Everything is confused
Battlefield Portal is a mode in which players will share with each other entertainment, invented using the tools presented. It mixes elements of the four parts of the series – Battlefield 1942, Battlefield: Bad Company 2, Eldritch Blast 5e, Battlefield 3and Battlefield 2042 . The developers promise countless combinations of settings.
In addition to seven maps from Battlefield 2042 , six more will be added to the mode:
- “Border of the Caspian” ( Battlefield 3);
- Noushehr Channels ( Battlefield 3);
- The Ardennes Operation ( Battlefield 1942);
- El Alamein ( Battlefield 1942);
- Port Arica ( Battlefield : Bad Company 2);
- Valparaiso ( Battlefield: Bad Company 2).
The developers have completely recreated these cards on the latest version of the Frostbite engine, so they are available in 4K resolution with an increased frame rate. You can play on these cards according to the classic rules, with the number of users that they previously supported, or arrange matches with 128 players – but only on PC and next-generation consoles. The past generation supports no more than 64 members.
The cards were transferred in almost their original form, but modified with the use of modern technologies. As the authors say, in this way they managed to do what was impossible before. Take, for example, the map “The Ardennes Operation” – now it has destructibility, and in general what is happening looks more realistic thanks to improved graphics and increased drawing range – this is important for a map created on the basis of a real historical event. The same is true for the El Alamein location.
All content that will be added to Battlefield 2042 after release will be transferred to the Battlefield Portal. From the old games, many vehicles, gadgets and weapons will go there – the developers chose them, taking into account their own statistics and community feedback. The Ripple Effect team will offer at the start several official entertainment, completely in line with what was available in the old Battlefield – for those who just want to plunge into the past, and not try experimental modes. Others will be able to either scroll through the entire list of custom creations, or check out the ever-changing section with selected entertainment, which will be selected by the developers.
Link in description
The Battlefield Portal Builder will be available on a site that has not yet been linked. An interesting idea can be implemented right on the spot by simply opening a browser on a smartphone, tablet or laptop. It will also allow developers to make changes to the constructor without having to release patches and get certified on consoles. You don’t even need to buy Battlefield 2042 to access the Booming Blade 5e – just have an EA account . True, in this case it will not be possible to test your own creations.
When the user starts creating their own project, a menu with sections appears on the left side of the screen. In the first one, you need to select the mode: the usual “Capture” of the new generation or its smaller version, the classic “Assault” or a custom mode with your own settings. Then you have to decide on the cards – you just drag them from the left side of the screen to the right and decide in what order they will go one after another. In addition to regular maps, small sections of them will be available in case you want to hold matches not throughout the territory.
But the most interesting thing awaits further, in the Series section. Here, the first thing we do is choose which sides from which games and eras will face each other. If you wanted to see how the soldiers from Battlefield 1942 would feel against the warriors from Bad Company 2, now it will be possible. The choice will determine what types of weapons, gadgets and vehicles will be available to a particular team.
We decided on the eras – it’s time to decide on the characters. We select the sides of the conflict and indicate which classes we would like to observe in the matches. At the presentation, the developer created the “Sniper Rifles vs. Shotguns” mode: chose Battlefield 3 for both squads, after which he left only scouts in the first team, and only engineers in the second.
In search of the ideal
The third section is called General, and there are even more settings. You can turn on friendly fire, increase the speed of the bullets, adjust the weather, remove automatic reloading, increase the damage multiplier for headshots – and that’s not all. Settings are available for both teams – if you expect one squad to be stronger than the other, give it an edge.
Soldiers are also customizable: you affect the damage multiplier when falling from a height, the amount of maximum health, the delay on respawn, the ability to look through the scope, run, tackle, and even lie down on the ground. For example, turn off the ability to lie down for snipers and turn on the run for a team with shotguns – at least some balance will already appear. There is also a customization of the interface, which can also be different for the teams – disabling and enabling the compass, mini-map, target marking system, and so on.
The last tab in General deals with artificial intelligence. If you want to test your mode before publishing, you can fill in all the commands with bots and check what you get. Also, AI comes in handy in situations where you want to try some kind of weapon that you are new to. Or maybe you just want to shoot dummies with your friends in a kind of F95zone. The main purpose of bots is to fill empty spaces in the match and the abyss when a live player comes to their place. But this can also be turned off.
Where is the logic?
The final section is called the Logic Editor, it is a logic editor with the ability to customize match rules in detail by moving and modifying logic blocks. In our example, the developer moved the Rules block to the field and named it Health. He wanted to add a rule with which the player, when eliminating an opponent, will automatically restore his health. From the drop-down menu, he chose “When killing the enemy”, in the search for blocks he found “Health recovery” and moved it to the large Rules block. In the block with health there are empty cells that you fill with other blocks, indicating who exactly will restore health (in our case, the player is the Event Player) and in what quantity.
The settings in the logic editor seem to be countless. If you wish, you can arrange something like the Gun Game command mode, in which the guns will automatically change for the whole team when someone commits a murder. Choose the types of weapons, arrange them in the right order in the appropriate block, set the rules, and so on. Moreover, the designer does not care what era you have taken – as the developer explained, you can put any guns, choosing them from a huge list. That is, from the machine of the future from 2042, you can switch to the rifle from 1942 .
