The details are out for the four playable classes in DICE's upcoming Battlefield 3. The classes, listed as Assault, Engineer, Recon, and Support look a lot like their previous incarnations in Bad Company 2, but a fair bit about them has changed.
Notably, the Assault class, typically armed with an assault rifle and a pair of grenades, will pack a pair of defibrillators and a med-kit to aid wounded and dying—but not dead—players.
Engineers will equip a tool allowing them to restore vehicles. Much like their counterpart in BFBC2, they will also be armed with RPGs to take down enemy vehicles in addition to carbine weapons. Additionally, the Engineer class has the ability to construct makeshift facades for players to take cover in.
The Recon class returns with his sniper rifle, but improvements have been granted to the class to make it more team oriented, with the addition of "several completely new teamplay oriented gadgets." There will be no roost of snipers perched upon the hills as their team loses in Battlefield 3.
Finally, the Support class will be given a fully fleshed out combat role thanks to the addition of bipods. Armed with an LMG, playing the Support class will be quite unlike the run-and-gun gameplay of the Assault. Instead, players will have to equip their bipod to lay down a base of suppressive fire, deployable anywhere by zooming with the LMG when prone, standing or kneeling in front of suitable supports.
Suppressive Fire is an all new in-game mechanic that will show incoming fire as a graphical blur, indicating that players shouldn't get out of cover.
"Supported shooting with Bipods and Suppressive Fire finally allows us to achieve an obvious difference between Assault and Support, since the heavy LMGs are not terribly mobile," says DICE's Alan Kertz. "When deployed with a Bipod, they become an incredibly powerful force. Suppressive Fire forces the enemy to keep their head down and lets the Support gunner pin his enemies in place so teammates can flank."
Battlefield 3 is set for an October release on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.
