Battlefield 4 producer says single-player should feel 'autonomous'

Battlefield 4 producer Patrick Bach says that DICE is designing the single-player campaign to make the player feel "autonomous" rather than "locking the player in situations where things go boom."

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Battlefield 4 looks to continue leading the charge on Electronic Arts' FPS offerings, and producer Patrick Bach has opened up a bit about the single-player campaign. Most significantly, he talked about the desire to give players more agency instead of relying on scripted events--one of the common criticisms of the series' chief competitor, Call of Duty.

"We wanted to add more drama, more intensity," Bach told the web show FTW. "On top of that, we are not locking the player in situations where things go boom. We want to release the player and have the player be autonomous, being able to actually cope with situations themselves. You know, moving around, shooting, picking your gun, picking your tactics, much like you do in multiplayer."

DICE has previously commented that it wants to "grow up" with this game's single-player, and it's eschewed co-op to focus on the single- and multiplayer campaigns. Just yesterday we learned the game is coming on October 29, and has been confirmed for both PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.

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  • reply
    May 22, 2013 2:30 PM

    Steve Watts posted a new article, Battlefield 4 producer says single-player should feel 'autonomous'.

    Battlefield 4 producer Patrick Bach says that DICE is designing the single-player campaign to make the player feel "autonomous" rather than "locking the player in situations where things go boom."

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      May 22, 2013 2:35 PM

      This is what made Far Cry 3 so awesome. Many of the missions were very open-ended.

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      May 22, 2013 2:36 PM

      hmmmmmmmm. given how CoD is evolving to "care for a dog" to give it depth people are clamoring for.... I'm not sure where BF4 will go with this. open world BF4? questing?

      October 29, eh.... WHAT ABOUT PC ;) ;) ;)

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      May 22, 2013 2:41 PM

      That sounds promising. Lets hope they can deliver. I'm so fucking tired of canned/QTE gameplay, it was never a good idea.

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        May 22, 2013 3:17 PM

        I'm already off the ship because any PC version will almost certainly require Origin. That's a foregone conclusion, since EA owns DICE.

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          May 22, 2013 4:43 PM

          I just realized that all the new Star Wars games are going to be origin exclusives...

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            May 22, 2013 5:19 PM

            i can do without

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              May 22, 2013 6:17 PM

              What if TIE Fighter 2 is an Origin exclusive with pre-order Thrawn mission DLC?

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                May 22, 2013 9:41 PM

                Which reminds me: somehow I played XWing and Xwing Alliance without ever playing TIE Fighter :-/

                Anyway, never understood the boner for Thrawn (I did at least read those books).

                Yeah I might miss out on some stuff. But it goes hand in hand with not sending EA my money (a stance I temporarily suspended with BFBC2 and Mirror's Edge). I already have a massive backlog, I can do without some games. I would sort of hate to miss out on another XWing though, that's very true

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          May 22, 2013 5:09 PM

          That was a pointless post.

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          May 22, 2013 5:26 PM

          I still don't get the Origin hate. I've yet to have a problem with it in the two years I've used it, while steam has been less than pleasant for the past eight years I've used it.

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            May 22, 2013 6:02 PM

            Yeah, I've had about as many problems with steam as with Origin, though I do use steam way more. It's just generic EA hate, it doesn't actually matter how the product performs.

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              May 22, 2013 6:22 PM

              In theory, a Steam-only version could be released (Bad Company 2 was Steamworks), but it's Not Invented Here syndrome, probably from the start of development.

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                May 22, 2013 6:35 PM

                Bad Company 2 was not a steamworks game.

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                  May 22, 2013 6:44 PM

                  It was on Steam, but with SecuROM DRM, which got patched off later. But it was on Steam.

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                    May 22, 2013 6:55 PM

                    Being on Steam does not equal Steamworks

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                    May 22, 2013 7:00 PM

                    It was sold on steam, but it still doesn't use steamworks.

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                    May 22, 2013 7:06 PM

                    Steamworks integrated Steam into the game. The game can be one steam to run but it won't have access to things like cloud saves.

                    Steam is a DRM on its own.

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                May 22, 2013 10:49 PM

                It's not dice's decision what platform their publisher puts their games on dude. It's EA trying to pump up their platform with their most popular franchises, which is a perfectly acceptable business strategy. Can you enumerate the reasons your prefer steam over origin?

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                  May 22, 2013 10:54 PM

                  I mean it's also perfectly acceptable to not play a game because of issues with the platform it's on (and also to question why PC games even need "platforms") but I don't see the problem with origin vs the exact same issues with steam.

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        May 22, 2013 6:26 PM

        I really amazes me that dice thought that was a fucking good idea. There was a damn QTE every few minutes in BF3's singleplayer campaign. After a while I said fuck it and moved on to multiplayer and never looked back.

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        May 22, 2013 6:27 PM

        A lot more promising than LOOK AT OUR DOG MODELS!

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      May 22, 2013 3:46 PM

      Press X to remove squadmates limb is totally autonomous

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      May 22, 2013 6:01 PM

      Guy looked like he had a sideways mullet. I hope they give us a battlefield to fight in instead of corridors.

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      May 22, 2013 7:01 PM

      B-B-B-B-BLOODY SCREEN! SO REAL!

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