I’ve played quite a bit of Battlefield 5 during the recent closed alpha, and I still don’t quite know how I feel about the game. Sure, it’s a closed alpha, but the core gameplay systems have been implemented and this close to launch we’ll likely only be seeing adjustments of what’s there as opposed to drastic changes. There was some clunkiness present, which can be attested to its alpha status, but for the most part, it felt like a complete game (albeit a small slice of one).
A lot of Battlefield 1 lives on in Battlefield 5. In fact, the alpha felt more like an expansion pack than a full new game. That’s not necessarily a bad thing. Battlefield 1 looks great, and many players liked the change to a more measured team-based shooter. However, Battlefield 5 does shake quite a few systems up, some of which was addressed in a recent Reddit AMA. We don’t quite know how everything is going to turn out in the finished product yet, but here’s our impressions so far.
Battlefield 5 Closed Alpha: The Good and the Bad
There are some positive changes from BF1 that are coming with Battlefield 5. A number of them seem to be directly aimed at complaints the Battlefield community has voiced since Battlefield 1 was released. Others seem to be either new ideas to balance and change the gameplay, or things that came naturally because of the shift in setting.
So there were quite a few things we liked about the closed alpha, but there are some decisions that left us shaking our heads. Unfortunately, it seems like there’s going to be some annoyances in store for Battlefield 1 fans when they transition over to BFV. That is if they’re not changed before release.
Did you play the Battlefield 5 alpha? What did you think? Let us know in the comments.
Battlefield 5 Closed Alpha: The Good and the Bad
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The Good: No More Spot Spam
One of the significant issues players have with Battlefield 1 is the ease and power of spotting. Right now in BF1, no matter where you are on the map, you can highlight any enemy by hovering your reticle over them and hitting the spot button. While there's nominally a cooldown on spotting, what happens is pretty much everyone just spams "Q" all the time, and most players just stay lit up with an icon over their head for everyone to see. In Battlefield 5 instead of tracking the player, a regular spot will only pinpoint their last known location. Instead, flares and the new scope are the only ways to 3D spot as you can in Battlefield 1. This means that stealth actions may actually be a thing instead of everyone just knowing where everyone is all the time. Also, it may give scouts something decent to do instead of just popping flares and sniping constantly. -
The Good: Moveable Emplacements
The moveable emplacement system is still a little rough in the closed alpha. You can tow AA guns and field guns behind half-tracks and tanks and move them wherever you want to. This means you can turn that chokepoint to an objective into a massive killbox. This gives those who actually defend points after they're captured an opportunity to strengthen a point's defenses and is a significant force multiplier. Unfortunately, on the map showcased in the alpha, there weren't really good enough sightlines to make great use of the moveable emplacements. However, when we the full game is released, I think the ability to relocate field guns and AA guns will go a long way towards driving players to actually play defensively instead of the current Battlefield 1 Conquest meta which is to basically just attack non-stop and capture points in a circle until someone wins. -
The Good: Goodbye World War 1
Battlefield 1's setting was super interesting when the game debuted, but two years later I'm starting to get sick of World War 1. There are quite a few limitations when it comes to setting a game from 1914 to 1918 that keeps the gameplay from evolving. Battlefield 1942 was revolutionary in part because of its vehicular combat, and the series has leaned on that aspect for entry after entry. During World War 1 mechanization was still a very new concept, and there's just not that many vehicles you can put in Battlefield 1. Even adding vehicles that were only used in tiny quantities like the German A7V and French Char 2C, only goes so far. World War 2, on the other hand, gives a much broader base of material to draw from. Instead of having to shoehorn guns that were made in such small quantities and documented so poorly that we don't even know their model numbers or who manufactured them, there's a massive arsenal of production-grade weapons of war that were used in the thousands and tens of thousands that can be added to Battlefield 5. The applies, especially to vehicles. Some of the most iconic engines of war were used in World War 2, and in the alpha, we've already gotten to play with halftracks and Tiger tanks. I'm excited to see how Battlefield 5 represents combined arms and I'm hoping that it brings back some of the emphasis on vehicular combat that took a bit of a back seat in Battlefield 1. Unfortunately, we didn't get to try out much vehicular combat in the BFV alpha. The map include was a bit small and not well suited to the tank duels and fast movement we're hoping for in the final product. -
The Bad: Bleed Out
In every Battlefield I remember there was the choice to skip past the revive period pretty much instantly and hit the deployment screen again. This is great if you're behind enemy lines and there's just no one around to bring you back, or if you want to change your kit and get back into the action quick. In the closed alpha of Battlefield V, though, things have changed. You must now sit through the bleed out period each time. You can speed up how fast you bleed out by a bit, but there's no way to bypass it entirely. I could see how this might seem like it would make some people play more tactically-minded instead of just running and gunning. However, in the end, it's just going to make everyone frustrated. -
The Bad: Revives Take Longer
Another aspect that's sure to frustrate BF1 fans is that revives now take longer. Instead of jabbing a needle at your teammate and bringing them back, there's a multi-second animation that has to play that locks you and the target together for a brief period. This occurs for both Medic and Squad revives and was one of the more frustrating parts of the alpha. The longer it takes to get in the game, or continue playing after dying, the more likely people are to just quit and do something else. Taking players out of the action is a sure fire way to turn a playerbase off. This revive lengthening not only keeps dead players from coming back quick but also makes it more likely for a Medic to get killed during the animation. Because of this what will likely happen is that people just won't bother to revive people or wait to be revived. -
The Bad: Time-to-Kill Way Too Short
Battlefield has always set itself apart from Call of Duty by making the player a bit meatier when it comes to health. If you take a glancing hit, you can duck and recover most of the time in BF1. In the Battlefield 5 alpha, this has changed. You no longer have health regen as part of a drive to make people invest more in squad play than striking off solo. Random spread has also been removed from weapons which makes it a lot easier to draw a bead on a target. As a result, you die faster in BFV than ever before. This wouldn't be too much of an issue if not for the new bleed out and revive changes. I'm an average BF1 player, and I feel like Battlefield 5 rewards twitch combat more than the deliberate and measured movement of BF1.
