EA: Battlefield 3 tech raises FPS bar

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 2 March, 2011

Relishes battle with Call of Duty.

The technology underpinning DICE's stunning-looking Battlefield 3 will raise the first-person shooter bar, EA has confidently proclaimed.

The competition will find it "tough to match" the visual splendour served up by the Frostbite 2 engine, EA Games label head Frank Gibeau told the IndustryGamers at the Game Developers Conference last night.

Gibeau was clear in his assertion that Battlefield 3, due out later this year, will provide current FPS king Call of Duty with its toughest challenge in years.

"We're here to compete," he said. "Everyone loves a heavyweight battle. It's good for the industry, it's good for the customer - there's a lot of energy and hype and fun and comparisons.

"It's always good to see how you can energize a market by looking at how one guy can up the other. That's kind of what we're doing here."

EA showed the game off to press last night at GDC, but Eurogamer popped on the plane to DICE's Stockholm studio for a closer look.

Gibeau was pleased with the reveal - and the hot off the press gameplay trailer, below.

"We're super proud of the game," he said. "The Frostbite 2 technology is reinventing the category, and the Battlefield brand has its own persona and positioning, the multiplayer and squads.

"The combination of the brand and the technology and the quality of the DICE game is what we wanted to show tonight.

"We wanted to show unadulterated gameplay and show it for a long time, in February, and because we don't ship until the Fall it means we have a long time to polish it and make it extremely high quality.

"It's what we've been trying to do in the EA Games label over the last couple years - get our mojo back in terms of quality and great IPs. For me, this is a great example of investments we've been making in technology, team culture and getting the talent in place to make world-beating games.

"We're going to own what we do because we're going to leapfrog the category by introducing a whole new set of technology that's brand-new. The Frostbite 2 technology is going to help us do things in games and shooters that haven't been done before and will be tough for [the competition] to match."

Picture of Wesley.

About Wesley Yin-Poole

Wesley is Eurogamer's news editor. He likes news, interviews, and more news. He also likes Street Fighter more than anyone can get him to shut up about it.

Read more articles from Wesley by visiting the Wesley Yin-Poole archive page.

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Comments (26) Latest comment 1 year ago

Comments for this article are now closed, but please feel free to continue chatting on the forum!

  • Esnedon #1 1 year ago

    They actually think that graphics are the reason Call of Duty is dominating the market?

  • aphex187 #2 1 year ago

    I'm done with COD anyway so this will be my purchase going into the latter half of the year and i can not frickin wait!!!!!!

  • carlitoswagon #3 1 year ago

    Amen brother.

  • GamesConnoisseur #4 1 year ago

    Excellent, loved Battlefield for it's MP games and yes unfortulately a goddamn lot of us are graphic whores, you only need to check out posts in EG and other places, to see a huge amount of the traffic is related to 'my fav game looks better than yours.'

    However the MP purists would expects all the features that goes into a very solid mp games, and apparently some means of blocking out the crassest of COD KDR whores?!

  • Moonprince #5 1 year ago

    Well, its certainly not the gameplay esnedon.

  • inutaihanyou #6 1 year ago

    Well it certainly shouldn't be hard to surpass the tech now should it? Considering that the real innovation in COD has been fired and made Respawn, while Activision seems content to shit out an annual sequal with minor improvements to a 5 year old engine, your new tech better damn well be better Dice!

  • 00.00.01 #7 1 year ago

    *Wins battle with Call of Duty*
    .
    Fixed.

  • Murton #8 1 year ago

    Erm, Call of Duty is pretty lacking in the technical department. They've been updating the same engine for years now, every other shooter surpassed COD a long time ago, Battlefield being among the first to do so. I think what they're trying to say is that the new engine will look so good and pack so many new features that COD will look decidedly last gen in comparison, which unfortunately means nothing as COD isn't a game anymore but a brand and the Dave's will continue to buy COD regardless of what else is out there or how good it looks. To them Battlefield is nothing more than something to hold their attention until the next COD release, EA would do well to recognise that and aim Battlefield at the more discerning gamer who is looking for a little more depth in their FPS game.

  • Scopeh #9 1 year ago

    As long as you love your PC gamers then it will succeed!

  • Spekingur #10 1 year ago

    As long as BF3 keeps with the Battlefield theme of larger scale battles rather than CODs so-close-it-is-actually-melee combat.

  • SwitchBladeUK #11 1 year ago

    He's not talking just about graphics (gotta admit it does look pretty though). They have implemented EA's internal animation tool into the engine called "ANT". It is used across EA sports titles to create believable and realistic character animation. And let's not forget the destructibility that the Frostbite Engine 2.0 brings to the table. It's gonna be one sweet fucking package boys and girls!

  • FogHeart #12 1 year ago

    They can only fight COD on the quality front, but they need to be twice as good to do half as well. COD has that thing that is a marketing man's dream.

    Dave1 has it because Dave2 has it, and Dave2 has it because Dave 3 has it, and Dave3.....because Daven has it.

    And Daven bought it because the last release was bought by Daven-1, who bought it last time around because Daven-2 did...

  • lordofthedunce #13 1 year ago

    The footage I've seen so far has certainly 'raised my bar'.

    /matron

  • BishBashRoss #14 1 year ago

    For all that the Battlefield series does right, there's one thing that the BC and BC2 lacked in comparison to COD and that was the feel. When you first pick up the controller in COD it feels rock solid, sadly the same can't be said for BC2. If they get this right in B3 (and I really hope they do) I think they can convert a lot of COD fans.

  • TheEarlOfZinger #15 1 year ago

    A big majority of COD players don't really seem to understand teamwork either. More interested in perks and killstreaks. That's why no matter how quality the BF product, they just don't get it.

    I'd rather they weren't holding my team/squad back anyway - BF3 will have more than enough players on

    A/ PC, it's massive obviously

    and B/ consoles, based off the success of BFBC2.

  • geeza2020 #16 1 year ago

    so its everybody called Dave's fault that CoD's so succesful eh? Fucking right, thats it.

    /gets long coat, machete, goes looking for people called Dave/n.

  • jedi99 #17 1 year ago

    At last, ingame footage that's done on the PC and not consoles. Sick and tired seeing Xbox360 trailers. This looks amazing!!!

  • Tryhard #18 1 year ago

    Put so many hours into BC2 MP and still do even though I hit rank 50. EA you don't need to win me over.Just get your freaking servers sorted for BF3.
    Edited by Tryhard at 02/03/11 @ 11:55

  • Quixz #19 1 year ago

    I feel sorry for the flashpoint guys the odds are so against them :(

  • Hei #20 1 year ago

    I just hope it isn't as bad as Dante's Inferno

  • CamoChris #21 1 year ago

    One thing I like about CoD over Battlefield, on the consoles, is that CoD runs at 60fps and BF only runs at 30fps. CoD feels so much smoother and responsive, BF almost feels like playing in slow motion in comparison. If you want to compare the games technically I think frame rate is just as important as the visual quality of the graphics, in fact I'd rather have worse graphics with 60fps than better ones at 30fps, especially in a FPS.

  • Tryhard #22 1 year ago

    I'd rather have tanks,heli's,UAV,boats,gun emplacements,destructable enviroment than 60 fps.

  • SFG_Clan #23 1 year ago

    looks so good

  • DAN.E.B #24 1 year ago

    Wow I just hope the 360 version looks as good as this!
    Im just gutted it wont be out until november

  • gjgjg #25 1 year ago

    blows cod out of the water :p
    lol me

  • GibboMayhem #26 1 year ago

    I played a really shitty fps (Breach) the other day, it reminded me of playing COD with the ability to destroy your surroundings.
    I've always been a supporter of the BF franchise since its first release with BF 1942 back in the day. It's a lot more team orientated then Rambo orientated which I prefer. I shall now be purchasing a new gaming rig for this title.