Battlefield 4 is going to look quite different depending on which piece of gaming hardware you decide to purchase it for. This developmental approach in the past has resulted in complaints from gamers who were unhappy that Battlefield 3 didn't look as nice on console as it did on PC.
DICE has since addressed these complaints in an interview with OXM, telling the outlet that developing for the lowest common denominator just to create an equal experience for everyone would be "the cowards way out."
It gives me a flashback to Battlefield 3. We had that problem even back before the next gen consoles, where we made a game that looked amazing on the PC – the better the PC, the better that game looked – and then you had a game that looked amazing on PS3 and Xbox 360, but it didn't look as good as on PC, and people kept nagging us about that.
It was like, you should compare it to other games on the same platform. And people said, 'OK but still – why doesn't it look as good as on PC? You don't care about the consoles.' Well, we're pushing your hardware as hard as we can, and I'm quite certain that we'll get that this summer as well – because we are pushing the PC, we're pushing the Xbox One and we're pushing the PS4, and also making sure that the Xbox 360 and PS3 software looks amazing, way better than it did for Battlefield 3.
People will still bring it up. We'll still get the comparison videos, where somebody will judge us based on that, rather than comparing us to other games on the platforms. You could take the coward's way out, and just set the bar at Xbox 360 and PS3, and make it so that all games look the same on all platforms, but that's not who we are. We want to do our best with the hardware.
So there you have it. DICE isn't looking to make the same experience for everyone, but rather, the best experience possible for everyone within the confines of the hardware that they are playing on. It's hard to complain or find any fault in that.
What version of Battlefield 4 will you be picking up when it launches in a few weeks' time? Sound off in the comments below and let us know.
[OXM]
