If you’re near Stockholm this morning, you’ll have to perform the duty we cannot. You’ll have to tour DICE’s offices, find every person responsible for vetting Battlefield 3’s unlock system, and give each a firm smack across the chops. They won’t resist; creative director Lars Gustavsson says they’re well aware they shipped the game with “probably the worst set ups ever”.
“As a pilot, you had to fly your plane and only kill other planes with your cannons,” he lamented in a chat with VG247 in Sydney last night. “You didn’t have any counter-measures; you didn’t have any missiles.
“And that’s basically for the best of the best pilots; that’s what they should do to show their skills. [As a beginner], you should have counter-measures, you should have heat-seeking missiles to give you a smooth ride into the game and then from there on you should customise.”
That’s what DICE have subsequently tried to do for their rapidly approaching sequel.
“The full set-ups are supposed to be quite easy to learn and to master, and from there you can start unlocking things and seeing what your preferred setup is,” he explained. “So, a lot of learning from Battlefield 3 has gone into making the game.”
New pilots will also be grateful for the Battlefield 4 test range, where you can take as long as you like to learn the fly the transport helicopter and “not crash it into your friends,” as Gustavsson puts it. Do you think you’ll be taking advantage of that?
The Battlefield 4 beta opens up to non-preorderers today, ahead of the game’s full release at the end of this month.