Despite being heavily promoted (by fans) for its realism, the Battlefield series has never been about “realism” in the strictest sense of the word—one which better describes games like Arma II and Operation Flashpoint.
With that said, Battlefield has always been grounded in reality—or at least authenticity—in contrast to the arcade-like Call of Duty, its counterpart and main rival.
“Different companies have different takes on what they want to do and where they want to take the genre,” said DICE’s Patrick Bach in an interview with IndustryGamers, who spoke at length about the FPS and military shooter genre.
“I don’t see it as a race to be the most realistic shooter—realism, as opposed to grounded in authenticity, is not our end goal with Battlefield 3 and probably never will be,” he said.
“Having said that, with greater graphics capabilities comes greater need to focus on visual details.
“We are not trying to create a simulator,” continued Bach. “But the feeling that what happens in the game is plausible and looks real and authentic is important to us.”
Clearly, the studio has no intention of letting players take on the role of a one-man-army who destroys the entire Soviet military while under the influence of memory-altering drugs—not that there was anything wrong with Black Ops.
Battlefield 3 releases next week on the PC, Xbox 360 and PlayStation 3.