Preview: Battlefield V would benefit more from a 2019 release date

DICE is one of the most renowned developers in the industry thanks to their incredible tech which gives us cutting edge visuals, audio, and gameplay. They’ve proven themselves extensively over the years through the Battlefield series and in some ways even the controversial Star Wars: Battlefront reboot series.

With Battlefield V, DICE feels like they’re about to release their most unpolished game yet and that’s incredibly concerning. They’ve had some massive issues in the past, namely with Battlefield 4 and the Battlefront games but Battlefield V feels like DICE are not on their A-game.

Some of these come from simple things like menus being absolutely broken beyond belief and other concerns stem from elements within the gameplay due to DICE refining gunplay and movement. While EA has granted the team an additional month of development, it’s clear they’re under heavy pressure and stress right now trying to get this game out the door.

Select modes, a single player mission, and more are being held until after launch so DICE can just get the bare minimum done to ship this game. Game development is incredibly hard and we all know DICE has immense talent but it really feels like this game would strive well in 2019 if EA would allow it.

DICE can’t take another massive hit, they’re in hot water and have been since last year and while that may not necessarily be their fault, it’s going to reflect on them. EA only has their annual sports titles to fall back on this holiday season when Battlefield is taken out of the equation but in the long run, a delay would help this game.

For starters, I mentioned the menus are pretty disastrous. They glitch out beyond belief, going completely black with the exception of the actual buttons to select options, find a match, and so on. Once you open a new menu, sometimes the last menu you were on and the new one collide. They merge together and there’s just a bunch of text smashing together and it’s absolutely horrid.

We’ve had menus for over 30+ years in gaming, DVDs have menus, just about every digital product has a menu. We’ve mastered this concept years ago yet the team putting 64 players on massive maps with high levels of dynamic destruction can’t seem to figure out how to make working, competent UI.

For about 90% of the Battlefield V beta, I was stuck in the menus. I would come home every day, launch the beta, and try to search for a match only to be repeatedly booted back to the menu. I played no more than 10 matches total over the course of the week simply because the game wouldn’t let me or many of my friends join lobbies on either Xbox One or PS4. I would spend dozens of minutes, probably an hour tops, just clicking A or X to join a lobby only to get the same error about server issues without fail.

The few times I did get into a match, the fun factor ranged from boring to mild enjoyment. In Battlefield V, DICE has made gameplay much more hardcore and team-based. You have far less ammo, you die much quicker, and there’s a reliance on your team to support you with various supplies and requisitions.

Battlefield has always had an emphasis on team-play but it felt optional, you could play by yourself and still have a great time. In V, it’s either communicate or suffer. You start with two magazines for your gun each time you spawn with the ability to scavenge a handful of bullets off of bodies and find ammo crates at objectives.

You can only carry a maximum of three mags so your shots have to really count. Suppressing fire is still a mechanic here but you’re almost discouraged against it because you don’t have ammo to spare for a tactic like that. If you’re not talking to your teammates, you can usually forget about them helping you. You’ll blow through your bullets rapidly, your teammates typically ignore your cries for supplies and help because they’re lone wolves, and then you’ll spend several minutes desperately scavenging for a bullet or two on the ground before inevitably running into someone or getting shot from behind.

It always feels like the odds are stacked against you and it’s not like World War II had a very limited amount of munitions so this choice just comes across more as a headscratcher than an interesting or immersive addition to gameplay.

Respawning in Battlefield V also takes longer than previous games due to the fact you have to sit there and watch a timer countdown until someone revives you. You can speed up the countdown if you don’t think anyone is coming but it still takes a pretty decent amount of time and even then, once you get back to the spawn screen, you have to wait for 5 – 8 seconds for it to let you back in the action.

Outside of all that, the moment to moment gameplay can be fun. Moving through the maps is better than ever with more ways to move such as lying on your back, the ability to jump out windows without shooting them out, and more. It helps maintain a sense of momentum in combat rather than having to awkwardly stand up and then turn around to shoot someone or stop and knife a window to jump out it as someone is on your tail.

There does feel like there’s an odd amount of downtime when running around certain maps such as one that takes place on city streets. It’s a dense map with lots of buildings to go in, back alleys to travel through, and more so engagements seem far more spread out due to all the various places people can be.

When you do get caught in a firefight, the gunplay is usually thrilling as expected from a Battlefield game. Sure, you die REALLY fast so the tension can be pulled away right as it begins but there’s something about Battlefield that always makes even dying feel relatively enjoyable.

The sounds of bullets ripping through your cover and the surrounding environment, your screen getting darker as you get more suppressed, explosions in every single direction, it has a sense of atmosphere. It feels raw, it has weight unlike Call of Duty which is snappy and in some ways mindless. That’s not a diss towards Call of Duty, it works for that series but Battlefield V has a way of making combat have much more feeling to it rather than some dopamine striking you when you get a cool kill streak.

From what little I was actually able to play thanks to the servers or glitches, Battlefield V feels rough around the edges. The core gameplay is still there and provides the thrills you seek but new changes such as minimal ammo and an even bigger emphasis on teamplay hold the game back from being something wonderful. One can only hope that DICE can somehow pull it together come November but with the way things are looking, this may be a game fans will have to wait to play until DICE can release a handful of patches months down the line to get the game in a better state.