Battlefield 1943 Preview

By Christian Donlan Published 26 February, 2009

Pacific Heights.

The grass is a brilliant green, the sky a perfect blue, and down towards the sandy beaches, with their artfully ragged lines of gently swaying palms, I can just make out a hint of bleached white rock. Looking around, this could be the Greenhill Zone, were it not for a few important distinctions, the first of which is the thick plume of black smoke rising ominously from the distant jungle. And the second? The second is the fact that I'm currently under fairly heavy gunfire. Who knows? Maybe Shadow's knocking about nearby.

And so I return to Wake Island, a balmy South Pacific hell-hole where visitors can spend the day relaxing inside scarred concrete bunkers, dine at dusk on the scrubbed decks of an ever-circling battleship, and then, when night falls, wander out for a gentle stroll along the golden sands, taking in the view and shrugging off the odd headshot. As long as there have been Battlefield games, there's been this particular battlefield - it debuted with the demo for 1942, and has been cropping up ever since, even making a surprise appearance in the hit-and-miss 2142 instalment. It's familiar territory, but not unpleasantly so, and spawning there in the forthcoming Battlefield 1943 feels like coming home. The years have apparently been kind, too: DICE's latest sees Wake Island tweaked, rebalanced, and raring to soak up even more of your blood.

A spiritual reworking of the first Battlefield, 1943 is a title that's been heavily shaped by its new platforms: alongside the PC version, the game will be appearing on XBLA and PSN this summer. Launching an exclusively multiplayer title on these services is a risk few developers have chosen to take so far, but if any franchise could pull it off, it's probably this one, particularly since its attempts at single-player campaigns have almost always underwhelmed.

The most obvious change with the new game is just how much weight it has shed in the transition to digital distribution. When you load up 1943 this summer, you'll find yourself with just three maps, three classes, and one game mode - multiplayer Conquest, the classic Battlefield standard-bearer in which teams compete for capture points in order to cripple their enemy's ability to respawn.

'Battlefield 1943' Screenshot 1

Wing-walking exploit fans will be disappointed - it isn't possible here. Instead, it's been deliberately built into the free-to-play Battlefield Heroes.

Playing as the Japanese, hitting the Wake Island shore, and then fighting up the beach and into a nearby airfield, it quickly becomes clear that, if 1943 is less than a full port, it's also often more. The game has been rebuilt from the ground up, using Bad Company's Frostbite engine, and that means that, as well as looking significantly prettier than it used to, its buildings and trees are now destructible. Within seconds I'm racing through the underbrush, putting huge holes in corrugated iron huts and bringing slatted wooden walls down with a reassuring splintering sound, before DICE's own QA department logs in to spoil such innocent fun with their insane headshot skills.

In fact, 1943's environments actually go one better than Bad Company's, with the developer using the opportunity to respond to criticism by allowing you to now take out the frame of a building as well as the walls and ceilings. This time, if you see a shack and you have the right tools with you, you can utterly level it - a move which adds a new tactical concern to classic Battlefield encounters, while also leading DICE to subtly rebalance 1942's maps, giving Wake Island a fair share of rocky, non-destructible outcrops to serve as cover options once the buildings are all gone.

The 360 controller is more than up to the task at hand, allowing for smooth strafing and pin-point targeting, and, elsewhere, while the traditional range of classes has been pared down, the trio that remains seem tailored to the game's scenarios. Alongside the close-combat Infantryman, you can also choose from a mid-range Rifleman, and the sniper-like Scout class. All three come with a load-out of familiar weapons, ranging from the M1, to the Thompson SMG, and the guns are typically vicious, firing with a weighty kick, before chewing through wood, plaster, and bone.

But it's further inland that I get a reminder of what truly makes the series so special: in this case, it takes the form of an opportunity to be comically mown down by an American tank. Battlefield's vehicles are entirely present and correct in 1943, with jeeps, transport boats and airplanes all adding to your tactical options. Taking to the skies, lining up a gun turret, or racing over the ocean in a six-seater, are all flawlessly handled, and the game hops between different scales of combat with the same easy skill it's always possessed, crouching behind a rock one minute, and then, a mere respawn later, soaring out of the horizon to strafe the beach from above. This time, there's also a new air-raid option, accessed via capturing an airfield, which allows you to briefly hop out of the action and pilot a formation of bombers on a fly-past, gently steering them towards their target before loosing the cargo. Played at just the right time, it's a trump card, capable of confidently turning the tide of a battle, so there's a significant cool-off period after each attack to balance it out.

The risk for DICE is that, in paring Battlefield 1943 down so tightly, an audience might look at the numbers alone and feel slightly cheated. And yet even a half hour of play is enough to suggest that this is a strategy borne of focus rather than cheapness. It remains to be seen whether three maps and one mode are enough to keep an audience satisfied over any real length of time, but it suggests that DICE at least is entirely confident in its abilities to create explosive, replayable sandboxes from the barest of bones.

'Battlefield 1943' Screenshot 2

Despite its arrival on PSN and XBLA, cross-platform play is not part of the plan for 1943.

And there's a real sense of equality to 1943, too: although there will be a levelling system of some sort, it will be largely used for bragging rights, since every weapon and vehicle is available from the start, with no ponderous chain of unlocks, and we've already been told that future DLC, if there is any, will take the form of new maps rather than ruin the careful balance by allowing you to purchase better guns. As for the maps available on day one, Wake Island, along with Iwo Jima and Guadalcanal, may ground the game firmly in one combat theatre, but DICE is promising strong visual distinctions between all three.

So 1943 may end up being too slight, but it's already got that classic Battlefield feeling nailed. This is a sport as much as a game, and long term success may eventually lie with the players rather than the choice of courts. Whatever you decide, the fact remains that, on XBLA or PSN, there's simply nothing else quite like Battlefield.

Picture of Christian.

About Christian Donlan

Chris Donlan writes about games for Eurogamer and some magazines. His heroes include Eugene Jarvis, Errol Morris, and Linus Van Pelt.

Read more articles from Christian by visiting the Christian Donlan archive page.

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Comments (56) Latest comment 3 years ago

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  • Dizzy #1 3 years ago

    Hmmm.. this could be rather good. Loved the original.

  • aldo_14 #2 3 years ago

    3 maps seems rather stingy to me thought, especially if more are going to turn up as DLC later.

  • mcbi4kh2 #3 3 years ago

    poor mans Warhawk.

  • Nasty #4 3 years ago

    Will I have to fire behind people a la BF2?

  • Widge #5 3 years ago

    Yeah, I was thinking 'nothing like it if you choose to ignore Warhawk'

  • Eraysor #6 3 years ago

    Looking around, this could be the Greenhill Zone.

    I wish it was. The lack of an anti-tank class makes me sad :(
    Edited by 1 at 26/02/09 @ 11:41

  • RedSparrows #7 3 years ago

    @ Warhawk

    or just play...Battlefield games.

    I quite like the idea of this. I wonder how quick the map turnaround will be.

  • PearOfAnguish #8 3 years ago

    Shame it's only going to do 24 players per game. I can understand it for consoles, but even BF1942 could manage 64 player servers. Can't we just have a remake of 1942, please?
    Edited by 1 at 26/02/09 @ 11:45

  • chessboxer #9 3 years ago

    I might get this on PS3... My PC hasn't been getting much gaming love since the end of 2007 and there isn't a lot to make me want to play it over the PS3 apart from CS:S (miles better than the embarrassing COD4) and the dwindling UT2004 (which is still better than UT3).

  • Fidjit #10 3 years ago

    Am I the only person who is massively excited about this? Loved BF42, Wake Island (which was the original multiplayer demo level) was just pure fun.

    Trying to remember the other classic maps...Kharkov...Battle of the Bulge? ... a wicked North African theatre one with a huge tank ruck ..hope they all get the DLC treatment

    32 player cap would be better though, 16 sounds kinda low for those maps.





  • TSYNDMonkfish #11 3 years ago

    So its got less maps, fewer classes and a multiplayer thats half as big as the last few battlefield games on the PC.. Why?

    Battlefield Heroes doesnt look all that either..

    Shame bacause 1942, BF2 & 2142 are three of the best team shooters ive played.

  • DrDamn #12 3 years ago

    Looking forward to this. 3 maps is fine as long as it's 3 good maps.

    Low player limit is not a console thing. There are games out there on 360 and PS3 already with much higher limits (Frontlines, Warhawk, Resistance 1 & 2 for example).

  • DrDamn #13 3 years ago

    @TSYNDMonkfish
    Because it's a cheap download title. It started off as a thing the DICE guys did in their spare time I believe.

  • PearOfAnguish #14 3 years ago

    "Trying to remember the other classic maps...Kharkov...Battle of the Bulge? ... a wicked North African theatre one with a huge tank ruck ..hope they all get the DLC treatment"

    That was Aberdeen. Looks like it'll be Pacific maps only, but who knows, maybe they'll do an African theatre DLC. Hope so, Gazala and Al Alamein are awesome. I'd like a Western Europe pack, too, with Bocage, Bulge and Market Garden.

  • andijames #15 3 years ago

    @DrDamm

    I think that was the Desert Combat mod for the original 1942 (which i think i played until i rubbed out the lettering on my keys!) but yeah this game was born out as a labour of love originally from the developers.

    Still one of my all time favourite games.

  • JammyPez #16 3 years ago

    Wake Island is one of the best multiplayer maps of all time, without a doubt. I think I'll get it just for that.

  • TSYNDMonkfish #17 3 years ago

    @ DrDamn - I didnt realize that - thanks.

    /me goes back to waiting for BF3

  • Nissenakke #18 3 years ago

    I'm REALLY looking forward to this. Loved BF1942, and I'm excited to play updated versions of these classic maps. Hope they remake some of the others as well.

    What's this gonna cost though (360)?

  • Fidjit #19 3 years ago

    @Pearof Anguish Aberdeen! Thats the one. Gazala too, but Aberdeen had the largest scale tank battles. Yeah, additional theatre DLC packs would rock, and with the 3 bundled theatres all being pacific, could well be the way DICE play it. Bring it on!

  • Fellblade #20 3 years ago

    Only 3 classes, only 3 maps, no medics, everyone has anti-tank weaponry, recharging health and infinite ammo - some of that mentioned in the Kotaku preview on 1943. Looking at the 1943 trailer all the player movements look very similar to the comical over-exaggerated movements in Battlefield Heroes. Plus a tiny max players limit. It sounds like they've removed all the fun bits of Battlefield.

  • Mooglepies #21 3 years ago

    Less than 32 players on PC? Sorry, come back when you're serious about this.

    Even Team Fortress 2 manages more players than this, although I'll be the first to confess it's absolute chaos.

  • b00n #22 3 years ago

    I adored 1942 and played it for years, but this feels very dumbed down with less classes specifically worrying me. Fine if maps will be added later, but also here it's a big risk: the expansion packs of previous games were good fun, but since the total userbase most of the time didn't buy them, u went back to playing the original ones all the time anyway.

    Disappointing since this probably also means we're not getting a fully fledged BF3 for some time, with clear focus on deep gameplay on pc...

  • Spekingur #23 3 years ago

    Did any of you read that it this does not come in retail? It's obvious that they aren't sure how this will do as a pure digital download title so they aren't going into the 'full package' as they say.

    Also, I'd love to see how they'd handle the Berlin map with all this destructable environment :D
    Edited by 1 at 26/02/09 @ 12:25

  • MrNox #24 3 years ago

    Haven't you heard? PC gaming is dead.

  • 3william56 #25 3 years ago

    Will take a lot more than that to unseat the mighty Warhawk on the PSN, though destructible buildings is something sorely missed in WH.

  • BadDevotions #26 3 years ago

    insta purchase for me. Loved bf1942 to death

  • andijames #27 3 years ago

    @Spekingur

    Now that was a map and a half! Used to be sniper's paradise down the corridors though :)

  • aphexstwin #28 3 years ago

    no backstab then? that'll turn off the battlefield hardcore especially on the 360. bf2mc on 360 has been getting a lot of my love, its the reason i rebought a 360 after i sold it to fund my ps3, and the players are coming back to it: good clan support and firm multiplayer goodness will shine over all.

    however, bf2mc is better than bf:bc for me because of the indestructible buildings and scenery. theres nothing worse than trying to hold a flag or gold crate when the building its in is blasted beyond belief, all it then takes is a few tank whores to wander in and shell the survivors. then its spawn raping time. yes, spawn raping is one of my bugbears about bf2mc, but then the majority of players are american and they still have the 'conquer-all-leave-none-in-your-path' mentality whereas most british players believe in leaving a flag or two open to prolong the game. its shit when one team sticks together and steamrollers over the weaker opposition in 5 minutes.

    so, dice/ea.

    keep the frostbite engine coz its lovely, but get rid of destructibles. put backstab in for the lame-o's who cba to learn a new map. keep the class system of having anti-tank engineers and support medics. dont rip us off with a £20 intial fee and £5 dlc maps. have map veto instead of map vote. have random teams.

    then it'll be a buy

  • Gecks #29 3 years ago

    the 24 player limit isn't a massive deal. all the clan tournaments were 8v8, or 12v12 max. 32 players is probably the top end on the old versions of these maps before they would get too crowded, so assuming they tweak them a bit for less players it should be fine.

    the 3 classes thing isn't a big deal either. medics were only useful for their gun, so that's no biggy. the anti-tank thing is weird, though. i'm not sure how that will work with the balancing, but i'll give them the benefit of the doubt. besides, i probably wouldn't bother going anti-tank on those maps in 1942 anyway, as they're too open.

    1942 is such a good game that they really have to try a lot harder to ruin it :)

  • RedPanda #30 3 years ago

    Post deleted at 14:31:59 28-01-2012

  • coojam #31 3 years ago

    "Battlefield's vehicles are entirely present and correct in 1943"

    Including the ships and aircraft carriers? I doubt it.

  • Spooke #32 3 years ago

    the key here is the price point, does anyone know how much it will be?

  • mkreku #33 3 years ago

    They really, REALLY should allow cross-platform play for games like these! Imagine the wars that would be going on if half the people on the map wore Xbox uniforms and the other half PS3 uniforms.

  • PearOfAnguish #34 3 years ago

    "its shit when one team sticks together and steamrollers over the weaker opposition in 5 minutes."

    You think it's shit when people play as a team? I guess it might be if you're on the opposing side and can't get organised.

  • OldRavenNL #35 3 years ago

    Can't wait.. Bring It!
    Edited by 1 at 26/02/09 @ 13:00

  • Chufty #36 3 years ago

    Sounds good as long as it's nice and cheap, BF1942 was awesome.

    Oh, and give Christian more articles plz.

  • chessboxer #37 3 years ago

    @ mkreku

    It would be fun but PS3 vs 360 will never happen.

    XBL is a closed network. If Dice were going to make this a GFWL (highly unlikely) then it could be possible for PC vs 360 play but then you to account for PC gamers who may prefer to use kb/m rather than a controller.

    PSN is an open network so PC vs PS3 is possible (much like the idea Epic were considering with UT3 but decided not to implement at this point in time) and they could also allow kb/m on the PS3, but they would have to implement a server filter for PS3 owners who want to play on a controller only server (like in UT3) to keep things fair.

  • rudedudejude #38 3 years ago

    I'm not sure about destrucable stuff in BF, after 15 mins it'll all just be levelled and be a flat map with nowhere for cover, sounds pretty pointless really.

  • glaeken #39 3 years ago

    I am sure I will get this as I love the BF games but I do find Dice's obsession over the Pacific maps from BF1942 odd as they were never the best maps in my view. The only map I really like from this pack is Iwo Jima which just always seemed to have a nice flow to it. Wake is Ok but quite average and Guadalcanal I always found really dull.

    Still it's almost certainly a buy for me. Just add Monte Cassino in an add on pack and I will be happy.
    Edited by 1 at 26/02/09 @ 13:27

  • symmetry #40 3 years ago

    God I can't wait for this!

    It'll bring back all those great BF memories :'o)

  • Joco84 #41 3 years ago

    Gazala and El Alamein all the way!

  • Lukree #42 3 years ago

    Steering the carrier to beach at the original one, pure lollage! :D

    But this one... not too happy with the specs... It has been seen that it really kills the interest for most of the players if you are forced to buy a few new maps every now and then. BF2:spec ops and those useless 2 maps add-ons? Worthless.

    In my opinion it would make more sense to change the whole business model as subscription based instead: monthly fee and new maps and stuff provided for years!

    And please, implement proper achievement system like in CoD4! That really keeps you playing.

  • dripping_brain #43 3 years ago

    I'm quite excited about this (on PC) although I think the player cap is too low. Also I'm really really fed up with Wake island, I never understood why it was remade so many times. I'd much rather see Kharkov or Tobruk redone. Or Market Garden for that matter.
    @Glaeken: I loved Monte Cassino - thought it was one of the most exciting Battlefield maps ever. I was very disappointed at how quickly Road To Rome servers died off :(

  • glaeken #44 3 years ago

    Monte Cassino was a great map. I don't think I ever even played it in Road to Rome as it somehow got into the BF2 mod Point of existence. Saying that it might have been in DC as well. My memory is blurry on just which mod I played it in now but its a turely great map.

  • PearOfAnguish #45 3 years ago

    "Steering the carrier to beach at the original one"

    It's stupid shit like that that's been missing from all the Battlefield games after 1942. Just mucking about was hilarious (tank + AA gun...wheee), and the flexibility of the servers meant you could set up a low gravity or no rules game without affecting people that wanted to play it normally.

  • ronuds #46 3 years ago

    So is it 16 or 24 max players? BF:BC had these giant maps and only 12 players running around on them, which made it suck pretty bad. I'd imagine this will suck just as much. :p

  • chessboxer #47 3 years ago

    Bad Company is 24 players as well. It works in Bad Company so no reason why it shouldn't work in this.

  • metalangel #48 3 years ago

    Midway was the best map ever, not Wake. You had a huge island in the middle with an airbase and some limited ground vehicle combat, but you also had a proper fleet (two DDs, one CV, one BB, one submarine) so if you were inclined you could play the entire thing as a naval aviator, ship captain or sub commander.

    Whether it will stand up to Desert Combat's own successor, Frontlines, is another thing. Flying a helicopter low over Solar Farm is nearly as excellent as flying an Apache in El Alamein was.

    If they were doing this properly, they'd give us proper vehicles and weapons for each side (the Dauntless and Val never carried torpedoes - that was for the Avenger and Kate respectively; and no U-boats were at Midway!) but if they wanted a truly excellent game, they'd hire the guys who've made Forgotten Hope - truly an astonishing mod.
    Edited by 1 at 26/02/09 @ 17:03

  • ronuds #49 3 years ago

    "Bad Company is 24 players as well. It works in Bad Company so no reason why it shouldn't work in this."

    Is it 24? Forgot.

    I didn't feel it worked, though. Felt like you were on the battlefield by yourself, unless you happened to be in the 1 area of the map where all the battles took place.

  • b00n #50 3 years ago

    just for the record. Operation Market Garden was the best map :).

  • aphexstwin #51 3 years ago

    "And please, implement proper achievement system like in CoD4! That really keeps you playing"

    and that keeps me from playing it. its much more fair that everyone starts with the same weapons and abilities, especially in a game like cod4 which has no rank restricted servers, which bf2mc has.

    just getting the scores, kill/death ratio and knocking out vehicles is more than enough to keep things interesting.

    and wrong on the best players playing cod4, i play with or against players in the leaderboards top 10 every night

  • Arwin #52 3 years ago

    I always thought that Warhawk was a bit like Battlefield. In fact, I called the category I filed it under in the XMB 'Battlefield' ... :D

  • Errol #53 3 years ago

    Battlefield is a PC game. It has to be played with Mouse and keyboard if you want to massacre people on an inhuman level.

  • Fidjit #54 3 years ago

    I thought modern combat worked pretty well on console. Fair enough, the pad will never match mouse & key speed for FPS combat ( not that this bothers me in the least, as everyone playing on console has the same handicap) but being able to jump in and out of a variety of vehicles and have the same workable dual analogue control for each feels much more consistent than mad scrambling for the joystick everytime i want to fly a plane.

    /Realises everyone else probably uses mouse & keys for vehicles too. grabs coat
    Edited by 2 at 27/02/09 @ 09:23

  • hiddenranbir #55 3 years ago

    I want BF3.

    Or whatever B2's successor will be.

    2142 was pretty good too though, with the changes it made in squad points.

  • jambo74 #56 3 years ago

    Can't get online with 1943 - another shaky DICE release. No DICE this time or ever again.