The New Battlefield

Team Fortress Classic was a game where the ultra-skilled dominated, and anyone who didn't know all of the many difficult techniques would be repeatedly owned. It was fun for the select few who actually did practice for hours honing their skills, but it was rather frustrating for everyone else, especially newcomers. Valve decided to change that for Team Fortress 2, much to the dismay of the ultra-skilled, and much to the delight of everyone else (myself included). The counter-intuitive techniques no new player would possibly be able to discover on their own were removed entirely, and while the sequel still favors the skilled players, it was simplified and stripped down to what ultimately makes it fun.

Whether or not EA and DICE have been taking hints from Valve is debatable, but it's obvious that they've come to the same conclusion: easy to play, accessible, and just downright fun is a formula for success. Those three traits are what they're aiming for with Battlefield Heroes, a "cartoon shooter" with lots of MMORPG influences. While it's definitely a Battlefield game at heart, it's almost hard to tell since so much has changed.

Battlefield Heroes will be an extremely different experience from the other Battlefield games even before you start playing it. The previous Battlefield games made money off of the fact that you had to drop down your very own hard-earned cash in order to start playing (as well as in-game advertising, in the case of Battlefield 2142). Battlefield Heroes is free to play, and makes money off of on-website advertising and microtransactions. So, how exactly does it work?

For starters, you can't start up the game without visiting the website. So, every time anyone wants to start the game, they'll view an ad (assuming that EA has the means to override ad blockers). There's also going to be lots of great features on the website: a territorial conflict metagame with in-game rewards to the winners, a page for your personal, customized soldier with your stats and equipment (excellent for showing off to your friends), and a sort of social network for players to communicate with each other. All of this will generate lots of web traffic, so the ads alone should be enough to make the game profitable.

Then, there's microtransactions. Anyone who's familiar with sites like OGPlanet, Nexon or GamesCampus will be familiar with this concept: the games are free, but certain items are only obtainable in exchange for real-life cash. These can range from the trivial (items that change your character's appearance), to the ever-so-slightly unbalancing (limited-time EXP boosters), to the extremely unfair (permanent stat boosters). In places such as South Korea, this business model is tried-and-true and is currently used with many different games, but it's somewhat new in the States. It's quite tricky to get it to work: if you add unbalanced items to the shop that give players a large advantage, you'll lose most of your player base because the game will be broken for players who don't want to pay, but if you only have items that don't really affect gameplay, hardly anyone will buy anything. Heroes seems to have gotten it right: they'll mainly offer appearance-changing items, and possibly things like EXP boosters. Nothing in the cash shop will dramatically unbalance gameplay. EA expects about 95% of players to never buy anything via microtransactions, so it's okay if you just want to play for free.

The game looks beautiful, and it can run on an integrated graphics card

The gameplay of Heroes combines tried-and-true elements of the Battlefield series with many new and fresh concepts. A Battlefield veteran will feel right at home with Heroes, since capturing flags and fragging enemies with tanks, planes and a vast arsenal of weaponry is still the core of the game. However, a lot more has changed besides the switch from edgy and realistic to light-hearted and cartoon-like. For starters, the camera is in third person, not first person. This complements the concept of earning (or purchasing) cool-looking gear for your character, because you'll be able to see your hero while playing. It'll also make things easier for people who are totally unfamiliar with the shooter genre, since doing simple things like going through a doorway is easier and more intuitive when you're in a third-person view. (I know, you FPS veterans probably think it's silly that someone might not be able to walk through a doorway, but remember, we were all noobs once, and this game is focusing on accessibility, and catering to every skill level.) Some might argue that the third-person view will take away from the feeling of "being there," but it's hard to really feel like you're there in a cartoon shooter in the first place. I've experienced some really fun and intense moments in Team Fortress 2, but I've never felt like I was actually there (unlike with Call of Duty 4). That's not necessarily a bad thing. We'll have to see if the unique camera view allows you to peek around corners without exposing yourself to enemy fire, and whether that effects the gameplay in either a negative or a positive way.

Another thing you'll notice is the inability to change your army or your class. Before you start playing, you'll create a character, and you'll most likely stick with him for the rest of your time playing the game. It's understandable that you can't support different armies (mainly because of the metagame), but it seems a bit strange to me that, as of now, they're planning on only one character slot per game account. Personally, I can't wait to play as a stealthy Commando, but I'd like to be able to switch to a Gunner every now and then, to rain bullets down on the enemy with a minigun while riding on the wing of a Spitfire plane. Hopefully, EA will plan for additional character slots before the game comes out (perhaps purchasable via microtransaction?). UPDATE: Since this preview, EA has shown that you'll be able to have up to four soldiers on one account, free of charge. Thanks, guys!

While you level up your character, you'll earn an in-game currency that you'll be able to spend on gear, but you'll also be able to earn special abilities. These can be anything from area-of-effect health boosts for you and your team, to cloaking that makes you partially invisible, to the ability to see through walls, to tossing 15 grenades at once. As you can tell, most of the abilities will be very unrealistic. The more powerful abilities will have a long recharge time, so you won't be able to just spam the 15-grenade toss over and over. The developers say that the special ability system actually makes Heroes the deepest of any Battlefield game, because while you can only bring a couple of abilities with you out in the field, you can collect tons of them and swap them out between games. This brings a new level of character customization to the game, and can probably lead to a new level of pre-game strategizing for clan matches, since you'll want everyone to have skills that will complement the other players, and help lead your whole team to victory.

The scoring system is basically a simplified version of the normal Battlefield scoring. Each side starts out with 50 tickets. Fragging an enemy will take at least one ticket away from the enemy. Of course, it wouldn't be Battlefield without capture points. In Heroes, if your side holds more flags than the enemy, you'll be granted a bonus that multiplies the number of tickets you eliminate for kills. Therefore, staying alive, killing the enemy, and capturing enemy flags while defending the ones you own are all essential to winning a battle.

Finally, you can always expect a good fight, regardless of your skill level. Heroes features an automatic matchmaking system that pits poor players against noobs, and the skilled against the elite. That way, you can always expect a challenge, but you'll hardly ever be completely routed. And don't worry: when you don't want to play with random people, there's ways to play with your friends, and ways to start clan battles.

Battlefield Heroes promises to be simple enough for the most casual player, and yet deep enough for the most hardcore player. But the real selling point for me is that they got rid of everything that was unnecessary in the previous Battlefield games, kept everything that was fun, and added lots of new features that'll make you want to come back for more. And even if it doesn't look like your kind of thing, why not try it anyway? It's free!

Bonus Fact: Contrary to popular belief, Battlefield Heroes isn't about World War II, and it's not the Germans fighting the British. Both armies come from completely fictitious countries (despite their familiar stereotypes), and they're fighting over the results of cyclists at the Olympics.