Playing Battlefield 4 right now is a bit like attending a rave in an old factory (non-UK residents: yes, that is a thing we do). Everyone’s having a certain amount of base fun, but they’re surrounded by machinery nobody’s using – the commander abilities and squad tools the game was sold on. There’s simply not enough incentive to play nice – no incentive better than running down perps in jeeps or levelling skyscrapers, anyway.
Finally, DICE are doing something to fix that. They’re running a beta for a feature that really should’ve been there at launch – a squad set-up screen for before you join a server. But they’re not doing it on PC.
Squad Join sees five players connect via a pre-match screen and deploy together into the game. The group will automatically stick together between rounds, and previous members will be able to rejoin at will if there’s a spot available.
But DICE told Polygon that PC players can already “easily” join friends on the field using Battlelog, rendering the feature unnecessary. This despite the extra functionality the devs seem to be working on for Squad Join.
“This is the first iteration of Squad Join and other features for it are planned, with the first major update coming within the next months,” wrote DICE. “In this multi-release process, we are working on features like managing party members, and making Squad Join available for all game modes.”
For the time being, the console’s Squad Join beta will only support Conquest, Team Deathmatch, Obliteration, Rush and Domination modes.
Are you happy with Battlelog as is?