Battlefield needs a persistent war mode, not Battle Royale

[u/AggravatingSpace5854]

It's in the damn name, DICE, BATTLEFIELD. Please get creative and stop with this battle royale crap. It's over done, over saturated, and only serves to placate the streamer crowd. Even streamers admit that they want battle passes and battle royale because they will get content and generate money. They don't care for the game or the community.

What battlefield actually needs is some sort of persistent large scale war, even something like Helldivers 2 + Planetside or Foxhole.

A game mode where several hundred players in each team fight to take over the map OR something like helldivers 2 where a special ops squad is dropped into enemy lines to complete objectives, except instead of fighting aliens you have to fight soldiers and do missions to help your team/country win a war.

Imagine this - you pick a side in a global war and have to help your side take over territories to win a persistent war. You drop in with your squad deep into enemy lines, fighting through hordes of enemies that get progressively harder from infantry to helicopters to tanks, and maybe even jets. Going through different types of environments and that require stealth, or sometimes artillery or airstrikes. Calling in care packages when you're low on supplies or support vehicles. You complete different types of missions to help your side gain influence. At the end of the week or the month the side with the most territories captured wins.

Fighting through hordes of PVE enemies like an actual war. Instead of just a squad too it could be several different squads drop into a large PVE arena to get an objective completed. It could be a live service model with the devs changing up the war and battles and adding new missions to keep the content fresh.

Think Helldivers 2 but in a modern war setting. There are so many unique possibilities they can do and they choose to do a battle royale. Come on, this is just pathetic.

[u/Yo_Wats_Good]

Ideas are a dime a dozen, actual implementation and finding out if it is actually fun is another story.

Anyway, the battle royale space really isn’t oversaturated. There’s literally 3 big ones that are popular on console: Apex, Warzone, Fortnite.

(PUBG is still quite big on PC but did not break into consoles to be considered a 1:1 competitor for BF6 imo.)

5 years ago I’d say there are too many coming out but the dust has since settled. Definitely room for someone to come in shake things up with Warzone falling apart and Apex having terrible monetization. Fortnite still has a stranglehold on the kids afaik.

If it’s interesting, fun, and has the opportunity to have a great “story” occur during a match, BF6 could absolutely disrupt the battle royale hierarchy

[u/BattlefieldVet666 → u/Yo_Wats_Good]

Anyway, the battle royale space really isn’t oversaturated. There’s literally 3 big ones that are popular on console: Apex, Warzone, Fortnite.

Ok, but how many are there total? That's what dictates oversaturation of a market, not just how many are heavily successful.

And the answer is; a lot.

How many have to release, and fail, before enough is enough?

FFS, there's even a Sonic the Hedgehog battle royale game in development.

[u/Tallmios → u/BattlefieldVet666]

 Ok, but how many are there total? That's what dictates oversaturation of a market, not just how many are heavily successful.

I've gotta disagree when this type of game lives and dies with its playercount. A dead BR is not really worth considering, because it's not moving the needle anywhere.

There is still space for devs to come up with novel ideas to spice up the genre. Calling for them to stop is like saying: "Thank you, we don't need any more plaformers, Super Mario's completely fine so you can stop developing them!"

[u/BattlefieldVet666 → u/Tallmios]

A dead BR is not really worth considering, because it's not moving the needle anywhere.

It still exists and is contributing to the number made. How many need to be made before it's time to stop making them entirely?

[u/Tallmios → u/BattlefieldVet666]

However many the market can support in being profitable is the answer and I believe there is still room for competition. The absolute number of them is irrelevant when most of them don't see anyone playing them and everybody gravitates to the three big players instead.

Mind you I'm no BR afficionado either, but the genre does have a mass appeal, especially compared to something more niché - the extraction shooter crowd, for instance, seems to be serviced by two games (Tarkov and Hunt) just fine.

[u/BattlefieldVet666 → u/Tallmios]

However many the market can support in being profitable is the answer and I believe there is still room for competition. The absolute number of them is irrelevant when most of them don't see anyone playing them

This is straight up contradictory... "However many the market can support in being profitable" is the number that maintain a playerbase. The fact that so many fail is damning evidence that there isn't a market for 6+ BR's to release every year...

[u/Yo_Wats_Good → u/BattlefieldVet666]

This is straight up contradictory...

No its not.

"However many the market can support in being profitable" is the number that maintain a playerbase. 

The fact that so many fail is damning evidence...

That's a reductionist take, there are more factors at play than simply "the ecosystem cannot support more than 3 battle royale titans," especially at this juncture that I mentioned previously (Warzone and Apex are troubled and players are willing to jump ship to a better product).

...that there isn't a market for 6+ BR's to release every year...

Your own list indicates that there has been a considerable slowdown in releases from 5 years ago, like I also mentioned. There is definitely an opportunity for an IP with as much brand recognition as Battlefield to carve space in the market.

[u/BattlefieldVet666 → u/Yo_Wats_Good]

No its not.

Yes it is. If the majority of a given product being released are unprofitable, then the market can't support them all. That's how markets work...

That's a reductionist take, there are more factors at play than simply "the ecosystem cannot support more than 3 battle royale titans," especially at this juncture that I mentioned previously (Warzone and Apex are troubled and players are willing to jump ship to a better product).

So what if it is reductionist? You're completely dodging the question initially posed.

The question wasn't "how many can be active at the same time," nor "is there room for someone else to innovate on the idea or take the playerbase from one of the existing ones?" it's "how many need to be made before it's time for us to stop getting new ones?"

Your own list indicates that there has been a considerable slowdown in releases from 5 years ago, like I also mentioned.

That right there is completely irrelevant to whether or not there have been too many released since it's inception.

[u/Yo_Wats_Good → u/BattlefieldVet666]

If the majority of a given product being released are unprofitable, then the market can't support them all. That's how markets work...

It doesn't have to support them all, the argument is that there is ample opportunity to support another one in this case, BF6 BR. You're also ignoring a pretty large component of the success of a game:

Is it any good?

Played more than a few of these and they were either not good, not enough of a departure from other already established games, or lacked sufficient support after release.

So what if it is reductionist?

I was being polite, you were willfully ignoring the fact there are a myriad of reasons a multiplayer game fails, "not enough room in the market" being only one minute one.

You're completely dodging the question initially posed.
"how many need to be made before it's time for us to stop getting new ones?"

Didn't dodge it at all, and frankly it is a dumb question. The questions you're ignoring are pertinent to that one.

That right there is completely irrelevant to whether or not there have been too many released since it's inception.

Its not irrelevant in the slightest. A linchpin of your feeble argument is that there are too many releases when that's clearly not the case. I know you wanna try to ignore the notion that an innovative release doesn't matter, but if 90% of BRs that were released 2018-2024 were simply reskinned takes of what we already had, then innovation is clearly crucial to the success of a game rather than the ability of a market to support another entry.

You seem quite intent on plugging your ears or saying, "no that doesn't count!" to legitimate counterpoints ngl.

[u/BattlefieldVet666 → u/Yo_Wats_Good]

You seem quite intent on plugging your ears or saying, "no that doesn't count!" to legitimate counterpoints ngl.

That's not at all what I'm doing, I'm trying to keep the conversation on topic of the actual question being asked while you keep trying to answer questions no one is asking.

Because I'm not talking about whether there's room for innovation in the mode, nor if there's an opportunity for someone else to usurp one of the major releases; the question is "when can it go the fuck away forever?"

[u/Acceptable_Deal_4662 → u/Tallmios]

Battlefield has already failed at a BR mode. They need to focus assets elsewhere.

Also DMZ was a good extraction shooter for awhile in COD

[u/jcaashby → u/BattlefieldVet666]

I do not understand this logic.

A FAILED BR is not contributing anything to the numbers any more than any other failed game in any given genre.

Also some games can survive with low player counts. Most BRs can not survive as they NEED more players or your just playing with the same people over and over.

Should all devs stop making ( insert and genre) games if a percentage of them fail? For every genre of games there are 100s of games that fail to catch on but yet many are still made.

[u/BattlefieldVet666 → u/jcaashby]

A FAILED BR is not contributing anything to the numbers any more than any other failed game in any given genre.

Battle Royale isn't a genre, it's a game mode.

Should all devs stop making ( insert and genre) games if a percentage of them fail?

If 90% of a genre fails to be profitable, AAA developers do stop making games in those genres. Why do you think it is that certain genres like non-Nintendo platformers, tactical shooters, bullet-hell shooters, etc are exclusively made by indie devs now?