I liked Battlefield 2042's experimental character—lonely hikes across its giant 128-player maps reminded me of how awesome the scale of Battlefield 1942 felt back in 2002—but I held a minority opinion on that one. For the next Battlefield, the series' new boss aims to recapture what he calls the "peak of Battlefield-ness" found in Battlefield 3 and 4.
That boss is Respawn co-founder Vince Zampella, who previously co-founded Infinity Ward and helmed Battlefield's biggest rival, Call of Duty. EA announced in 2021—not long after Battlefield 2042's disappointing launch—that he's now overseeing the Battlefield series, and in an interview with IGN this week, Zampella dropped a few details about what we can expect from the next game, which is still unnamed.
The big news is that the next Battlefield will return to the modern setting of Battlefield 3 and 4—the last three were WW1, WW2, and near future—and will ditch two of the features that made Battlefield 2042 stand out at launch (in a bad way, for many): 128-player maps and specialists, which replaced classes with characters who had special abilities and gadgets.
"I don't know what the rationale [for specialists] was, but for me, it's like the team tried something new," Zampella told IGN. "You have to applaud that effort. Not everybody liked it, but you got to try things. It didn't work. It didn't fit. Specialist will not be coming back. So classes are kind of at the core of Battlefield, and we're going back to that."
As for 128-player maps, Zampella said that they're "designing something that is more akin to previous Battlefields" and that he'd "rather have nice, dense, really nice, well-designed play spaces" than a big number for the sake of a big number.
There aren't many more details to share beyond that, but the big picture Zampella's putting down is: We're going back to Battlefield 3 and 4.
"I mean, if you look back to the peak or the pinnacle of Battlefield, it's that Battlefield 3... Battlefield 4 era where everything was modern," Zampella told IGN. "And I think we have to get back to the core of what Battlefield is and do that amazingly well, and then we'll see where it goes from there."
He went on to refer to BF3 and 4 as the "peak of Battlefield-ness" and the "heyday" of the series, but also threw in a mention of Battlefield 1942 to appease old dudes like me.
EA hasn't been entirely clear on what the next Battlefield thing, or things, will actually be, but we know that a lot of studios are working on the series: DICE, Motive, Ripple Effect (which made Battlefield 2042's cool custom server feature called Portal), and Criterion. There was another studio making a singleplayer Battlefield experience, Ridgeline Games, but it was closed before we got any details on what it was up to.
Zampella told IGN that, although EA is expanding the scope of the Battlefield series, "core Battlefield players" are still the priority. "We need to earn their trust back and get them back on our side," he said.
Battlefield 2042 got its final season earlier this year so that development could fully shift over to the next game, and according to Zampella, they're now "play testing the game every week." My guess is that the next main series game will be called Battlefield 6 to emphasize its connection to Battlefields 3 and 4, but that's just a hunch.
You can read more of Zampella's comments on the future of Battlefield in IGN's story—it sounds like a reveal is likely next year. The concept art at the top of this article is new, by the way, and might contain some clues about what to expect. Naval battles, again?
