The next Battlefield is a return to the "peak era" of Battlefields 3 and 4, with a modern setting and smaller headcounts

Having shot up the near-future in Battlefield 2042, DICE and EA are using a modern-day setting with the next instalment of their military FPS series. According to EA studios group general manager and Respawn chief Vince Zampella, the new, currently untitled shooter will be one of those "back to basics" sequels that tries to rebottle the lightning of Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4 - these being the "peak" Battlefield games, in Zampella's view.

All this comes care of an interview with IGN, who have also bagged the first piece of concept art, above. Good job, Ian Games! The artwork shows an urban riverside landscape covered in explosions, streaking missile smoke and raging wildfires. We can see helicopters and warships in the river, and the whole thing sports an orangey-dark colour scheme which, as IGN notes, recalls the key art for Battlefields 3 and 4.

"I mean, if you look back to the peak or the pinnacle of Battlefield, it's that Battlefield 3... Battlefield 4 era where everything was modern," Zampella commented in the piece. "And I think we have to get back to the core of what Battlefield is and do that amazingly well, and then we'll see where it goes from there. But I think for me, it's that peak of Battlefield-ness is in that Battlefield 3 and 4 days. So I think it's nostalgic for players, for me, for the teams even. Those are kind of the heyday... although I would say [Battlefield] 1942 also."

The ungenerous reading here is that "getting back to the core" is marketing speak for "getting the hell away from Battlefield 2042", which has gone down poorly with players for a host of reasons ranging from its 128-player engagements being unfocused, to its "specialist" system being an ill-advised leap into customisable hero shooter territory. It's been heavily revised and updated since its 2021 launch, but has yet to enjoy any kind of serious resurgence. In the interview, Zampella defended the work of the Battlefield 2042 team while acknowledging a few of the complaints.

"Yeah, the 128 player, did it make it more fun?" he said. "Like... doing the number for the sake of the number doesn't make any sense. We're testing everything around what's the most fun. So like you said, the maps, once they get to a certain scale, become different. It's a different play space, and I think you have to design around that. So we are designing something that is more akin to previous Battlefields. I'd rather have nice, dense, really nice, well-designed play spaces."

Battlefield has always fetishised big-team PvP, and it's always interesting to see the developers come and go about how many players is too many players. I haven't played enough to comment as regards Battlefield 2042, however. I only ever played the Xbox One version, which had some genuinely fascinating technical limitations, with sandy skyscraper maps that looked like they were made of beige packing foam.

As for Specialists, Zampella commented that: "I wasn't there for 2042. I don't know what the rationale was, but for me, it's like the team tried something new. You have to applaud that effort. Not everybody liked it, but you got to try things. It didn't work. It didn't fit. Specialist will not be coming back. So classes are kind of at the core of Battlefield, and we're going back to that."

The new Battlefield is the work of several EA studios - DICE, Motive, Ripple Effect and Need For Speed developers Criterion (a small "core group" of Criterion devs are still working on Need For Speed). Ridgeline Games were also briefly involved before they got shuttered. As Matt Jarvis (RPS in peace) reported in May, it'll be another live service affair - Zampella doesn't mention single player in the IGN chat.

The rest of the interview is mostly just paeans to those terrible furies, "the fans". Zampella mentions the importance of "expanding out and getting more players into the universe and seeing what we can do, so when you want a different experience, you don't have to leave Battlefield", which sounds like groundwork for some cross-media announcements of some kind. There's also the obligatory question about ancient rival Call Of Duty (Zampella co-founded Infinity Ward and worked on the earlier Modern Warfare games before jumping ship to launch Respawn). "We're not looking to take down Call of Duty," Zampella told IGN. "We're making something that's different and we're making something that's us. But yeah, it definitely has the possibility."

We can expect more concrete details about the new Battlefield next year. "We have a program that we're going to announce next year around getting more community in, because that's kind of the core of what we have to do - get the community back on our side, get that trust back," Zampella told IGN. "So I think we're in a really good place. Is it challenging? Of course, but it wouldn't be fun if it wasn't."

I haven't felt the urge to play Battlefield in a long while but I will always cherish the experience of being pinned down near an objective in Battlefield 3, with the combined ordnance of the entire enemy team concentrated on the top of my head. I hope the next game rediscovers a bit of that, erm, magic.