In fall 2011, EA launched a rather pointed marketing campaign in its
efforts to usurp Activision's Modern Warfare 3's multiplayer throne,
challenging players to "go above and beyond the call" with its latest
shooter, Battlefield 3. While EA inevitably couldn't scratch the Call of Duty juggernaut in
overall sales, it planned to extend the title's shelf-life with an
ambitious post-release content strategy that would span the next year
and a half, culminating in this month's launch of End Game — the fifth
and final downloadable release for Battlefield 3.
Such lengthy post-release support is uncommon for the industry and the
shooter genre, but with Battlefield 4 possibly more than another year
away, EA has successfully limited the gap. And more importantly, it's
done so with substantive multiplayer expansions that not only reinforced
the core product, but expanded the game thematically, mechanically, and experimentally.
Battlefield has always been synonymous with large-scale combat that
blends infantry and vehicular combat, but with Close Quarters, DICE
proved that it can also compete and expand upon the visceral,
tight-quarters gunplay offered by competing shooters. It packed players
into small interiors with extensive destructibility, drastically
shifting the landscape as explosives and bullets tore walls apart.
Armored Kill honed Battlefield's strengths, with unprecedentedly large
maps with new tanks, ATVs, buggies, helicopters, jets, and a circling
AC-130 at players' disposal. Aftermath veered away from traditional
theaters of war with maps modeled after a post-catastrophic earthquake
Tehran, complete with toppled buildings, battered character models, and
vehicles befitting of Mad Max. Back to Karkand, on the other hand, was
pure fan service, returning some of the most beloved multiplayer maps
from Battlefield 2 re-imagined with DICE's Frostbite 2 engine.
End Game, on the other hand, emphasizes aerial combat, fast-paced
ground navigation, and new objective gameplay with air superiority, dirt
bikes, and capture the flag. Air superiority was first featured in
Battlefield 1943 and pits teams against each other in rounds of
aggressive dogfighting as they try to maintain control of capture points
in the sky, but in End Game you trade Navy Corsairs and Japanese Zeros
in favor of F-18s and MIGs. On console, 24 jets are in the air at once,
making for a constant cacophony of lock-on tones and a constant test of
your evasion skills.
