Battlefield 6 Season 4 introduces naval combat with the release of the Tsuru Reef – the biggest map to date for the game. Recently, we caught up with Motive Game Director Roman Campos-Oriola to chat about everything new in the latest season.
How long was the development for a map this scale and usually how much playtesting was involved especially to balance the flow?
Roman: Our team is getting good at the Battlefield 6 pipeline and outputting maps and understanding what works – what it means to create a Battlefield map. It does not necessarily take longer to build a bigger map like Tsuru Reef. But the testing, yeah, it took… It took a lot of testing.
For multiple reasons, it’s the first map in Battlefield 6 that really uses the new wave system, and the new boats. That’s the map that we use to crash test all the systems and validate how they were playing, were they useful, how do you handle combat from water to a tank that is sitting on the capture point, and this kind of mechanics.
Is it cool to contest a capture point from the water with what we’re doing? What kind of impact can you have from sea to land? So there was a lot of iteration on tests around the development of the wave system.
Tsuru Reef is the first map to utilise all three elements of Land, Air and Sea – so from Roman’s discussion, it’s about stress testing all elements at play and how it fits especially with the wave system.
Roman: In terms of sheer scale of the map. It’s cool to have a big map, but you need to make sure that the pacing is still good. Like it has a different pace, of course, because it’s a much bigger map. So you have a longer phase of self preparation or approach to a certain area of the map – the flow especially in conquest. You want to maintain that sense of navigation in between capture points to maintain the correct pacing of the battle. And so mixing that with the water, the cliffs that you have in some places of the map, response time of vehicles and that kind of thing.
Like it took quite some iteration first internally, but also it’s a map that we tested on BF Labs. Once we started to get a feeling of, okay, we think we have the correct pacing, we felt also it was time to expand the community that would be able to play with it.
Wake Island is one of Battlefield’s most iconic maps. Were there any other classic Battlefield maps the team considered bringing back? Like Paracel Storm?
Roman: So we, of course, we have a lot. We have a big list of maps that we consider. It’s always a cool discussion when we decide to remake or rethink or rework a map. Which one are we going to pick? Why? What do we think people love? Looking at data stats. What personally, the team like, as a director, also like the team that is going to work on that map. What they want, what map they love, etc.
It’s a mix of multiple things. But like, you’re doing air, land, and sea – and you have a team that is passionate about Battlefield. The conclusion was pretty straightforward with that one.
The difficult choice was the team’s decision on which version of Wake Island they bring back and also how they bring it forward and create a Battlefield 6 experience.
Roman: The part where there was a bit where we actually did a lot of thinking and back and forth is, okay, so first, which version of Wake Island? That is, like, polished and perfect – it has been made a lot of time – you have a ton of data, so you know exactly how it works and why it works, etc.…there’s always room for improvement – or how do you make it feel like it’s a Battlefield 6 map, and not just a port from the past? So that was the really interesting part.
You have to test a lot of things and see what works and then go back to the drawing board, that part of the thinking of the process. That was really something about Wake Island.
We have all that power in terms of destruction in Battlefield 6, ok, how do we apply that to Wake Island? Which POI, which capture points would really benefit from having that? That was an interesting discussion.
I would not say necessarily improving Wake Island, because I really think, like Wake Island, its original form is, it’s an extremely good map. But it was adding a different flavour that would make it, okay, the flavour of Wake Island for BF6.
I’ve noticed the introduction of the EF88 Assault Rifle, Australia’s standard service rifle. Does this hint at the possibility of seeing Australian sub-factions joining NATO in the future, or perhaps even PAX Armata
Roman: So, you know, in the lore of Battlefield 6, Australia is aligned in the conflict, is aligned as a country with NATO. Now joining as a faction and being more represented in the game, that’s not something that we’re necessarily doing at the moment.
When I was trying out the new season, I was like, I know that weapon.
Roman: Yeah, honestly, it’s really cool, like, to fill a gap. It has a unique blend of rate of fire and range. We are really trying to position it in that area of the assault rifle. With the scale of those two maps for that season, I’m really eager to see how it’s going to influence the meta and, and some, decision in terms of gearing for players.
Battlefield 6 is already into Season 4. Looking back at the game’s launch, what have been the biggest lessons the team has learned, and how have those shaped the content and updates you’ve delivered since then?
Roman: We learned a lot of, obviously, like, it’s a, well, it’s a massive game with tons of systems. I would say for me what has been really interesting. It’s to understand and develop a strategy around the balance of experience, and especially the balance of experience for the map.
How we have to balance small versus medium versus large-scale maps. So that’s why, like, since season three and here in season four, like, we are releasing a much bigger and large-scale map. It’s not that we’re now just gonna release, like, monster gigantic maps. And then in the future season, most probably now that we’ve established a proper balance, we’ll maintain that kind of balance for the scale of the map.
Season 3, Phase 3, we did a massive patch in terms of combat and balancing of the combat. And now, like, we are looking at the data out of it, and seeing, okay, does that fit the vision that we have for each weapon in terms of time to kill, in terms of distance of engagement, et cetera. And so at the moment, that’s what we’re looking at. Leaving a bit of time for that meta to sell, and players really getting used to it, and find the proper configuration for those weapons, and then plan on the next step.
So, yeah, there’s definitely a lot of learning. We continue to support and build and improve the game around everything that we learn there.
Battlefield 6 Season 4 Phase 1 is out now. You can read our hands-on preview here.
