Battlefield 3 Revisited

Battlefield 3 was quite a big deal at the time of release aiming to directly compete with Call of Duty by bringing a modern, gritty take on the series. It brought forward the mechanics of Frostbite's destruction aiming to refine how it was used in combat while also building a larger experience. There was a full campaign with a story that was honestly quite average after replaying it, an interesting set of coop missions and the large online multiplayer. The campaign was told through a series of flashbacks almost as a soldier discuses what happened during his recent tour. The coop missions focused on some smaller, more intimate tasks that two could work through. The multiplayer was a big deal in the franchise greatly expanding the scope of the combat on all platforms while providing many now classic maps.

Battlefield 3 released in late 2011 on Xbox 360, Playstation 3 and PC. It was also made available on Xbox One through Xbox Backwards Compatibility. This title featured the legendary Online Pass, a horrible addition to the market that plagued games for a couple years at the time. Aside from the launch release, the game received a Premium Pass which brought a number of additional DLC maps that helped expand the scale of the multiplayer with maps, weapons and other smaller additions.


For the most part Battlefield 3 was an excellent release that has aged fairly well. I remember the game being rather plastic looking in design and while some buildings elements carry that, for the most part the gritty look makes it seem fine for now. Some of the campaign elements weren't fantastic from an average story to portions of the narrative that didn't make sense. There were also a number of bugs from certain parts of the campaign not working, to items floating and some of these issues were carried online. In the campaign you follow a couple perspectives as everyone works towards collecting a number of missing nukes. It's sort of a race against the clock situation as they get discovered and then everyone seeks to collect them before anyone else does. There are some interesting aspects and supposed emotional aspects that miss their mark due to the short length of time you spend with any of the characters.

The multiplayer for the game was large in scale offering combat on foot, in a vehicle or in the air as mostly jets. The maps were large in scale offering many options for how you would go about conquering them. The levels offered lots of destruction in order to dynamically alter how combat would flow during games and vehicles greatly helped with this. Aside from offering many modes, there was a clear focus on class based gameplay which worked towards making everyone work together. It was really a fun option for team based combat and it felt realistic at the time. Battlefield 3 was certainly a well developed entry in the series working well even now despite being fairly aged. The story wasn't great, the coop was alright though the multiplayer did certainly shine.

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