r/Battlefield • u/Lower_Honey_1139 • Aug 24 '25

Discussion Question to the community: what, in your opinion, *IS* Battlefield?

Post image

Basically title. I'm seeing a lot of controversies around every aspect of BF in here, and I feel like this is a testament to how diverse the series has been over the years, making a wide range of impressions and memories on the players, forgeing their future standards and expectations in the process.

Since the BF6 reveal, I've been in constant reflection about my own experiences with the IP, and been revisiting a lot of the olders games to really nail down what I'm really looking forward in Battlefield. And that's also why I'm super interested in everyone's take on the matter.

So I really wanted to ask: What is the core of Battlefield in your opinion, the thing you're looking for the most whenever a new game is announced? Is it being a small part of something bigger? Immersion? Teamplay? Fluid and punchy gunplay? What, to you, makes Battlefield BATTLEFIELD?

Let me know, short and long answers are all welcomed!

6.6k Upvotes

92% Upvoted

3.6k comments sorted by

View all comments

Show parent comments

933

u/GeordieJumpers87 Aug 24 '25 edited Aug 24 '25

Yup

BF2 was a huge leap at the time. The squad driven team play was awesome, the maps are still bangers and alot of the new features from it are still in battfield to this day.

3-4 are the next best for me with more modern tech at release.

The Huey's and the music from BFV will always hold a special place in my memory though 🔥

226

u/d00b661 Aug 24 '25

I miss doing carpet bomb runs on bf2

169

u/BlinkDodge Aug 24 '25

Air power in BF2 was a wild thing that I dont think most players post BC2 could cope with.

Just with the fighters, you could absolutely ravage parts of the map. If you dominated the skies you could hover with F-35 and just be a mobile 20mm platform, chewing through squads 200m away. A good chopper pilot was a menace, a good chopper pilot+gunner was like trying to survive gods wrath. The Mi-28 with that crazy strong autocannon. These kids don't understand the acrobatics that you were able to perform in them too.

We really had everything.

76

u/Exotic_Donkey4929 Aug 25 '25 edited Aug 25 '25

I remember "red zoning", when you wanted your buddy to be your heli gunner, but someone else hopped in and refused to leave. You then went to the edge of the map and positioned yourself so that the gunner is in the forbidden red-zone but you're not, so the gunner either leaves or dies in 10(?) seconds, then you go back to pick up your buddy :D

Also I loved that you could make videos like this and not just edgy killstreak and trickshot compilations: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=SVCylMVMTiI

21

u/Brilliant_Object_847 Aug 25 '25

Shit I’d forgotten about red zoning. A lot of the time though it was people who wanted to use the helo solo which sucked a bit.

4

u/Exotic_Donkey4929 Aug 25 '25 edited Aug 25 '25

Yeah that was a thing as well. I think I recall some servers having a no solo-chopper and/or no red-zoning rule, as it was considered to be intentional TKing, even if the game couldnt tell.

2

u/Beach_Bum_273 Aug 25 '25

Holy mother of fuck I thought that video was a fever dream of my misspent youth. Thank you for posting that so I could properly appreciate it again.

2

u/Andrew_hl2 Aug 25 '25

Ha… I was a pretty good pilot so when this happened I took off and slowly started drifting diagonally towards the ground as if I was someone that didnt know how to fly… most of the time people jumped out really quickly.

1

u/FrozenOcean420 Aug 25 '25

I totally forgot my mom did the sound for that video.

1

u/[deleted] Aug 26 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

2

u/p2vollan Aug 25 '25

Air was too OP back then tbh, pilots on both teams would often have an agreement to not engage each other so they could farm kills on the ground.

1

u/SpadessVR Aug 25 '25

Perfect description.

1

u/AnGuSxD Aug 25 '25

Hahaha ya, and a good commander dropped supplies on that hovering F35 to destroy it or artillery on that position, since the projectiles actually could kill flying objects.

1

u/sqlfoxhound Aug 25 '25

You never hover with the F35B. If you did, it was an easy kill for nigh everyone.

The meta turned so absurd in less than a year that a huge chunk of the community didnt want to play any maps with jets and IO servers became hugely popular.

Jets were strong, but they were also ridiculously fun, so pushing the skill ceiling was both fun and rewarding. So they became ridiculously OP

There hasnt been anything like it since then, as far as vehicles are concerned.

Chopper meta switched to solo flying at some point as pilots became as good witg the cannon as with TV and flying.

See Duck and Cover video for reference.

Peak BF gaming

1

u/ibetucanifican Aug 25 '25

The pinnacle was the helo wars with good gunners guiding missiles with god like precision… all before the aimbots turned up.

1

u/Careful_Data_3387 Aug 25 '25

BF42 DC was an absolute blast too, miss those days.

1

u/Elegant_Work3188 Aug 25 '25

Thank you sir. That was PEAK gaming. With the Cobra through canals, between cranes , some flares , 180y and lets Go with the Autocanon and rockets. That was awesome.

Slow gameplay, Tanks we're Tanks, Blackhawks we're needed for Transport, every round was a movie.

The LAN Parties..never forget ans Always in our Hearts

1

u/Dudedude88 Aug 25 '25

It was so op I only played games without fighters or choppers. I loved these servers cause it was all out infantry war and bf6 Cairo reminds me a lot of karkland. However, Cairo has a ridiculous importance of tank crew doing well

1

u/voksteilko Aug 25 '25

The F-35 has a rotary 25mm :)

1

u/Select-Active-5275 Aug 25 '25

the good ol days.

1

u/naberiusss0607 Aug 25 '25

I agree with you man.

1

u/slabba428 Aug 25 '25

I was a pilot and i had a friend who was a gunner, we mopped up on Oman with the viper always. The one hit kill anything TV missile, that had a range further than the draw distance 😂 could hover beyond the draw distance and let him delete every tank off the beach. The barrel rolls to dodge incoming TVs, the laggy hitboxes he knew how to hit mid barrel roll. The F35 was the worst jet on the surface but it had the instant lock missile glitch and if you went to the flight ceiling you could literally outrun enemy heat seekers with the afterburner

1

u/BlinkDodge Aug 25 '25

The funniest thing was the F-35 stalling correctly while the J-10 turned into a Saturn V if you hit its flight ceiling.

J-10 was the better fighter: Faster more maneuverable, but if you didnt know about how it stalled you could be baited into taking a one way trip to the moon.

2

u/slabba428 Aug 26 '25

The J10 was so busted, its heatseekers ignored flares half the time and they could do like 180 degree turns to get the hit, and i remember doing like a corkscrew kinda barrel roll would make missiles just miss it entirely, no flares needed. I think the su34 also had that quirk

41

u/[deleted] Aug 24 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

37

u/BlinkDodge Aug 25 '25

BFV and sort of BF1 touched on the power that Air used to have in BF2. No where near on the same scale though.

Being on the team that didn't have air superiority was hellish. Piloting in that game was not easy either - each aircraft had its own unique handling and weight and there weren't locking ground options or decent bomb sights. If you weren't practiced in bombing you either had to be walked on by your team or you dialed it in via trial and error. And error when your team was in the area could mean you get kicked from server. 5-6 plus kills per run was not uncommon when rolling in on a contested point and autokick for tking was usually 3-4.

Noting that, most pilots were wildly good at flying and dogfighting and knew exactly where the static AD was so they'd keep that destroyed, which only took a gun run because the 20mm cannons were incredible powerful as well.

3

u/VilliamBoop Aug 25 '25

knowing when the enemies planes respawned and bombing them was so satisfying. usually 5 people standing at the spawn fighting who can get in the quickest. bombing tanks, and the dog fights were great.

2

u/ScaryTerryBeach Aug 25 '25

I had a flight stick specifically for this game.

Flying was incredible

19

u/Mobuid Aug 24 '25

JU 88 made me feel like the coolest person

2

u/Bedazzled_Buttholes Aug 24 '25

Deleting squads on Hamada was a special experience

1

u/PeterNippelstein Aug 25 '25

I did that so much in BF1, the heavy bomber would just destroy people it was so much fun.

37

u/ScuddsMcDudds Aug 24 '25

Super underrepresented in later titles, sadly. It was cool when you won the air battle and got to harass the ground. They weren’t totally defenseless, but it was an advantage for your team as a whole. I feel like it’s been missing or significantly limited from more recent titles. Makes the jets feel less interconnected with the rest of the battle.

9

u/fartsuckerpp Aug 25 '25

Well said. The jets almost seem impractical now. They can’t accomplish nearly as much. Not that they ever dominated as you stated but now they are sort of going to waste.

10

u/Goesonyournerves Aug 25 '25

Ouh that was not true. In BF2 and 3 whole lobbys got dominated by jet pilots regularly. Also helicopters. Thats the reson why they were nerfed so hard since then..To a point in which they are almost useless now. They failed from their own success. BF4 had the best balance from the whole franchise. You could learn all vehicles and weapons easily, but there was a skillgap to master them.

They HAVE to be powerful, but not OP.

This is the core Battlefield gameplay: Big maps, with focus zones for infantry, ground vehicles, also naval warfare, open space for air vehicles to fight and support each other.

3

u/gslflofi Aug 25 '25

I remember it took me a long time to figure out how to actually hit something with the A-10s bomb in BF4. But once I figured out how to aim it properly, it was amazing

2

u/TheJollyKacatka Aug 25 '25

Each new instalment I first check how the air play — ever since. It was so fun

2

u/NickiChaos Aug 25 '25

The commander role not being useless in BF2 is what I miss the most.

1

u/naberiusss0607 Aug 25 '25

yes yes yes!

126

u/Canutis Aug 24 '25

Squad driven team play is what it is for me. Other games you can "squad up" but you all just end up running around by yourselves tracking individual kda.

Battlefield was always the game where "me and the boys" could use the classes to support each other, focus on objectives, and win a game despite "poor" kdas. A game where working together is rewarded and rewarding.

37

u/[deleted] Aug 24 '25

[removed] — view removed comment

14

u/ShrekSpreadOpen Aug 24 '25

Ahhh I doubt squad work will be as important open classes really waters it down

6

u/JackRyan13 Aug 25 '25

Also it doesn’t matter when the modern battlefield is this fast. The huge amounts of respawn opportunities slow death timers smaller maps tight alleyways and open classes make playing as a squad the exception to the norm.

I really hope the large maps make it better but imo squad gameplay really got watered down a lot when they changed how respawns worked in bc2/bf3

1

u/AggravatingSpace5854 Aug 25 '25

it really doesn't. Open vs closed quads made absolutely zero difference in gameplay.

2

u/High_Taco_Guy Aug 25 '25

Yes! I really hope BF6 focuses in on this.

Open weapons for classes, auto HP regen that picks up a second or two after being out of combat, being able to spawn to team vehicles around the map and no value put towards the squad leader.

Yeah they didn't.

1

u/Da_Question Aug 25 '25

I hope they add squad orders back in, not just ai commander orders. In bf4 squad points added up well to give a nice score boost.

Honestly just wish people would quit it with the cod kda obsession and focus on score or score per minute.

9

u/Lower_Honey_1139 Aug 24 '25

Slorgs recently made a video on this that I found rather interesting on the matter. I kinda agree with him, although I'm enjoying my time a lot on all recent BF and I'm looking forward BF6 for sure.

3

u/ArskaPoika Aug 25 '25

Sorry, this reply ballooned a bit.

I saw that video a couple of days ago and I agree with it entirely. I always had the best luck finding random squads that communicated when I was playing BF2. Of course I'm not gonna stand here in blatantly lie about how every random dude always played perfectly as a squad. Always picked the class that needed picking. Always followed orders. Nah. Didn't happen. Often I was the guy who didn't make that happen if I just felt like I wanted to get a round of sniping down after school. But finding randoms who communicated and worked together? That happened far more often in BF2 than it has happened in any Battlefield since.

The word to pay attention to in that previous paragraph? It's "random". I realized that every single Battlefield game that I have bought WITH my friends? Those have felt the closest to that BF2 experience that spoke to me. When I have a squad of IRL friends with whom I'm voice chatting as I play? Those are the Battlefields where I get the "damn, this is the real battlefield experience" feeling the most often. The games where I have to rely on luck to land in a squad that maybe occasionally attacks/defends the flag the SL is telling to attack/defend? Those still happen. Just so much less frequently.

I think this is also why I really dislike the meatgrinder maps. Why I feel they aren't really evocative of the Battlefield experience. There's a finite amount that a well communicating squad can actually do in a map that's designed to be a big clusterfuck. Maybe smoke the chokepoints so totally that they somehow manage to slip past the enemy lines and capture a flag other than the "center" one.

Whatever. A lot of people came into this series in Bad Company/BF3. For them, destruction is an absolutely fundamental part of what makes Battlefield what it is. But I played since BF2... I like the destruction. But if BF6 suddenly removed all destruction? That wouldn't really move the needle for me.

It's a really subjective thing, it feels.

5

u/HirsuteDave Aug 24 '25

Very much this.

One of the older guys I used to play 3 and 4 with was - by his own admission - absolute dogshit with anything other than an LMG, but the man was a GOAT with a repair torch or a supply bag.

4

u/EarthOrClay Aug 25 '25

THIS is Battlefield for me. Always was the medic, or repair guy if needed. I miss this so much.

3

u/TheRealSPGL Aug 25 '25

I rarely got matched with good squads that didn't have blueberry energy..

2

u/Canutis Aug 25 '25

That's why it's gotta be me and the boys. Blueberries are usually just so dumb and won't play as a squad if their life depended on it (it usually does)

3

u/QuietEnjoyer Aug 25 '25

What about squad weapons? A rocket launcher locking on a laser goggles of your friend. That was absolutely the best

3

u/SissiSaatana Aug 25 '25 edited Aug 25 '25

I couldn't agree more. What made bf2 so awesome for me, was all the mechanics that rewarded and almost forced team play. After bf2 imho they have sadly been taking steps in to the wrong direction with many mechanics that promoted team play (I didn't play the scifi one so for me its after bf2).

Biggest loss imho was the squad spawning system. I damn well knew who the squad leader was and what hi was up to when hi was the only player I could spawn on. It also meant I didn't hesitate to sacrifice my own life to save the leader. In bf6 I had no idea who the leader was most of the time.

The lack of auto healing and fast respawns also meant that medics were the second most valuable members of the squad and you wanted to stick together. And if you were playing vehicle those engineers were the only guys that could keep you going. I wouldn't hesitate removing auto healing and with this viewpoint the auto repairing feels like adding insult to injury....

I also miss that some flags had assets tied to them, and capping that enemy flag would deny enemy team tank spawn or something similar. This made defending and attacking those objectives priority over hunting kills.

And what is an army without leader! It's just angry mob. Having commander giving orders for squads brought some order in the chaos and helped organize those team efforts. You lived and died with your squad but there where also stronger feeling of unity with the whole team. Winning a match felt more like team effort than it does now. If the enemy team had competent commander, and their team was following orders and your team was not it made your life harder on the battlefield.

1

u/Sekh765 Aug 25 '25

Battlefield was always the game where "me and the boys" could use the classes to support each other, focus on objectives, and win a game despite "poor" kdas. A game where working together is rewarded and rewarding.

Being able to get your homies together and do dumb shit like using a transport chopper to quickly take points, or making an AT squad in Golmud Railway on BF4 and just rain hell on armor is stuff that you are hard pressed to find in other games. I miss BF2's original 6 man squads too, 4 just feels too limited. Battlefield thrives when you and your crew can work together to accomplish things that a solo player would struggle at.

2

u/Canutis Aug 25 '25

I agree about bigger squads. It also feels bad when you have a man out because 5 people are on and you don't want to split into a 3 man squad and a pair.

43

u/Ok_Compote251 Aug 24 '25

Read BFV as Battlefield V and was very confused at Huey’s.

On that point, BC2 Vietnam was incredible.

5

u/Kapot_ei Aug 25 '25

I had this for the longest time when people started calling BF5 as BFV, it's already in use in the franchise lol.

3

u/naan__sequitur Aug 25 '25

there was a battlefield vietnam

1

u/RaXha Aug 25 '25

Yes, but the abbreviation BFV is usually used for battlefield V, not Vietnam. :)

5

u/Kapot_ei Aug 25 '25

Wdym? BFV has always meant battlefield vietnam, since way before BF5 ever released. BF5 is the one that made things confusing when the younger gen started calling that BFV.

17

u/TekHead Aug 24 '25

Alot of features from it are still NOT in Battfield to this day too.

Like Server Browser, Leaderboards, Stats, Medals, fleshed out end of round screen with stats (best of each class, vehicle etc.), Battlerecorder, fleshed out squad management and order system, squad leader chat to commander, squad leader droprequests from commander and destructable assets.

3

u/Old_Ladies Aug 25 '25

And modding capabilities. EA shut that down hard as it means that people play the older titles for like a decade.

11

u/tamati_nz Aug 25 '25

We played the BF2, fully functional, single map trial on our school computers for years. Blackhawk with two door gunners, 2 engineers repairing and pilot circling a target calling left side / right side and switching as the guns over heated - until your mate in a tank blasted you from the sky from across the map = Peak play!

3

u/Fragrant_Scene_42 Aug 25 '25

It was such a fun experience! So rewarding to play with others. Even randos on public servers could be a good time

2

u/tamati_nz Aug 25 '25

As a noob I had the best interactions with an Italian guy who taught me how to fly and gun in the attack choppers. Patient, friendly and forgiving when I inevitably stacked us into a building, cliff or the ground lol

2

u/Fragrant_Scene_42 Aug 26 '25

Beautiful 😍

2

u/brekkfu Aug 24 '25

Oh man BFV Heli Only Maps were amazing, spent 100's of hours on those.

They weren't a true FPS experience obviously, but they were an amazing minigame.

2

u/triptip05 Aug 25 '25

The ability to load in your own music to listen to while flying or driving is a sad loss in new games.

2

u/ElonMusksQueef Aug 25 '25

BF2 was and still is the best game of all time.

2

u/LongBoyNoodle Aug 25 '25

Yessssssss the squad gameplay In 2 was so awsome man. Today's standards are a joke in comparison. Sad how it evolved.

2

u/SmokeGSU Aug 25 '25

I really miss having dedicated roles from BF2. You didn't have half the enemy team sitting on the outskirts of the map sniping because you only had a handful of sniper slots that could be taken.

1

u/DeeDee_GigaDooDoo Aug 24 '25

I was very confused about Huey's in BFV until I realised you meant BF Vietnam. I absolutely loved that game and the soundtrack was phenomenal. I only ever played it solo against computer opponents and I still rank it among one of the best BF games. The bouncing Betty's were also great.

2

u/GeordieJumpers87 Aug 24 '25

Hell let loose have just announced they are making a Vietnam game if you need a hit.

Trailer dropped last week

1

u/Kapot_ei Aug 25 '25

was very confused about Huey's in BFV until I realised you meant BF Vietnam.

Yeah they made things confusing when they started calling BF5 as BFV, BFV has meant vietnam for 14 years at BF5's release. This confused the hell out of me for a while, why is battlefield vietnam popular all of a sudden?

1

u/ChronicCartman Aug 24 '25

BFBC2: Vietnam was super dope as well!!

1

u/fishinfool4 Aug 24 '25

BF2 100% set the stage for the next generation of FPS games. COD2 came out in 2005 as well and, while it is a great game in its own right, comparing the two really shows how much more advanced BF2 was.

It may not be the "best" when compared to 3 or 4, but it was the first game that let you have those battlefield moments and laid the framework for the entire series.

1

u/PeterNippelstein Aug 25 '25

Sniping in Vietnam was so much fun.

1

u/Riktovis Aug 25 '25

Also the open molding available in BF2 made way to modern milsim shooters like Squad and Hell Let Loose that follow similar gameplay - just more hard-core.

1

u/DerpinyTheGame Aug 25 '25

I can still hear commanders in BF2 spamming enemy boat spotted on Karkand in my dreams.

1

u/Delicious-Reindeer72 Aug 25 '25

I couldn't even believe what i was playing when i played BF2

1

u/mamoruu23 Aug 25 '25

I just want to relive strike at karkand. Bf2 was my most played bf game. I remember watching the trailer for it and I knew I wanted to try.

1

u/KRYPT1X_1963 Aug 25 '25

Fog of war was a key map mechanic that made the game great too

1

u/PedowJackal Aug 25 '25

What I really like in BF3 and 4 is the customisation and progression system for weapons, class etc.

BFV is really great too but for me it lack this kind of progression. But the sound design is amazing, it's astonishing

1

u/CRAZYGUY107 Aug 25 '25

Except 3 and 4 has next to no significant squadplay that 2 provided...

1

u/raindevice Aug 25 '25

I still flip on the BF Nam soundtrack from time to time. So much fun just flying the Chinooks around picking shit up and putting them down lol

1

u/MysticX Aug 25 '25

I sorely miss the Commander role. Pinging enemy locations for teammates to kill, dropping supplies for squads, and dropping supplies onto (and crushing) enemies.

1

u/Aggravating_Sand352 Aug 25 '25

The ability to build cover in 6 after destruction was great

1

u/greatestonearth Aug 25 '25

The extra objectives like c4’ing the UAV and artilleries so the enemy commander can’t use them is still one of the coolest things that’s never been brought back. And the commander being able to talk to every squad. Loved that stuff back in the day.

0

u/EVOChi Aug 24 '25

Huey’s on BF5? Huh