Should Battlefield 4 even have a campaign?

Michael Urban from OnlySP.com discusses why maybe a single-player campaign for the inevitable Battlefield 4 is not only unnecessary, but also potentially harmful.

[aviator189]

If it has a good campaign with a nice story, then I'll play it. But that Battlefield 3 campaign was just not that great, imo.

[iamnsuperman]

Exactly, I agree. They have a lot to do to improve on BF3 campaign. So much wrong with that campaign. If, after completing. do I struggle to choose a level to replay then something is wrong.

What they need to do is make the campaign logical with fun missions. One big issue with the campaign was it went through a set formula. Go to a place, Kill X amount of people, then proceed to the next place. You were punished for taken the fight to the enemy by your men refusing to follow and stayed in their predetermined location. BF3 campaign was poor

[deadpoole]

I tend to skip campaign in favor of Multiplayer which is mostly I buy my games for. Campaign section of games only comes into my perspective when online services are going through some sort of downtime, but then again that rarely happens ... :)

[BattleAxe]

I think they should skip BF4 and make Bad Company 3 instead. I love all the characters BF:BC1

[Reverent]

Ah, I really wanna agree with BattleAxe because I really do love Bad Company, but I just can't wait for Battlefield 4... I loved both Battlefield 2 and 3 so much, and there was so much improvement needed in Battlefield 2, and while much more refined, so much was dumbed down in Battlefield 3 (Compared to 2 at least). I'm really dying for Battlefield 4 in hopes that they find a good middle ground between refinement and true hardcore gameplay.

[Red_Orange_Juice]

I'd like them to do an online campaign, with set of missions for 4-6 players maybe, like Bad Company but with real people. That would be a neat feature, how many really care about offline single player in Battlefield. Such campaign could have a scripted offline variant too.

[Mr_cheese]

To encourage team work it would be good if once you died, your out of that campaign and have to restart it whilst your team mates carry on. This could be a great feature because it would stop people thinking they are "rambo" and create a much more constructive environment.

just an idea.

[Reverent]

@Mr_cheese, that would probably inspire a lot of rage quitting though (at least when you play with randoms)but I agree, there really would have to be some sort of mechanic in place to enforce team cooperation, and cautious gameplay.

[doogiebear]

Please become a game designer. That was a good idea and a smart analysis of what the average BF fan cares about. We don't care about single player, but a Bad Company type of funny story played with buddies in co op would be good times.

[omi25p]

i enjoyed it. But i only played it once.

[AngelicIceDiamond]

Most FPS in general have crappy and forgotten campaign's anyway. At this point including campaigns seems like a "fan service" rather than trying to tell a very compelling story You know, kinda how Video games were bread to do....

Its all about MP and nickel and diming people out of DLC these days.

[cannon8800]

I agree, the single player campaign wasn't very special or memorable, but the multiplayer, oh boy it's one of a kind.

[BillySpandex]

I enjoyed Bad Company's campaign, but then I doubt that offbeat humour would work for a proper Battlefield game. Having said that, Battlefield 3's campaign was just dismal. It was just so incredibly bland. I haven't even bothered to finish it, and I doubt I ever will.

(The multiplayer kept me going though, and after nearly 1000 hours, it's still my go-to game)

[doogiebear]

Make up your mind. U say humor is no good, then call BF 3 bland. If it's one or the other, gimme humor.

[BillySpandex]

@Donbear I think you need to re-read what I wrote. I never said that humour was "no good". The first Bad Company game didn't take itself seriously, and it was brilliant because it wasn't trying to be a serious first person shooter. It felt more like a buddy comedy set in a warzone.

However, Battlefield 3 has already set the stage for being a more serious franchise, and if they changed it up for 4, the peanut gallery would grumble. And yes, the campaign for BF3 was bland. It was terrible, and it had the worst set pieces in a FPS game to date (only Homefront come close to its inanity)

[ATi_Elite]

Yes it should and the Campaign should be a 4 hour tutorial on how to PROPERLY play the MP mode and be effective.

1. Learn to Fly and not during MP games
2. Learn to capture a flag
3. Never camp
4. and for Heavens sake drop ammo, medkits, etc..
5. Do not camp when your the friggin Attacker on Rush mode

[iamnsuperman]

Games that have glorified tutorails as a campaign often have poor campaigns

[shutUpAndTakeMyMoney]

They need to keep it focused on pc. If they try to turn it into cod for consoles I will disappoint. EA will do it though..

[awi5951]

It better not use punkbuster i know one thing.

[aviator189]

most definitely. i hate that feature.

[Andreas-Sword]

I want Battlefield 4 with only Multiplayer-Mode!
I don not want a Singleplayer-Mode!

[nofallouthero]

bf3 campain i felt was too scripted with too many qte's.
the on rails flying section brought a sad tear to my eye.

[aviator189]

I agree. that on rails section was what killed it for me.

but, thankfully, the mp is awesome.

[JonahNL]

Battlefield 3's campaign wasn't exactly the second coming of Christ, but I did enjoy it. I'm up for another campaign like BF3's one. If there's anything they should improve, then it's the co-op. If they want to take both the singleplayer and co-op to a next level in Battlefield 4 they should combine the two and have a full-fledged, four-player co-op campaign.

[Pandamobile]

Pretty much this.

I wasn't expecting a Half-Life 2 quality single-player experience when I played BF3's campaign.

It was had a decent story with the same great gameplay from the multiplayer, beautiful graphics and environments that left me more or less satisfied with my experience. It wasn't top notch, but it was enough to keep me fairly entertained throughout.

[Optical_Matrix]

I honestly don't see the need. Battlefield 3's was pretty but that's about it. Just focus on making a phenomenal multiplayer. I've put nearly 500 hours into Battlefield 3's multiplayer and I'd happily be content if BF4 was multiplayer only.

However, the issue is that in today's AAA climate, you have to kind of check the boxes so to speak. Game must have a set piece driven single player, multiplayer component, XP system etc. Just look at Tomb Raider. So in that respect I think a campaign is inevitable. But personally I don't see the point.

[FarCryLover182]

Yeah sure, but make it more open like the BC series.

[th3n00bg4m3r]

I hated every single Battlefield campaign so NO.

[ufo8mycat]

BF3 campaign was awful. All it was was awesome GFX. I didn't even finish it. Awful story, awful segments. Not fun at all.

Seems like its there for the hell of it. In that case don't include one please.

[hazardman]

The story was ok but is what I come to expect from all these shooters lately. Ok campaign with awesome multiplayer. That being said if they just make multiplayer game are we still gonna have to pay $60 for I just want to see what you guys think.

[BanBrother]

Um, what part of 'published by EA' do you not understand? Of course it will still be $60.

In Australia, all game published by EA are more expensive. I'm being serious, just compare two new release titles and the EA ones will always be at least $10 more.

They will have a SP campaign as their main competitor has one. I don't think they want to have any less than CoD, as word would spread amongst people. The irony in all of this is that most people who play CoD and Battlefield don't buy it for the SP.

[AusRogo]

I have noticed that NFS Most Wanted was $90 when usually jb have new games for $80.. I know it's only a $10 difference but it's only like that with ea games. And don't get me started with Mass Effect 3 at eb games. . Was $110 on release day compared to $80 at jb. .. f**k that!

[stuntman_mike]

why do people keep wanting to split up these games it's all a part of the game whether its multi or not.

[PhoenixRising37]

no, it shouldn't. just make it a $30-40 multiplayer game. it'll come out faster and all of the focus will be on making the MP good. 97% of the BF players don't care anout the campaign.

[first1NFANTRY]

I think for FPS's there should really be a separate SP campaign for download as well as the multiplayer component. They need to sell both for around $20 each. That way people don't have to waste money on a game with a mediocre SP. The choice would be nice

[Starbucks_Fan]

I guess it would be nice. If they put more time into multiplayer, like increasing the number of players in a match, I would be all for trashing singleplayer.

[newshot]

Can I get the age of you guys? This must be a age thing, because the campaign of BF3 was better then most war games. I think the fact that it was a little more realistic then the avg wargame.

[grayfoxx881]

I would rather DICE work on the best multiplayer experience possible. The Battlefield 3 campaign was alright, but all the "oh shit" moments came from mp.

[Hufandpuf]

There are a lot of possibilities DICE could have explored on a gameplay stand point, like a sandbox type of singleplayer, but I doubt that will happen. Instead, DICE needs to purely focus on multiplayer and scrap singleplayer if needed. The only thing that impressed me about the campaign were the indoor environments like in the level Comrade.

[ironfist92]

I feel like im the only one who ever plays games for their campaigns. I say strip out campaigns for MW and COD and BF. All military shooter campaigns are boring and overdone

[hiredhelp]

Well everybody knows BF was all about the MP always has been just like when COD went from being just SP to a MP phenom love it or hate it.

For me i enjoyed the SP took in the use of the engine what they did showed off in SP But for me just like many i spent most time in MP LOL i built my rig for bf3 launch but tell you something i would like.
DLC to inc Co-Op
Bad Company Openess
Maybe some that good old bad company 1 humor funny.
Oh before i go GET RID PUNKBUSTER create your own anti cheat it dont work fedup aimbots.
Battlefield only game that have given me soo many WOW moments in a game.

[lawks_land]

Battlefield 4 should be entirely campaign. It may actually be good if they do that. And it would troll the heck out of everyone.

[CaptCalvin]

Howabout going back to BF1942 style single player? Basically offline bot practice on the MP maps with context. That way you'll get bots(long missed in the BF series) and an open ended singleplayer experience. Also minimum resources would be wasted on making separate assets for single player.

[Psychotica]

Rather they add a bot mode

[DeadlyFire]

Perhaps a bot attack mode with swarms of knifing bots. ha just my imagination. :P

[ginsunuva]

Skip pls. Thanks

Then add 20 extra maps instead of that effort.

[bc_jeffro]

not in my opinion
bf2 bots were fine

[Xristo]

Just like some have said above me. The only SP it should have is MP maps with bots.

[Dms2012]

Back in the day I never thought I would say a game has "tacked on single player campaign", yet here we are.

[Hazmat13]

why not both? have awesome storyline also MP with bots! get the best of both worlds and of course and fantastic multiplayer!

[landog]

heck no, bf1942, bf vietnam, bf2 and bf2142 NEVER had sp, and those were all a million times better than the terrible bad company games..... there were bots and there was mp, thats it, and thats all thats needed!

the stupid bad company games brought a single player just for console and they were lame, the first bad company was an awful game all around, bfbc2 was good on pc, a decent game with too small of a player count to really be considered a bf games at all! but the console version suffered from the same thing with AWFUL console graphics and performance.... the console version of bf3 suffers from the same, only its much worse on bf3, the screen tearing on console is unbearable, the jaggies are insanely bad and the performance is nauseating

tiny maps
11 people on your team

thats NOT battlefield, thats a little skirmish/deathmatch

make bf4 multiplayer only, bring back commander mode, GET RID of the lame resourse drain of sp and make sure the console versi9ons get large player bases and big maps with some damn anti aliasing and v-sync, obviously it can't look as good as the pc version will, but make sure the performance and visual crispness is place before worrying if you can cram the same number of trees in.

better clan support/even better servers (they are already freaking awesome on pc, and lets have official day one support for huge maps with 128v128!!!

[DeadlyFire]

64 player battles have long been around forever. Its time to upgrade to 128 or 256 player battles. I think its more likely 128 player battles could happen before 256 player battles. As the Frostbite 2 engine is pretty intensive with physics as it is currently.

I hope BF 4 takes a step backwards to Bad Company 2 and see what went wrong with BF3. I love it, but can only play it for short periods of time then lose interest. Bad Company 2 I can play all day and enjoy.

[Mithan]

What!?!
Battlefield has a campaign!

;)

Junk it, we don't need it.

[broken_back-man]

I hope they put the dinosaur mode in like when it was rumored awhile back!!!

[LOL_WUT]

Yes & no

[BladerunnerZX]

Dice excels at multiplayer. The main Battlefield games do not need a single player campaign.

I just want Battlefield Bad Company 3 since Im a console gamer and Bad Company 2 is much better than Battlefield 3 on console.

[Npugz7]

They should have an open world/map mission where you and your buddys communicate to complete missions together as if you were to extract a pow from a town thats open world and anything can happen from all around kinda like how BF2 Project Reality was!!

[Khan613]

As a pc gamer...I have to agree...

1. Bad Company (with it's memorable characters) had a better campaign.

2. When AI teammates help you scale waasdflls, on the PC edition, the key to "interact" with the AI buddy changes from level to level - seriously. WTF?

3. WE DON'T NEED ANOTHER TECH DEMO. We all know what Frostbite is capable of.

4. ....but I did notice that playing the same maps in multiplayer, they looked VERY BARE and littered with a minimal number of props when compared to the same map in single player.

Hope they focus on what they're good at. MULTIPLAYER.

[Playstation4LyFe]

NO, they're all the same, unless they're gonna be unique... then no

[ThatHappyGamer]

Forget the campaign and concentrate on the MP.

[IK IR Y IP T]

To each his own I loved bf3 campaign seen nothing wrong with it at all I wish they would add more co op missions

[urwifeminder]

Keep the dust particles in the realm of reality during cut scenes ,dont make the lead a meth head this time.

[vickers500]

No. Not unless they bring in some veteran single player devs who are really good at making single player games to do it because clearly they aren't that great at it themselves. But they wont, so no, BF4 does not need a campaign.

[Jamaicangmr]

This is a dumb question ofcourse it should. Hell if it doesn't i'm this very author will write an article disliking that very fact.

While the BF3's campaign wasn't the most memorable i see where what they wanted to do with the story and for the most part it work. They tried to keep it realistic or believable not go overboard. However the Story itself was just forgettable the villen i really didn't give a crap about to be honest. So i think if they get a better writer while keeping it grounded in reality they can for sure have a memorable campaign.

[pandehz]

They totally need to make an entertaining and inspiring campaign for BF4.

[MYSTERIO360]

They definitely need a campaign mode(a lot better the BF3's) but there other modes that i think DICE can include in the game as well as a split screen for multiplayer.

[bozebo]

Unless it's something special, no.

But just play Planetside 2 instead.

[solid_warlord]

i think entire BF series should stay as PC only cause it will never compete against CoD on consoles. Even graphics look nasty on consoles.

Dice should make it PC exclusive so we wont have BF clowns from PC coming here and moaning everytime COD sells more and DLC sells more and how Console gamers only play CoD and all that crap.