EA recently published a sizable online update from two of Battlefield 5’s designers; Florian Le Bihan, the game’s Core Gameplay Designer, and Julian Schimek, its Weapon Designer. The pair discussed how the team at DICE had improved Battlefield 5 gunplay and other combat mechanics.
Battlefield 5 Gunplay and Its Improvements
Bihan and Schimek discuss the mindset of the development team at DICE. Specifically, they focus on how they improved the Battlefield franchise’s existing weapon mechanics. Striving for realism in the many factors which affect gunplay, such as muzzle velocity, bullet drop, and so on. Thus, the team needed to balance complexity with accessibility; “That was something that all of us on the Core Gameplay Team really wanted to improve upon for Battlefield V;” states Bihan; “so players will have an easier time understand a weapon’s behavior. We invested a huge amount of time working on solutions because we want players to have greater control over their shooting experience, and to clearly show what’s happening with a weapon.”
Rewriting Code and Improving Physicality
To do this, the team couldn’t simply build upon the systems of previous games. They had to rewrite major sections of the game’s weapon logic. Julian Schimek cited Battlefield 3 as a major source of inspiration. “In Battlefield 3,” he explains; “weapon base accuracy was very high when using the Heavy Barrel attachment, which allows players to reliably hit distant targets by reducing barrel whip. Drawing inspiration from older Battlefield games has led to many positive gunplay changes for Battlefield V, like dispersion decreasing constantly and not linearly.”
Another area which the team wanted to emphasize was the physicality of gunplay; the weight and feel of using particular firearms. They wanted to give players the feeling of actually wielding the weapon as best they could; “During the sniper rifle animation sequence,” explains Bihan; “the Animation Team placed emphasis on the bolt cycle. So when that bolt is pulled back, players see that this movement is aggressive and hopefully that visually communicates that this rifle is all about taking that one shot. Recoil benefits this further by changing a player’s field of view when a bullet is fired, and by giving the impression that the scope is kicking backwards against their eye.”