Huge buzz but a big gamble: Battlefield 6 takes aim at Call of Duty
3 hours ago Share Save Georgia Levy-Collins BBC Newsbeat Share Save
EA Battlefield 6 has its sights on success - but can it hit its target?
"A new challenger has appeared." In the fiercely competitive world of video games, it's common for new contenders to fade away as quickly as they burst on to the scene. But Battlefield 6 is hoping to change that. It's the latest entry in a long-running military shooter series often framed as a grittier, more realistic answer to Call of Duty. The title's never quite managed to match its most famous rival in terms of sales or players, but there are signs the new installment could close the gap. A preview weekend giving players a chance to try out the game earlier this year broke records, and the buzz heading into its launch has been huge. But the project is still a big gamble for publisher Electronic Arts (EA), which has reportedly spent hundreds of millions of dollars making it. BBC Newsbeat's spoken to some of the makers to find out how they hope it will pay off.
Four EA-owned studios have been working on the game under the Battlefield Studios banner. They include original series developer Dice, based in Sweden, LA's Motive Studios and Ripple Effect Studios in Canada. The fourth, Criterion, is based in Guildford, UK. Rebecka Coutaz is the general manager of the two European studios, and tells Newsbeat that, in terms of what it's offering players, "Battlefield 6 is probably unbeatable".
EA Rebecka Coutaz is in charge of Battlefield's European studios
The game comes off the back of the futuristic Battlefield 2042, released four years ago to a negative reception it struggled to recover from. "We probably couldn't make and develop Battlefield 6 without the learnings we had in Battlefield 2042," Rebekah tells Newsbeat. One of those lessons was to get fans involved early, and the team launched invite-only community playtests earlier this year. The "feedback was explosively positive," says Rebecka. Another missing ingredient from Battlefield 2042 was a single-player campaign, which has been restored this time around. Criterion design director Fasahat "Fas" Salim is the one in charge of "making sure those missions are as fun and interesting as possible for the players". Despite claims that the scale of the project had put a strain on the different studios collaborating across continents to build the game, Fas is positive about the process. "Collaborating with different cultures, different backgrounds, it's a really interesting environment to be involved in every day," he says. "This whole approach has been something new but something really exciting because we are working with people from all over the world." As for the expectation on the team, Fas says: "There is pressure but also it's exciting. "It's a big project. It's probably the biggest that most of us have ever worked on."
Vlad is completing his BA in Visual Effects at Bournemouth University alongside his role at Criterion
That's definitely true of at least one team member, lighting artist Vlad Kokhan. The 21-year-old makes the atmospheric effects that shape the mood, tone, and direction of the single-player campaign. He completed an internship at Criterion before getting a job there, and currently works part-time while finishing his visual effects degree at Bournemouth University. Vlad says he's a long-time fan of the Battlefield series, and remembers playing the fourth instalment of the series at a friend's house when he was younger. To be working on it now, as his first industry job, "doesn't feel real". "It's really crazy seeing the marketing everywhere", he says. "To know that I've put my own thing into the game is really surreal."
A hand-painted mural of the game at EA's Guildford office
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