Mar 19, 2011
Mar 16, 2011
Mar 15, 2011
Ruminations on BF3
You've seen the trailer. It's beautiful. I have expanded my theory of what it means:
I'm thinking DICE wants Battlefield 3 to be the Crysis of this (hardware) generation. I'm fine with that in principle, mostly because it's long past time for a "mainstream," cross-platform game to actually leverage the power of high-end PC's.
Microsoft and Sony have had their way for far too long: they don't want their player base to see what's possible when they're not limited to ossified hardware. And they definitely don't want have to transition into another loss-leader console generation before they've squeezed every last dime out of the current one. There will be no real technological innovation in video games in the short to medium term unless it's done on the PC, and unless it's done often enough that it creates a strong demand for the Xbox 720 and the PS4.
Battlefield 3 might be the game that pushes the tech far enough forward that console players will be forced to recognize that their antique plastic toys should be put out to pasture. That won't happen, however, if BF3 is as buggy and pedestrian of a game as the original Crysis was. DICE really has to execute on all fronts, and then make a lot of money in PC sales. If that doesn't happen, other developers will probably decide that it's not worth investing in new tech, and we'll all be stuck at the damnable "360 baseline" for several more years.
If that makes me a "PC elitist," I embrace the label.
Then there's this, from CVG:
'Our competitors are getting lazy,' [Karl-Magnus Troedsson of DICE] said. 'They're using the same engine, the same recipe for building a game. At some point you need to take that leap. I haven't seen them take that leap since a long time ago.
'We are doing that now. They had better watch out. We are coming for them.'
DICE routinely blistered Call of Duty in the run-up to Bad Company 2. I once asked a college professor how one goes about becoming a heavyweight in his academic field. His response: "Go elephant hunting."
Happy hunting, Mr. Troedsson.
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