Although most of your buddies are still knee-deep in the mud of WWI in Battlefield 1, it’s already time to start thinking about the next game in the series. EA CEO Andrew Wilson has now confirmed that the next Battlefield game is coming at some point in 2018 during the company’s latest earning’s call.
“We will continue delivering for our Battlefield fans, including the next great game in the franchise,” explained Wilson when asked about the games coming in fiscal year 2019. “Across our top franchises and new IP, our ongoing focus will be on advancing the state of the art in games for players on every platform.”
If the success of Battlefield 1 is anything to go by, we should be expecting something pretty spectacular for Battlefield 2018.
Until the official announcement is made, we’ll be collating everything we hear and see about Battlefield 2018 here, just for you.
When will it be released?
Traditionally, EA Games announces its new Battlefield game in May before a full reveal at E3. So pencil in May 2018 for an announcement and then keep a keen eye on the Xbox and PlayStation press conferences at E3 2018 in June.
Most likely, it will be released in September or October of 2018, as have the more recent Battlefield titles. A while back, it was more common for EA to release Battlefield games in June, including the likes of Battlefield: Bad Company – which is still one of the best Battlefield games to date – but we’d be very surprised to see Battlefield 2018 launch at such a time.
We already knew that there wasn’t a Battlefield game on the cards for 2017.
What will Battlefield 2018 be called?
When EA released Battlefield 1 it threw all its previous naming conventions out of the window. The main Battlefield series has always been a numbered affair, but it went from Battlefield 4 back to Battlefield 1. That’s because EA wanted this to be seen as a fresh start for the series, but also to clearly mark the fact it was a WWI game.
But now it’s tricky to predict what the next game will be called beyond our preliminary placeholder of Battlefield 2018. It could well be known as Battlefield 2, especially if it focuses on WWII, but there are rumours that the series could return again to the traditional naming scheme and be called Battlefield 5.
Where will it be set?
The biggest conversations surrounding Battlefield 2018 at present revolve around where the game is going to be set. Of course, EA hasn’t spilled the beans on that yet, but there’s been plenty of online rumblings (or at least wishlists) that give us a few ideas as to when the game will be set.
Here are the top predictions for the Battlefield 2018 setting:
World War I
With the success of Battlefield 1 no doubt still bolstering spirits across EA offices worldwide, it wouldn’t be too hard to see the developer returning again to the trenches of the First World War. We’d definitely love to see EA tackle some more War Stories, which were the short emotional tales told in the game’s single player.
But there is a worry that tackling the same era for a second game in a row. Would another WWI title be able to feel different enough to warrant gamers forking out all that dough for a brand new game?
World War II
Another rumoured setting for Battlefield 2018 is WWII, but there’s an issue there. Call of Duty: WWII – as the name suggests – is going to be set during the Second World War and is coming out November 3, 2017. That means if the next Battlefield is set in WWII, it’ll have to compete with 2017’s Call of Duty a year later.
However, Battlefield 1942 is still heralded as one of the best Battlefield games in the series, so it wouldn’t be out of the question for EA Games to return to its WWII roots.
Vietnam War
Another war that Battlefield 2018 may revisit is the Vietnam War, which ran from 1955-1975. Battlefield Vietnam came directly after Battlefield 1942 and was another popular title, but most think there’s plenty still to be explored in a Battlfield game from that time period.
Future warfare
Both Call of Duty and Battlefield’s jaunts into more futuristic warfare settings haven’t been as well received as either publisher had hoped, particularly in the case of Call of Duty: Advanced Warfare. EA’s present day cop drama, Battlefield Hardline, also failed to resonate with fans. So is a present day/futuristic setting off the cards for Battlefield 2018? We would think so.
The realism of Battlefield 1’s gameplay has gone down so well with fans that we seriously doubt EA will move away from such a gameplay style for its next game.
Battlefield Bad Company 3
This might be more of a personal pipe dream than a reality, but if EA was to announce Battlefield Bad Company 3 we know we, and a ton of other gamers, would be very excited indeed. And it’s something that DICE has been talking about on and off for years, even if the team hasn’t actually said it would ever happen.
In an interview with Resero at the end of 2016, DICE’s Lars Gustavsson said:
“Yeah, the question of Bad Company, and will the boys return? It’s always in the back of our heads, and I think just like Battlefield 1 is a work of passion and the way that I think that we are extremely proud of all the Battlefield games we have done. Battlefield 4 is a dream for me as a game maker and how we handled modern warfare.”
“But going back to Battlefield 1 and the Great War, it has been a work of passion in how we can capture it in a different way. But in the back of our heads, just the same, the question of Bad Company 3 and will we do it… who knows? Maybe in the future, it’s something we miss. So maybe someday.”
But, back in 2014, DICE studio head Karl-Magnus Troedsson said, “there’s one thing that lingers with Bad Company that we’ve been asking ourselves: ‘What is it that the people really liked about Bad Company?'”
For us, it was the fun-filled single-player and the team of soldiers you fought with, but for other it was the game’s introduction of destructible scenery, sandbox shooting and more in the multiplayer. Whatever your reason, there’s definitely enough of them to warrant a third entry in the Battlefield Bad Company series.
What else do we know about the next Battlefield game?
Interestingly, the only concrete details we have about Battlefield 2018 is the fact it’ll run on the Frostbite engine, which is the same engine it used for Battlefield 1 and Star Wars Battlefront, and is continuing to roll out to other francises, including FIFA 18.