For the first time since Battlefield 2, I am excited about the new Battlefield!
Yes, I’m sad there isn’t a single player campaign. Especially since Battlefield One’s
had some of the best and most memorable segments that I’ve played in recent years.
But I’d trade a good single player campaign in an INSTANT for bot support in the multiplayer.
Which is exactly what Battlefield 6 has done. Or Battlefield 2042. Whatever.
Because let’s be honest- the Battlefield series has never been about the singleplayer
campaign. Since the very beginning of the series, it’s been about the large, open,
dynamic battlefields. It’s what drew me to the series in the first place. I played
that demo level in the desert countless times, capturing bunkers, hiding behind sandbags,
trying to destroy tanks with grenades and so on.
I loved Battlefield 1942, which came out in an era when multiplayer gaming was a niche,
and when single player was king. This game was one of the first to do large-scale multiplayer
seriously. But there was only so much you could do on a 56k connection, and the concept
of playing with and against real people was daunting. But that was fine by me- I preferred
playing against bots any way. That game let me tailor the numbers, the skill and the battlefield
to my liking, and I’ve lost count of the number of hours I’ve enjoyed on that game.
It’s funny that my two favourite games of 2002 were this and Unreal Tournament 2003,
which were both primarily multiplayer games… which I enjoyed playing single player.
Battlefield 2 came along and I excitedly bought that one with the intention of doing the same
thing, but I remember only playing it for a few weeks because the bot support was much
more limited. You were restricted to smaller map sizes. To fewer bots. It was clear that
in this game, bot support was an after-thought and it lacked the scale and support of the
first game. I am still bitter about that. I marvelled at that game’s graphics and
physics, and saw it as such a missed opportunity. All it would have taken was a bit more time
from the developers and that game would have become a timeless classic in the eyes of players
such as myself. There was a third-party mod that enabled larger
scale combat, but it almost always crashed for me. It wasn’t the same as properly supported
bots, and anybody who claims it was didn’t try it or didn’t care.
And since then the support has only got worse, and I was pushed out of the series. I commend
them for trying to cater for singleplayer mode in other ways since, but tacking a single
player campaign on the side just comes across as an after-thought when the bulk of the game
remains multiplayer only.
And it’s sad when multiplayer games die. The playerbase moves on and that’s it- it’s
gone forever. You’re left with an unplayable game, whereas ones with bot support remain
forever playable, for comfort gaming. Bots help to keep games alive, firstly when the
playercount is dwindling, and then forever more once it finally reaches 0.
So since Battlefield 2, I’ve satisfied my craving for large-scale combat in other games.
Ravenfield is the obvious choice, but right now, Red Orchestra 2 Rising Storm is my current
favourite, and has been the one I’ve been playing for the last 5 years or so. I kid
you not. Sadly, Rising Storm 2, a newer game from the
series, does NOT support bots. Looking on the forums, there are many players who are
sad about this, and the response is always the same, about how it’s cheating to play
against bots, how people only do it to grind their level up, or how it isn’t how we’re
meant to be playing the game. I’m not sure where this elitist snobbery came from, but
I can assure these people that there are players, such as myself, who would rather play the
game against bots than other real players, and I do so because it’s fun and not the
frustrating, difficult, stressful experience that PVP inevitably becomes. And how dare
those people tell us how we’re meant to be enjoying the game. It’s not like I’m
telling them they should only be playing against bots!
So when I say I’m excited about Battlefield 2042’s bot support, I mean that as an expert
who specialises in playing multiplayer games with as few other real players as possible!
WHY do I like this? I guess, at its most basic level, I like easy games. I like to win. I
like to be the hero. I like to make a meaningful contribution to a large-scale war, and not
just to be another player’s cannon-fodder. I like to hold off a control point against
10 enemies, and that’s something you can’t exactly do in multiplayer unless you’re
incredibly good, or extremely lucky. Or both. But in singleplayer, you can set up that exact
scenario. You can mow enemies down using a gun turret. You can sneak behind them and
take a control point from the rear. You can be the hero in your own game.
And I can suspend my disbelief. I know they’re just bots. But it still triggers that bit
in my brain where I think my contributions are appreciated by the other players. I can
live in a fantasy land where I think my efforts are being rewarded. And let’s be honest,
it’s less of a fantasy than believing your teammates in multiplayer games appreciate
you coming top!
And hey, it’s nice to have actual multiplayer as well. Should I tire of bots, or eventually
see through the illusion, or wish to challenge myself more, it’s great to have the option
to play against real players. It’s just that I haven’t reached that stage with the
games I play. Not even after years of doing so.
So yes, I like to play against bots. I like games to provide gameplay, instead of forcing
its playerbase to generate and maintain it among themselves. And the concept of bot support
seems alien to a lot of players these days. Some younger players know nothing of single-player
games. For some people, gaming IS about playing with friends and getting beaten over and over
again in battle-royale mode or whatever. WHICH IS FINE! If you like that, you go and do it.
But this is what I like, and I commend the Battlefield series for giving me what I want,
again.
I should have seen this coming. A few years ago they experimented with machine learning
and created a bot for Battlefield One that learned how to complete the objectives and
shoot the enemies. I don’t think this was ever publicly available, but in the video
showcasing it you could see that at the time, they came with some considerable… bugs and
limitations. Though they were probably still infinitely better than the ones in Battlefield
1942! So I’m excited to see how convincing the
ones in this new game are. To finally have what I want, but from a newer game, complete
with gorgeous graphics and high levels of polish. I, and a few friends from my LANNING
days, will be excited to load up a 128 player map and for the 4 of us to hold a checkpoint
against as many low-skilled bots as possible. We will all board the same plane and perform
stunts over the sea. And we won’t have anybody on the voice comms shouting at us and calling
us noobs for doing so. We will be having fun.