[DICE] SlyOkapi | 09.06.13
Whether you help your team by sniping from afar or run and gun with an assault rifle at the frontlines, choice is king. Weapon customization in Battlefield 4 will be deeper than ever, thanks to a powerful feature set that lets you adapt your gear to fit any combat role. In a new The Road to Battlefield 4 we cover these extreme customization options.
As with many other aspects of Battlefield 4, fan feedback has been crucial in making the weapon options better than ever. We’ve always strived for great weapon balance and numerous customization possibilities over the years, and now you can expect an even greater amount of depth. Listening to our fans, we’ve worked with everything from perfecting that sense of “oomph” in our guns, to bringing back some favorite weapons to Battlefield 4 – all of which have been completely rebalanced.
More weapon accessories, more accessory slots
The first thing you’ll notice while choosing your weapons in Battlefield 4 is the sheer number of weapons and accessories we’ve packed the game with. This time around, we have more than tripled the number of available accessories and increased the number of available slots where you can install them. Coupled with the amount of available weapons in the game, the number of potential combinations of weapons and accessories is nothing short of astronomical.
To give you a brief example of the vast amount of weapon variety you’ll get in Battlefield 4, let’s multiply the number of customization options you have on a single assault rifle. With everything from optics, other accessories and camos, you’ll end up with more than 240,000 variations – and that’s for one single weapon in your arsenal!
No matter which weapon type and combat role you prefer, you’ll be able to deeply customize your firearms in Battlefield 4 to fit your play style.
Notice the difference
With this depth of customization, it’s a good thing we’ve greatly enhanced the feedback to players on exactly how each accessory affects the weapon’s in-game performance. Browsing through the accessories, you’ll notice a handy visual guide on the right part of your screen. Here, weapon stats such as damage, accuracy, hip fire accuracy, range, and stability are displayed in easy to read bars – so you can immediately gauge what effect equipping a certain accessory has. Slap on the Laser Sight, for instance, and you’ll see the hip fire (accuracy) bar go up. Attach an Angled Grip on a rifle and you’ll notice an increase in the weapon’s stability. This interface is designed to encourage experimentation and make your Battlefield 4 experience even more rewarding.
Adaptive camos match your surroundings
When it comes to weapon customization, the icing on the cake comes from the possibility to pick a camouflage for your firearms. In Battlefield 4 we’ve greatly increased the number of camos you can choose from, and divided them into different sections including Autumn, Desert, Naval, Snow, Urban and Woodland. These paints will in turn come in 16 different pattern variations each. Not only are you able to choose dozens of paints, we’re also introducing something new: adaptive camouflages. With one of these equipped, the paint adapts to the environment in the level you’re playing. Fighting at sea on the Paracel Storm map, the adaptive camo will make you blend in with the blues, greys and greens on the level. If you were to bring the same adaptive camo to a more urban map like Siege of Shanghai, the camo would be more grey/black in tone when you spawn into the map.
Recon players will find increased optics variety and the option to manuall zero his rifle to better judge the effects of bullet drop when engaging long range targets.
New sniper options: Zero your rifle, add 40X scope
One new feature for all you Battlefield snipers out there is the ability to “zero” your rifle scope. When aiming at a remote enemy you can estimate the distance to your target. After you’ve figured out if your prey is 200, 500 or maybe even 1,000 meters away, you can calibrate your scope to compensate for the bullet drop that comes with long range shots. Zeroing your scope is an advanced technique and won’t make you perform perfect headshots every time, but for those skilled enough to approximate distance it will be a welcome strategic addition. To bring even more variety to all of our Recon players, we’ve also added a 40X zoom scope for extreme long-distance sniping, as well as a new 2X scope magnifier that you can bring to the front of existing 1X scopes to increase your optics options on the fly.
Powerful Battle Pickups lets you try new hardware
Aside from locating Conquest flags and Obliteration bombs there’s something new to keep an eye out for in Battlefield 4: Battle Pickups. These powerful weapons will be placed on specific parts of all the maps in most game modes, and knowledge of these can swing the battle in your favor. Take the .50 cal sniper rifle on the Paracel Storm map, for example. This Battle Pickup will affect both the battle and the player in certain ways. This sniper rifle can be found on the radar dish walkway high above the battlefield – the perfect spot for some sniping practice. The idea is to emphasize the strategic value of a specific position in question to the player, and to incite players to try out new types of gameplay. So even if you don’t spawn in on Paracel Storm as a Recon soldier, maybe the sniper rifle Battle Pickup will make you take the role of a sniper, at least momentarily. The area around Battle Pickups will also turn into minor hot spots for the map and create new and dynamic gameplay moments. But be advised: All Battle Pickups have limited ammo, so you need to make every shot count.
Extreme Weapon Makeover – including your handgun!
Here to give you an example of how you can customize two rifles in two totally different ways is Core Gameplay Lead Designer Alan Kertz. Alan will also reveal the ability to fully customize your hand gun in Battlefield 4, an all-new feature for the series. You can follow his customization tips in the below in-game footage from the game as well (captured from an Alpha version of Battlefield 4). Take it away, Alan!
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ALAN KERTZ: Okay. Let’s say I’m preparing for a round of Obliteration on the Paracel Storm map and I intend to run and gun and fire at close range on the central island. Then I could start off with the default Chinese assault rifle. First, I would want to attach a red dot sight to get that clear aim down the sight. Then I choose the canted iron sight, which lets me switch between two different sights on the same gun. Now I’ve got two different zoom options with the same gun. I also want to be stealthy and sneak up close on people, and for that I’d choose a Chinese suppressor, which will hide me on the minimap and make it harder for close range enemies to find and shoot back at me. I’d also go with the new Ergo Grip that makes me more accurate when I’m shooting while moving.
Battlefield 4 has some pretty long range infantry combat, so one of the things we’ve done is to give each class access to some long range guns. So let’s say we start with one of the semi-automatic rifles that every class can get, that’s fitting for long range. I’ll attach a long range scope that gives me 4X magnification and choose the canted iron sight so I still can fight a little bit up close and tilt the gun 45 degrees. After that I’ll put a heavy barrel on it to bump up my accuracy and give me that reach to really touch somebody. I’ll use the angled grip in order to control recoil on that first shot – that’s going to put things on target at long range. And as a final touch, let’s put some flare on it by choosing the naval camo. Now I’m going to fit in with the environment in Paracel Storm. They won’t see me coming!
Finally, this time around you can also customize your secondary weapon. This is another example of how everything is up to the player in Battlefield 4. Let’s say you pick up one of our many available pistols. Maybe you don’t like the default iron sight very much, then you can use a red dot scope to give you that clear sight picture. Throw on a tri-beam laser sight for more mobility and that Predator feel, and suppress it as well. Now your gun is different to everybody else’s, especially if you put your favorite paint on it. This way, each weapon in Battlefield 4 becomes a personal object.
Prepared 4 Battle
Battlefield 4 will give you endless creative and strategic possibilities while you’re customizing your weapon. You will be able to fine-tune your weapon loadout exactly the way you want it to maximize your chances of dominating the Battlefield and fitting your personal play style. All the while, we’ve made sure to make this incredibly deep customization comprehensible and accessible in new ways. In other words: just the thing you need when Preparing 4 Battle.
Stay tuned to “The Road to Battlefield 4”, where we’ll continue the journey towards launch by diving deeper and deeper into every nuance of the biggest Battlefield game ever developed at DICE.
Until then, let us know what you think about this blog post, vote in the poll below, and tell us what questions you want us to answer in the upcoming posts. Thanks for reading!
THE DEPICTION OF ANY WEAPONS OR VEHICLE IN THIS GAME DOES NOT INDICATE AFFILIATION, SPONSORSHIP OR ENDORSEMENT BY ANY WEAPON OR VEHICLE MANUFACTURER.
