Out of nowhere, the teams working on Battlefield over at EA have dropped a bunch of high-level details on a new entry in the series, which is expected to launch in the next year or two. The headlines here are that DICE & co. are "getting back to the core of Battlefield" with a modern setting - and direct inspiration from some of the series' biggest hits.
Those hits are primarily Battlefield 3 and Battlefield 4, which new head of the franchise Vince Zampella has shouted out in a revealing interview with IGN. Here's where Vince mentions these two ever-popular BF titles, and how they're directly influencing the next Battlefield game.
"I mean, if you look back to the peak or the pinnacle of Battlefield, it's that Battlefield 3... Battlefield 4 era where everything was modern. And I think we have to get back to the core of what Battlefield is and do that amazingly well, and then we'll see where it goes from there.
But I think for me, it's that peak of Battlefield-ness is in that Battlefield 3 and 4 days. So I think it's nostalgic for players, for me, for the teams even. Those are kind of the heyday...although I would say 1942 also."
As part of this interview, the team has also revealed the first piece of concept art for the game, which you can view in the tweet down below. The image appears to depict a European city of some sort, half on fire; an element that has the potential for some 'levolution' style impact much like the BF4 days.
In closing, Vince is hesitant to give any hints at the development timeline for this future Battlefield game, but the lead does announce that some sort of pre-launch community program is being worked on - to be "announced next year".
"We have a program that we're going to announce next year around getting more community in, because that's kind of the core of what we have to do — get the community back on our side, get that trust back."
The rest of the interview is rather cagey, but the conversation does lead to chatter about Battlefield 2042 and the team's learnings from that game, alongside some other hints at classic BF features returning in this next series entry.