the series.

history

The series found its origin in the code name Eagle , a computer game by the Swedish development team Refraction Games for Windows PCs from 1999. The studio was bought in 2000 by Digital Illusions CE , which has since developed the well-known Battlefield series for Electronic Arts . The first part, entitled Battlefield 1942 , was published in 2002, modified in March 2004 by another team of programmers, and continued with the title Battlefield Vietnam . Due to the success of the two published games, an official second part, designed by the original developers, appeared in June 2005 with Battlefield 2 . The console implementation for PlayStation 2 , Xbox and Xbox 360 appeared in autumn 2005 under the title Battlefield 2: Modern Combat . Based on an extended Battlefield 2 engine, Battlefield 2142 was released in October 2006 . Battlefield: Bad Company was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in June 2008, while Battlefield Heroes was released for PC only in June 2009. Battlefield 1943 , a multiplayer remake of the first part, was released in July 2009 for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. The PC version was first postponed, and finally discontinued in 2011. Dice gave the reason that they wanted to concentrate intensively on Battlefield 3 . Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was released on March 4, 2010 as the successor to Battlefield: Bad Company. In contrast to its predecessor, Bad Company 2 was not only released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but was also released for PCs and iPhone. The third part of the series, Battlefield 3 , was released on October 27, 2011 for PC, PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360. It was followed on October 31, 2013, Battlefield 4 for PC, PlayStation 4, PlayStation 3, Xbox One and Xbox 360. Battlefield Hardline , released March 19, 2015 for PC, PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

Games

Battlefield 1942

Battlefield 1942 , BF1942 for short, BF42 or 1942, was released on September 19, 2002 and takes place during the Second World War .

The player takes on the role of a soldier of the Axis powers on the German, Italian, Japanese or as an ally on the American, Canadian, Soviet, French or British side. He plays important battles and operations of World War II - such as B. the battles for Stalingrad , Berlin , Omaha Beach , Iwo Jima , Guadalcanal and El Alamein or the Operation Market Garden - on the selected page. The sometimes very large cards , on which up to 64 (32 versus 32) participants can play at the same time, are based on these original locations.

The player can choose between different player classes - such as medic , scout ( sniper ), pioneer , normal infantryman or bazooka . The classes differ in the types of weapons available and various pieces of equipment. A wide fleet of vehicles (various tanks , aircraft , off-road vehicles , landing craft , amphibious vehicles , submarines or even an aircraft carrier ) is also available to players. Historical weapons were used, only in the add-on Secret Weapons of WWII were prototypes such as a rocket backpack , the waterfall rocket or jet fighter installed.

Battlefield Vietnam

The game Battlefield Vietnam , published on March 19, 2004, was not programmed by Dice Sweden like Battlefield 1942 , but by Dice Canada. The graphics engine of the predecessor has been heavily revised, but the game principle ( multiplayer game for flag points in Conquest mode ) has been retained.

The background puts the player either on the side of the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) or the US Army during the Vietnam War . With authentic weapons like the M48 Patton or the Soviet T-54 tank, the player fights on historical battlefields such as the Ia Drang Valley , the Ho Chi Minh Trail and in the streets of Saigon . As in the later Battlefield Bad Company 2: Vietnam, the vehicles have a radio that can be used to play pieces of music from the 1960s and 1970s. The titles are mostly known from various popular Vietnam films such as Apocalypse Now , Full Metal Jacket , Platoon , Forrest Gump or Good Morning, Vietnam . In connection with original propaganda announcements from Radio Hanoi , moderated by Trịnh Thị Ngọ , this game has a very special, appropriate atmosphere.

Battlefield 2

Battlefield 2 was released on June 23, 2005 and takes place mainly in the near and far east of the present, in the booster pack Armored Fury the action has been moved to the American continent. The Euro Force booster pack includes the European Union in the fictitious war events in the Middle East. Battlefield 2 has more modern graphics than the other parts of the Battlefield series and more emphasis is placed on tactics , strategy and teamwork . Battlefield 2 is about the struggle of three warring parties (the USA with the USMC , China with the PLA , and a fictional coalition of the Middle East, the Middle Eastern Coalition (MEC for short)), who deal with modern weapons systems such as B. the M1A2 or the SU-34 fight. Up to 64 players can compete against each other at the same time on 15 cards, each of which is available in 16, 32 and 64 player variants. The 13th map Wake Island 2007 was added with patch 1.3 and geographically corresponds to the map of the same name Wake Island from Battlefield 1942 (and its multiplayer demo). Furthermore, the 14th map Road to Jalalabad has been available since patch 1.4 . Independent of the patches, the 15th Highway Tampa map was published in June 2007 .

The patch to version 1.5 has been available since September 1, 2009 . This 2 GB incremental patch includes a new map ( Operation Blue Pearl ) as well as the Euro Forces and Armored Fury booster packs free of charge and therefore playable for everyone. Furthermore, small changes were made to the configurations.

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat

Battlefield 2: Modern Combat is designed for game consoles and can be seen as an implementation of the PC version on console devices. Like Battlefield 2, it is set in the Middle East and China, with the addition of Kazakhstan , which serves as a battlefield for Chinese PLA and European EUFOR troops.

The game was released for PlayStation 2, Xbox and Xbox 360 in autumn 2005, and porting to the PlayStation Portable was canceled.

A multiplayer mode is u. a. available through Xbox Live and GameSpy (PlayStation 2) services.

Battlefield 2142

Battlefield 2142 continues the war series in a futuristic scenario - the battle between the European Union (EU) and a Pan-Asian Coalition (PAC) for the last resources and habitable land on earth after a new ice age has begun.

Overall, there are four classes of reconnaissance , assault soldier , pioneer and supply soldier , which can be individually adapted with unlockable weapons and items. In contrast to Battlefield 2 , the basic equipment must also be unlocked on ranked servers.

In addition to the previous Conquest mode, Battlefield 2142 includes the new "Titan mode". A gigantic attack aircraft is referred to as the "Titan". Both teams must defend their own ship, but at the same time try to destroy the opposing ship in order to win. It can be destroyed either by missiles from missile silos or by "boarding" and destroying the reactor. The missile silos have to be captured like the control points in other game modes and fire missiles at certain time intervals, which first destroy the titan's shield and then his hull. Enemy units cannot enter the ship until the shield is destroyed.

Battlefield: Bad Company

Like Battlefield 2: Modern Combat, Battlefield: Bad Company was only developed for game consoles. It is the first title in the Battlefield series to be produced exclusively for 7th generation consoles . It is not based on any of the previous games in terms of content or technology, but has been equipped with a new engine . With the Frostbite engine developed by DICE , it is possible for the first time in the history of Battlefield to destroy 90% of the environment. In contrast to its predecessors, Bad Company focuses on the single player mode.

The plot of Bad Company is set in a fictional, takes place in the present conflict between the US and the Russian Federation located. The player takes on the role of US infantryman Preston Marlowe, who fights together with three other characters (members of the so-called "Bad Company" = US B Company) in an undefined Eastern European region. In the course of the game, the group finds gold from a group of mercenaries, which becomes the main element of the plot.

The multiplayer mode supports up to 24 players, the battlefields are similar to those of Battlefield 2.

The ratings are consistently positive for both the PS3 and the Xbox 360.

Battlefield Heroes

Battlefield Heroes
Bf-heroes-logo.gif
Battlefield Heroes logo
Studio EA / DICE
Publisher Electronic Arts
Erstveröffent-
lichung
June 25, 2009
platform Windows
Game engine Refractor 2
genre Third person shooter
Subject World war two in comic style
Game mode Multiplayer
control Mouse , keyboard
system advantages
preconditions
Internet Explorer , Firefox or Chrome
Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 / AMD Athlon 1.0 GHz
RAM: 512 MB (1 GB with Vista)
Graphics card: 64 MB DirectX compatible, Pixel Shader 2.0 and higher. (AGP and PCIe only)
Sound card: DirectX 9.0c compatible
Hard disk: 1 GB is required to install the game
Internet connection: 256 kbit cable / DSL
medium Download
language German, English, Dutch, French, Italian, Polish, Portuguese, Russian, Spanish, Turkish
Current version 1.103.245909.0
Age rating
USK approved from 16
PEGI recommended for ages 16+
information Discontinued July 14, 2015

Battlefield Heroes was a comic shooter in the third-person perspective, which was financed by paid content ( micropayment ) and advertisements displayed when the game was started. No advertising will be displayed on posters or similar during the game. The game can only be started via a button on the homepage. Battlefield Heroes was announced for early 2009. The closed beta phase began on May 6, 2008, ended on November 14, 2008, and continued on February 11, 2009. On June 25, 2009 the final version of the game was released.

Similar to role-playing games , you can upgrade a character through the experience you have gained, thereby learning new special skills or upgrading old ones and unlocking new equipment. With real money, Play4Free Funds (an in-game currency) can also be purchased, with which one can buy more elaborate costumes and better weapons; either temporarily or permanently, which is not possible with the "Valorpoints" acquired in the game. The game scenario is based on the Second World War. The player has the choice between the Royals, which represent the Allies, or the Nationals, which represent the Third Reich. Each party has three classes: Commando (available weapons: sniper rifle, knife, grenade launcher and pistol), Soldier (available weapons: MPs, pistol, shotgun, grenade, grenade launcher) and Gunner (available weapons: machine guns, rocket launcher, shotgun, grenade launcher). Each class has different skills. These skills define every player. At the highest level (30) you have 15 points to upgrade your skills (5 levels). The game itself is designed more for fun than realism - which is also clear from the comic-like graphics. Airplanes do not carry bombs, but they can shoot, and let all classes travel on the wings and fight from there.

The game has four game modes "Team Deathmatch", "Hero of the Hill", "Capture the Flag" and "Team Elimination" as well as a tutorial . Conquest is the most common game mode in which there are four flags on a map for conquest and 50, 70 or 75 tickets per team. The goal is to have more than zero tickets left at the end. If a player of a team is killed, this team loses tickets, depending on how many flags the opposing faction has captured. If a flag is captured, spawn points are unlocked in the vicinity for the team that owns the flag , which makes defending the flag a little easier. At King of the Hill there is a rocket in the middle of the map. B. in the upper and lower middle, which you can take after a short period of time, and which you have to hold as long as possible. Both teams have timers of 5 and 10.15 minutes that count down while the team is in possession of the missile. Once a team has set the timer to 0, it wins. In this mode, no deaths are displayed in the score table , but successful missile earnings.

In Tokyo, the game was advertised at the Tokyo Game Show 2008 and it was offered for free play at the Games Convention 2008 in Leipzig , giving visitors a first impression of the gameplay. In addition, posters of the comic shooter were distributed to the visitors and they could sign up for a beta key in the EA Lounge . On September 30th, 2009 the first major update called Heroes of the Fall was published, which includes a new map with Riverside Rush . After a few updates, the Sunset Showdown map was added to the five existing maps Bucaneer Bay , Seaside Skirmish , Coastal Clash , Victory Village and Riverside Rush . For some time now, the cards can also be played at night as so-called night levels. There is also the “Midnight Mayhem” map, on which the new game mode V2 Vengeance (in the PTE version and admin tools for servers HotH, also known as Heroes of the Hill ) can be played for the first time. Since July 2010 a new map has been playable, which is called Alpine Assault . In addition, with the update of November 26, 2010, winter maps have been added that show some maps in snowy and icy surroundings. In addition, the Wicked Wake map based on the map of the same name from Battlefield 1943 has also been available since July 2011 .

In addition to the normal version, there is also a PTE (Public Test Environment), which was introduced after the end of the closed beta in order to test new cards, features and outfits. For this version you need a separate account that cannot be linked to an EA account. In the PTE, new cards are still played under the development names, e.g. B. Riverside Rush was still called "heat" there.

On April 15, 2015, players were informed via email and an announcement on the website that Battlefield Heroes and Battlefield Play4Free will be discontinued on July 14, 2015.

Battlefield 1943

Battlefield 1943 was released for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360 in July 2009 and should also be released for PC in 2010. After several postponements, it was announced in February 2011 that there would be no PC implementation. In 2018 a version of the game was released for the Xbox One.

The game is only available as a download version and is not sold as a full price game. It is designed as a pure multiplayer game and therefore does not contain any bots. In terms of content, the game ties in with Battlefield 1942 , but shifts the action completely to the Pacific War during World War II. Again, it is possible to destroy the surroundings.

From the start, only three cards were included, a fourth first had to be unlocked globally. The US and Japanese can be selected as playable factions .

Battlefield: Bad Company 2

Battlefield: Bad Company 2 was released on March 4, 2010 as the successor to Battlefield: Bad Company . Unlike its predecessor, Bad Company 2 appeared not only for PlayStation 3 and Xbox 360, but was also released for Windows and iOS . The game works with a revised version of the Frostbite engine, which makes it possible to destroy almost the entire environment. This time DX9, DX10 and DX11 are supported as graphic interfaces. As one of the few games to date, Bad Company 2 supports “HBAO” (Horizon Based Ambient Occlusion ) from Nvidia .

The player takes on the role of Preston Marlowe again in Bad Company 2 and fights alongside his comrades Sarge , Sweetwater and Haggard .

You have to find out clues about a suicide mission called "Project Aurora" in the single player campaign. Later one should then prevent the launch of a bomb.

Battlefield Online

Battlefield Online was released as an open beta version on March 25, 2010 exclusively for the South Korean market. It was a free-to-play game developed by Neowiz with the support of Dice and EA . Battlefield Online was a technically improved remake of Battlefield 2. On May 31, 2013, support for the game by Neowiz was discontinued. By switching off the server, it is no longer playable.

Battlefield Play4Free

Battlefield Play4Free
Studio EA / Easy Studios
Publisher Electronic Arts
platform Windows
Game engine Refractor 2
genre First person shooter
Game mode Multiplayer
control Mouse keyboard
system advantages
preconditions
Internet Explorer, Firefox or Chrome
Windows XP, Windows Vista or Windows 7
CPU: Intel Pentium 4 1.7 GHz /> RAM: 512 MB (1 GB for Vista)
Graphics card: 256 MB DirectX compatible, Pixel Shader 2.0 or higher.
Sound card: DirectX 9.0c compatible
Hard disk: 1 GB is required to install the game
Internet connection: 256 kBit cable / DSL
medium Download
language English, German, Russian, Polish, French
copy protection none
Age rating
PEGI recommended for ages 16+
information Discontinued July 14, 2015

Battlefield Play4Free was released in spring 2011. Like Battlefield Heroes, the game is a free shooter, but from the first-person perspective with additional extras that can be purchased in an item shop.

The "closed beta" started on November 30, 2010 and the public beta on April 4, 2011. Owners of certain predecessors from the Battlefield series could test this beta version from March 31.

Funds are the premium currency of Battlefield Play4Free (bfp4f for short). In terms of content, the game is a mixture of Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Battlefield Heroes and Battlefield 2. The maps, albeit in a different way, come from Battlefield 2, the weapons from Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 and the level system from Battlefield Heroes .

In the beginning there was only one game mode, the so-called Assault mode. In this mode, the team that has controlled the most (four in total) flag points the longest wins. Rush mode was later introduced for some maps. In rush mode, one team has to protect the existing M-Coms from the other team, while the other team has to destroy them. There are a total of three waves and two M-Coms per wave. If all enemy M-Coms are destroyed, the attackers have won. The defenders win when the attackers run out of reinforcements.

On April 15, 2015, players were informed by email and an announcement on the website that Battlefield Play4Free and Battlefield Heroes will be discontinued on July 14, 2015.

Battlefield 3

Battlefield 3 (abbreviated: BF3 ) was developed by DICE and published by Electronic Arts . The game was developed as one of the first games based on the in-house graphics engine Frostbite 2 .

Battlefield 4

In July 2012, the first hints about a new part of the Battlefield series became known. On March 26, 2013, Battlefield 4 was officially announced by DICE at the 2013 Game Developers Conference . For the time being, Battlefield 4 has only been released for the Xbox 360, Xbox One, PS3, PS4 and the PC, but relies on the new Frostbite 3 engine , which is being used for the first time and is supposed to display animations of the characters even better. Only DirectX 11 is supported on PCs. Battlefield 4 was released in the US on October 29, 2013, and in Germany on October 31, 2013. The first trailer and gameplay video of the first mission were released on March 27, and another one in June. The pre-alpha version, which was exclusively playable at E3 , has since made it public for the first time, from which, in addition to improved graphics and more detailed destruction animations, newly designed player classes and weapon configurations can be found. Battlefield 4 continues to play in the present, unlike in Battlefield 3, the main location is not the Middle East, but China.

Battlefield Hardline

Main article: Battlefield Hardline

On May 28, 2014, after several leaks, EA officially confirmed that a new part called Battlefield Hardline is in development and should appear in early 2015. Battlefield Hardline was developed by Visceral Games , who were already responsible for the Dead Space series, with the support of Dice. The engine Frostbite 3 is used. The game differs significantly from the previous Battlefield parts and is set in a police setting in the fight against crime. Hardline continues to focus on the multiplayer mode, in which players can slip into the roles of SWAT teams as well as crooks. The official announcement with further information took place on June 9, 2014 during E3 2014. The game was released on March 19, 2015 in Germany and previously on March 17 in the USA.

Battlefield 1

On May 6, 2016, Battlefield 1 was confirmed via a live event. The game was released worldwide on October 21, 2016 for Windows , PlayStation 4 and Xbox One . The game is developed by DICE . With Battlefield 1 , part of the Battlefield series takes place for the first time at the time of the First World War .

Battlefield V

On May 23, 2018, Battlefield V was confirmed via livestream after hints had been made on various social media. World War II serves as the setting for the game. The game was released worldwide on November 20, 2018. In addition, DICE confirmed that there will be no Premium Pass for Battlefield V. Maps from Battlefield 1 should also return.

Modifications

For Battlefield 1942 , Battlefield Vietnam , Battlefield 2 and Battlefield 2142 there is a large mod scene that has published a very extensive collection of modifications. These modifications are mostly aimed at different eras (e.g. BF 1918 or Desert Combat / Conflict ), increased realism (e.g. Project Reality or Forgotten Hope ) or more varied game fun (e.g. Pirates or Interstate 82 ) in insert the main game.

novel

In 2014, a novel was published for the first time for the game series, which deepens the plot of the game Battlefield 4.

criticism

Critics of the Battlefield series criticize - similar to comparable games - above all the trivialization of the war and the possible - albeit controversial - dulling of the players towards acts of killing (see: Fictional violence ). Real conflicts in the Middle East and Asia, whose armies are represented in Battlefield, also play a role.

In some cases, an attempt is made in various modifications to deal with some of the above-mentioned points of criticism.

The Winter Armistice update for the game Battlefield Heroes , published in December 2009, was also heavily criticized. With this update, the prices of all items in the shop were increased drastically, which caused many players to quit the game.

The fact that there is a compulsion to install the EA gaming platform Origin caused massive criticism of the release of Battlefield 3 . The EULA of this platform allowed EA to process and store the IP address, the browser cache, the browser history, the hardware and other personal information such as gender and zip code . As a result, the PC version of the game was rated on Amazon with an average of 1.2 out of 5 stars.

In a report dated November 30, 2011, it became known that the Federation of German Consumer Organizations (vzbv) warned EA for a lack of transparency towards its customers. The main points of criticism were the inadequate information that online registration is necessary to play Battlefield 3, as well as insufficient customer information about the purpose and function of the additional software Origin.

Similar series

  • Medal of Honor is another series of video and computer games from the US publisher Electronic Arts (taken over by DreamWorks Interactive in 2000), which belongs to the genre of first-person shooters and is set in various historical wars.
  • Call of Duty is a series of video and computer games by rival US publisher Activision, which belongs to the genre of first-person shooters and is set in various historical and fictional wars.

Web links

Commons : Battlefield  - collection of images, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

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