Battlefield 4: Karl Magnus Troedsson Talks Single Player, Levolution, Commander Mode and B…
dmcdonagh
2013-06-28
DICE General Manager Karl Magnus Troedsson talks to Stephanie Prentice about some of the brand new features in Battlefield 4 including Levolution, Commander Mode and Battlelog in our latest FTW interview.
For the first time, players will be able to enter 64 player servers on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. The single player experience has also been made to feel more like a multiplayer environment, with real choice on how to achieve objectives.
Levolution means levels evolve over time in a multiplayer map. For instance, the skyscraper in the Siege of Shanghai map can be demolished by placing C4 on its four players. Not only does this collapse the building, but change the location of the flag in Conquest mode and kick dust into the surrounding area and effecting the visibility. There's going to be a lot of interactivity in Battlefield 4 that you can now make use of which you couldn't do before, for example, fans will be able to raise Bollards that can be used to block roads and impede vehicles.
Commander Mode is playable on a tablet or mobile device. Commanders can turn the tide of battle with a birds eye view, supporting troops and calling in air strikes. A new improved Battelog is intergrated seemlessly into the console experience and is also available as an app, where loadouts and servers can be changed on the fly.
Stephanie Prentice: First of all Karl, massive day for your yesterday can we get your reaction to tat insane reaction?
Karl Magnus Troedsson :Well it was almost overwhelming. I mean showing up at the first the Microsoft Press Conference and showing some of our single player from Battlefield 4 - that was very cool, and then for the EA Press Conference we not only showed Battlefield 4 but we also mentioned that DICE is building a Mirror's Edge game and also Star Wars Battlefront. So it was a big day for DICE.
SP: Some people online said that there weren't the 64 people actually playing the live demo...
KMT : It was a live demo so for the people that don't believe that, I can confirm that yes it was and me standing on stage with a tablet device I too was playing live inside the game.
SP: What's the future do you think for the single player version of the game?
KMT : Well we're not really talking that much about single player here at E3, we're focussed on the 64 player demo that we have going on downstairs, but we weren't entirely happy with the single player in BF3. One of the things we wanted to change for this one was to take some of the signature multiplayer elements from Battlefield and bring that into single player. For instance - choice. Do you want to jump into a vehicle or do you want to run around on foot. So it's up to you how you want to play it. So the experience of single player in Battlefield 4 will be much more like every now and we grab you and it will be a bit more linear but then we open it up into a bigger action sequence and there you have a lot more choice then what you ahd before.
SP: Can you tell us a bit about things like the skyscrapers falling and what effect that has on the game and gameplay afterwards?
KMT : Well the concept of Levolution means that it's not just about the skyscraper coming down. It's about how the whole world changes depending on how people play, and it ranges from the skyscraper coming down, but also to other things in the environment. For instance if you run through a metal detector it actually sets off an alarm so people can hear you, or you can raise bollards out of the road so vehicles can't pass. There's a lot of interactivity in the world that you can now make use of which you couldn't do before.
SP: So you've added this irresistable feature of blowing up a skyscraper, are people just going to do that all the time everytime?
KMT : It depends actually, it represent a tactical element as well. It's not just the visual eye candy of a skyscraper going down it's actually that the flag on top of the building will land in the rubble pile beneath. So that might change the tide of the battle...So maybe you'll want to defend the skyscraper so that it doesn't come down and this will hopefully become a tactical element between the teams that you're for fighting for. I really hope that people are going to enjoy the Commander Mode as well, this is another layer of tactical element and team play that is inserted into the game which means that there's almost a chess like tug of war going on between the two commanders. You can actually take it with you on a tablet device, so wherever you have wifi, you can play there. Battlelog was a concept that we introduced in Battlefield 3. We were very happy with the implementation on PC for instance, but, on console, not so much. So we're bringing this back with a strong effort for console and we're going to reveal a lot more about this moving forward. It's pretty cool I have to say!
Battlefield 4 is available to pre-order now for PC, Xbox One, Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PlayStation 4.
