Battlefield 3: you don't have to kill cops

By Wesley Yin-Poole Published 21 October, 2011

But it's really hard not to, says DICE.

You don't have to kill cops to complete an objective in Battlefield 3, developer DICE has confirmed.

Earlier this month US ratings board the ESRB revealed that in one sequence in Battlefield 3, "players shoot police officers to complete a mission objective."

In response, EA issued Eurogamer the following statement: "I don't think you understand the gravity of the situation. For God's sake, there is a nuke in Paris! Millions of lives are at stake!!"

But the mention of shooting police officers conflicted with comments made by the game's producer Patrick Bach earlier this year.

"If you put the player in front of a choice where they can do good things or bad things, they will do bad things, go dark side - because people think it's cool to be naughty, they won't be caught," he explained.

"We have to build our experiences so we don't put the player in experiences where they can do bad things."

When Eurogamer asked Bach about this at an EA event earlier this week, he revealed that Battlefield 3 does not force you to shoot police in the sequence mentioned by the ESRB - but admitted it would be tough not to.

"The objective is not to shoot the police," Bach said. "What I believe is important is you don't shoot at people who aren't a threat to you. You don't shoot at civilians. You don't shoot at people who don't have guns and shoot back at you. There is a moment in the game where you're surrounded by police, yes, but the game is not about shooting cops."

"It's really hard, but you can [complete the objective without killing the cops]. They will shoot at you. It's not that they're policemen giving out tickets to parked cars. It's people shooting you actively. It's a threat."

Battlefield 3's campaign is set near the Iraq-Iran border, where US Marines are fighting the People's Liberation and Resistance.

Bach said the story fuelling the campaign revolves around the difficult decisions soldiers are forced to make during war.

"The interesting thing here is the whole premise of the story is, what do you have to do wrong to get things right? It's the moral dilemma of, first of all war in general, but also the situations we end up in with hostile threats. What is right and what is wrong? What do you need to do to get to the bottom line of what is right for the situation? What you're referring to is one of those situations in the game, but there are also other situations in the game that are much broader when it comes to the personal dilemma of doing right.

"That doesn't mean we shoot civilians. That's really important. Our take on the genre is not to be a superhero or be the one man army. It's more the personal choices you have to go through if you end up in extreme situations like this. Also, the whole story revolves around this dilemma: how far would you go to protect your country or the world, even? There are some interesting twists in there."

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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