Battlefield 3: "no supervillains"

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 5 July, 2011

DICE doesn't want to pick sides.

Battlefield 3 won't follow fellow military shooter Call of Duty's lead and feature cackling Russian supervillains, developer DICE has said.

"No, no supervillains," executive producer Patrick Bach told Edge.

"But you still want your enemy to be clear; you still want your player character to have a clear motivation - that's something we're working on to find the right balance."

Neither will Battlefield 3 court controversy with an overtly political message contained within its globetrotting campaign, which sees US troops involved in a Russian invasion of France.

"First of all: it's fiction," Bach insisted.

"We're not trying to base it on any political or religious conflict - controversy is probably a good marketing tool, but we make games.

"Our goal isn't to make controversy. I don't want people to feel bad playing our game. Our goal is to create a fun, entertaining experience. So we are trying to stay away from things that are real - authentic and real don't have to be the same thing."

Bach said DICE, as a Swedish developer, is "neutral on paper".

"We have a tendency to not take sides. I think that reflects in our games. When we say Russians versus Americans, it's like Red versus Blue.

"We try not to depict the reasons for the war, because then it can end up in a very bad place. We depict it from the perspective of an individual rather than an army - it's about you as a soldier on the battlefield, because no matter who you are or on what side you are, it's still drama.

"I don't want to create a war simulation or a game which picks sides. I think that would be tasteless."

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 (48) Latest comment 11 months ago

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

  • Genyus #1 11 months ago

    Dice needs to stop focusing on CoD and justifying every decision they make in comparison to them, we all know you are way better than that game.
    Edited by Genyus at 05/07/11 @ 14:42

  • oceanclub #2 11 months ago

    "Bach said DICE, as a Swedish developer, is "neutral on paper""

    Tsk.

    "I hate these filthy neutrals Kif! With enemies you know where they stand but with neutrals? Who knows! It sickens me." - Zapp Brannigan

    P.

  • Eraysor #3 11 months ago

    Love to know if there's anywhere Russia hasn't invaded yet. The moon? Oh wait, Yuri's Revenge...

  • darkos87 #4 11 months ago

    Just show us some proper console footage and be done with it. They are committing the same mistake Crytek did marketing Crysis2, showing us little gameplay from a souped up pc version, yes we know it looks fucking great, just show me how it looks when I'm playing it on my console DAMMIT.

  • Dannyboy1100 #5 11 months ago

    Focus on the game not CoD...

  • Moonprince #6 11 months ago

    I don't see where they reference COD - EG does. So why are you bitch whinging about BF talking about COD when they don't appear to be..?

  • deadstoned #7 11 months ago

    To be honest I'm not really expecting much from the Single Player, other than it being one long pretty tutorial for Multiplayer. If it can have a good story though and good action set pieces I might replay it more than once :) .

    /Played 262 hours of BFBC2 Multiplayer, played 30mins of singleplayer :-/
    Edited by deadstoned at 05/07/11 @ 14:56

  • CaptainQuint #8 11 months ago

    What, no mention of the "crucial" lack of 30fps on consoles this time, EG?

    Tut tut, you're letting the side down.

  • bratmandu #9 11 months ago

    What makes a man turn neutral? Lust for gold? Power? Or were you just born with a heart full of neutrality?

  • geeza2020 #10 11 months ago

    I'm still missing two insignias from BFBC2 - 100 mine kills, and two platinum stars. Still miles off the last acheivement for getting a certain number of demo 2.0 kills as well. And I've logged well over 110 hours so far. If the multiplayer keeps me hooked for that long in BF3, they can do whatever they want with the singleplayer campaign.

  • Ikaros_O #11 11 months ago

    Where do they mention CoD? EG need to stop trying to cause a stir, just report the news and stop making shit up.

  • Snufkin #12 11 months ago

    I find this quite refreshing. I'm sick of playing as gung-ho westerners on a moral mission of self-righteous justice, when in fact most real-world conflicts have very muddy ethics and motivations behind them.

    I seem to sense a bit of a backlash against DICE on these forums. Everyone needs to chill a bit. I expect they aren't showing much in the way of BF3 console footage because the game is still MONTHS away and they don't want to freak people out by showing anything less than solid alpha footage.

  • Jolly_Armadillo #13 11 months ago

    @darkos87

    There was a link to an American chat dhow from the eurogamer site that showed ps3 footage.

  • Spekingur #14 11 months ago

    How can Dice not focus on CoD if the main bulk of the questions they get asked by gaming journalists is about how their game compares to Call of Duty? :p

  • danjfor #15 11 months ago

    So, what, it's just a coincidence that we're playing as Americans and the baddies are Russians then? Come on. Just once I wish a shooter WOULD court controversy with an overtly political message contained within its globetrotting campaign. Every big FPS developer comes out and says their game isn't political, but it's bollocks; you can't just decide that your massive multi-million-selling product magically doesn't count as part of culture. You're taking real countries, real armies, real guns -- that came from real histories, real politics, and real arms industries -- and crafting a narrative about them, and when there're loads of other games using the same countries, armies, and guns in similar configurations, that has a cultural effect. What they're actually saying is that Battlefield 3 will trundle along in a safe spot in the pop-cultural zeitgeist, rather than do anything to subvert or challenge it. Narrative-wise, games are gonna remain a laughing stock as a narrative art as long as developers keep covering their ears and being all lalala our game is not a cultural artifact lalala we're in a political vacuum lalala can't hear you!

    If I didn't know better I'd think EA were shite-scared to rock the boat because there were millions of pounds at stake...

  • mukki #16 11 months ago

    ah really...
    irrelevant
    these game are really all about the multiplayer
    with the single player campaigns feeling like a lame Michael Bay movie (which is nothing terrible mind you but narrative junk food)

  • Subdominator #17 11 months ago

    A war simulation is tasteless, no reason to pretend it isn't by not picking sides. Unless killing people is a good thing.

    #16 20 million MW2 buyers, 12 million never played multiplayer according to Activision. So no, it is not about multiplayer, it is about the shitty Michael Bay campaign.

  • rob_of_the_robots #18 11 months ago

    Does that mean we'll be able to take on the campaign from both sides? Kind of like BF 1942.

  • Ikaros_O #19 11 months ago

    Its main focus may be on multi but it needs a decent single player. I've also maintained that you can't sell a game at RRP if the single player is woeful. It's absurd that so many people are aright with this, games should be able to hold up through single player alone, not multi as no matter how good it is there will always be problems that no one can control, like router or connection speed for example.

  • username84 #20 11 months ago

    @Moonprince

    I'm as bored with cod bashing as the next man. However I think the comments above are referring to the wording used by Dice. Deliberately and blatantly pointing fingers at cod without directly attacking it. Such as.. "controversy is probably a good marketing tool, but we make games. " is a dig at No Russian.

  • DwarfyP #21 11 months ago

    Sweden was far from neutral during World War II. They provided the Nazi's with plenty of supplies. How does that factor in to their games? :)

  • gav082 #22 11 months ago

    @17 Just because a lot of people played the single player campaign in cod, doesn't mean that battlefields game is about the single player. And even if more people play the single player over the multiplayer in BF3, that doesn't mean its about the single player. Just because something is popular doesn't make it correct. Battlefields history is deeply rooted in the field of multiplayer, a lot of their games don't even have a single player campaign. If millions of people miss out on that they have done them selves an injustice.

  • FireMonkey #23 11 months ago

    @Darkos87 - "Just show us some proper console footage and be done with it."

    Do you see that linked video? Do you see the controller? Does that look familiar?

    Yep, it's a PS3 controller. That demo was on PS3. They haven't shown 360 yet, but I doubt it'll be to different to the PS3 version shown.

  • Bremenacht #24 11 months ago

    "controversy is probably a good marketing tool, but we make games."

    "Our goal is to create a fun, entertaining experience. So we are trying to stay away from things that are real - authentic and real don't have to be the same thing."

    Amen to that.

  • FogHeart #25 11 months ago

    The problem is that there's a certain...country...that, as a Mr Scarface observed, need to able to point their fingers and say "That's the bad guy." They don't sit well with moral ambiguities. Probably something of their Puritan ancestors in all of them.

  • Spekingur #26 11 months ago

    I'm still waiting for a proper WW2 aftermath FPS where Nazis took over the whole of Europe and you must play as either a selection of Resistance fighters in selective countries. To provide it with some controversy you could also be able to play as a Nazi soldier fighting the Resistance (and possibly attacking Russia to take it over).
    Alternate history in a parallel universe for the win.

  • Matthew_Greg #27 11 months ago

    Darkos87 - Ehm. As far a i know, Crytek did show us gameplay footage from PS3 verzion of Crysis 2. It was like 12 mins long i guess.

  • Shotofen #28 11 months ago

    Really? The Russians are invading a Western country in a video game again (for probably no real reason)?! Christ, the Cold War would've been damn hot if it had been run by game developers eh? The predictability of these modern war shooter games is getting old.

  • GooseUK #29 11 months ago

    DICE.

    Doing It Correctly Every-time

  • TomDent93 #30 11 months ago

    So, who's fed up of the whole battlefield vs mw3 thing?

    Pretty obvious they are both going to be successful and each will have their own fanbase.

  • chessboxer #31 11 months ago

    Did Battlefield 2/2142 have proper SP modes with a story attached (like the Bad Company franchise) or was it just there to familiarise the gamer with the online modes? I do have them but they're not currently installed so can't quickly check.

    I would be very happy if DICE give BF3 a proper campaign. Even better if it's a decent length one, unlike MOH or any of the COD titles since COD4 launched.

  • coolbritannia #32 11 months ago

    I'd quite like to play as a soldier from a small country, or a rag tag gunman in an African civil war. Somewhere small scale battles actually make a difference, and getting to a helicopter or a truck mounted gun can really turn the tide.

    And put civilians on the battlefield. Let us make a moral choice, of saving them and potentially losing, or winning at a terrible cost.

  • DevilsNeverCry #33 11 months ago

    It does get tiring hearing all these comparisons but I guess the devs have gotta do a little 'smack talking' about the competition to heat things up.

    And although it isn't DIRECTLY mentioned, those are references to plot points in the CoD games. If you ask me there is nothing wrong with that. It doesn't detract from CoDs success in any way but it just acts as a way to show where similarities in narrative may begin and end.

    I also disagree with the comments about BFBC2 not having a good narrative? I enjoyed it all the way through and even played it over twice. Although I am in agreement that the BF series is really at such a high level of prestige for it's MP prowess. I can't recall how many hours I played in BF2 online or 2142 and it didnt bother me ONE BIT that they were missing a single player mode!

  • Skooch #34 11 months ago

    I am quite surprised at the charged feelings in this comments thread. For modern FPSs the buzzword is 'realism' which means that yes they do use real guns, real countries, real vehicles etc. They have to put someone against somebody else to make a war game and we would all take the piss if it was Luxembourg versus Peru. Yes, they often pick the classic match-ups (Russia vs. America, Germans vs. World) but only because this adds a basic level of legitimacy to the game. For all the moaning what would anyone here do differently? Suggestions welcome because if I was making a war game I might do just the same as Dice or IW.

  • metalangel #35 11 months ago

    You can be US/Europeans invading Russia (who is allied with China) in Frontlines, if you're desperate to be the evil invaders.

  • Mister-Wario #36 11 months ago

    "We’re not trying to base it on any political or religious conflict - controversy is probably a good marketing tool, but we make games".

    These two ideas don't have to be mutually exclusive, though. Bioshock was a game about the collapse of Objectivism in the 1950s. When games can feel confident about tackling these issues without coming across as cheap or tasteless, then I will be impressed. If, indeed, these issues can be tackled at all.

    "We try not to depict the reasons for the war, because then it can end up in a very bad place".

    Somehow I find this incredibly depressing. Fighting for the sake of fighting? Massive death and destruction for a vague, unclear goal? Maybe you ARE being controversial after all.
    Edited by Mister-Wario at 05/07/11 @ 19:31

  • Talbot #37 11 months ago

    Playing as Americans is about as cliché as it fucking comes - so bored of it.

    2142 appealed to me because it was something new. Now we're back to M16's and AK47's AGAIN.

    Unless they release a demo I will be downloading and playing a cracked version of this before I even think about punching my numbers in.

  • DrStrangelove #38 11 months ago

    I find devs should create more credible situations and characters. In reality, from one point of view the other side is quite bad, but from their point of view, it's vice versa. Even when it seems like madness from the outside, the different views can usually be quite comprehensible.

    I wish games would reflect this too, but usually they're really one-dimensional. Every war game should allow you to play on both sides, but with a realistic background, not in the usual comic book way.

  • jamesworkshop #39 11 months ago

    Never understood how a series defined by Russians stomping Americans (or WW2 axis forces in the old games) into dust is considered to be anti-russian, They seem to do pretty well for themselves.

    Lol at the implication of COD containing a "overtly political message"

  • danjfor #40 11 months ago

    @Skooch

    The problem is that it's not realistic; it's a load of real-world guns and uniforms and camouflages applied to a fictional war that has absolutely no resemblance to real modern conflict. How does Russia vs. America add legitimacy to the game? At what point in history has there been a large-scale conventional conflict between Russia and America, of the type seen in BF3, or MW2, or Homefront, or any of those games?

    These games aren't about dealing with war as its actually experienced by America the world today, because combating irregular insurgencies and hearts-and-mindsing civilians doesn't make for big levels filled with loads of baddies that you won't feel guilty about shooting. The game comes first, the real-world painting second; they didn't look at real-world modern conflict and decide that a level-by-level shooting-gallery with vehicle bits and a good multiplayer mode would be an accurate reflection of it. This is why they're mostly about bringing the most outlandish, reactionary American/western nightmare scenarios to life, because that's divorced enough from reality that you can have a good laugh with the AC-130 level without feeling bad, while also retaining enough emotional impact (oh my god the Russians have the White House! sum of all fears!) to feel important and moving. BF3's clearly less lurid than Modern Warfare, but it's the same kind of tactic.

    Which is fine and all, I'm sure BF3 will be cracking stuff, but you can't make that kind of game and then also declare it tasteful, and that it doesn't count as another bit of fear-mongering fantasist nonsense choking up our popular culture. "I don't want to create a war simulation or a game which picks sides. I think that would be tasteless." A game designed specifically to make murdering people fun, with real-world references cherry-picked on the basis of the player's most likely fantasies and fears to deliver him/her the most pleasure and least perspective possible - that's tasteless. Trying to justify it just insults our intelligence.

  • kingcobra #41 11 months ago

    Does anybody know if there will be bots in multiplayer ? Thx

  • thomaspower0 #42 11 months ago

    CoD is like the same car every time, but with a different paintjob. Fuck that game.

  • FireMonkey #43 11 months ago

    @Chessboxer - Not sure about on consoles, but on PC the Bad Company series has so far been the only one with a single player campaign. All the others had the same maps as multiplayer but you played against bots.

    Those bots were really dumb though. Was a great laugh setting it to play against a stupidly uneven number of bots though and then driving jeeps over about 20 of them running along in a straight line.

  • metalangel #44 11 months ago

    @danjfor: fighting Russia in games is mostly for induling what-if fantasies of the various cold war weapons and vehicles against each other. Homefront wasn't Russia but Korea, who use a mixture of American, Russian and their own equipment (it's explicitly stated in game that when arming themselves they picked the best equipment from around the world)

    If you want a realistic conflict, ArmA2. Disarm IEDs, get ambushed by insurgents as you drive through a valley, differentiate between friendly and enemy militias.

  • RFturrican #45 11 months ago

    "Bach said DICE, as a Swedish developer, is "neutral on paper"

    You know, I had no IKEA.....

  • Zander #46 11 months ago

    But by making Russia the invaders, USA are again the heroes... so it is (traditionally viewed in the West) good vs bad. I wanna play as a Chinese soldier fighting a Taiwan/USA invasion or something. Basically switch the view around. We all know the Western powers love to be viewed as good, but sadly we are all just as bad as each other.

    I remember even in Killzone... a game by a European team who decided Americans/ISA (as they were voiced) = good & British/Nazi/Helgast (as they were voiced / portrayed) = bad. For once make it the other way around.

    Surely American consumers aren't that self-loving that they can't take a bit of stick?

  • The-Bodybuilder #47 11 months ago

    "When we say Russians versus Americans, it's like Red versus Blue."

    And Red are bad, right?
    If it's all just colour, can I play as a Russian and shoot Americans? What's that? No I can't?

  • Architect_z #48 11 months ago

    No Supervillans!?

    Damn, I was hopeing M. Bison was gonna be working with the Russians!

    EDIT: Can't you make the Russians the good guys and allow us to destroy America! That would be so sweet, put me in a MIG and i'll be sure to bomb some donut eating S.O.B.'s
    Edited by Architect_z at 06/07/11 @ 12:22