Battlefield Portal will be included at no additional charge to those that are picking up Battlefield 2042. This separate game experience will allow players to mix and match content from the vast history of Battlefield into new experiences.
Players will be able to use and play content from Battlefield 3, Battlefield Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 1942. You will be able to play classic maps and modes just as they were when these games first released or mix and match content from these titles into entirely new experiences. You will even be able to incorporate all of the content from Battlefield 2042 into these twisted new creations if you so desire.
Today, DICE and EA shared a fresh look at Battlefield Portal and a look at just how crazy the action can get when you combine all of these Battlefield eras into one shared experience. They provide us with a fresh look at: Battle of the Bulge, El Alamein, Arica Harbor, Valparaiso, Noshahr Canals, and Caspian Border. At launch, these classic maps will come with their classic factions, and all of their weapons, gadgets, and classes that you've come to know and love.
Players will be able to hop right into the classic modes from these games or, if they prefer, they can tweak the hell out of a bunch of options in order to create custom modes. Players will be able to tweak weapon loadouts, add or remove maps into a rotation, adjust fine details like bullet velocity, health regen rates, whether or not a player takes more damage when struck in the head or torso, etc. The Rules Editor will allow players to really get into the nitty-gritty details on adjustments.
Getting Started in Battlefield Portal
DICE says that all Portal experience begin on the web. If your device can access the Internet, and you have an EA account in good standing, you'll be able to create a custom Portal experience. You don't even need to own the game. Everyone with an EA Account will be able to create these custom experiences and share the final output via a share code.
The homepage will allow you to see any custom experiences you've created as well as a selection of pre-made experiences that Ripple Effect have made.
Game Modes
You begin by selecting from a base game mode.
- Conquest Large
- Conquest
- Rush
- Free-For-All
- Team Deathmatch
Map Rotation
After picking the mode, you get to customize your map rotation. The Conquest Large mode will let you pick from any of the 128-player maps in Battlefield 2042. Conquest or Rush will let you also add in any of the classic maps. If you pick FFA or Team Deathmatch, you'll also have the option to pick the smaller variants of existing maps.
Though some maps are definitely better suited for a certain amount of players, DICE won't stop you if you want to play the classic maps with 128-players. They give the example of the Noshahr Canals: Container Area map as one that you can just throw 128-players into if you want.
Here is a look at the included maps at launch.
It's important to note here that the large maps are not available on PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
Game Mode Details
Before you get to fine-tuning the gameplay experiences, you will have to tackle the basic rules of the game. It is in the Game Mode Details section where you tweak settings like max player counts, how even the teams will be distributed, the game time, the reinforcement multiplayer, reinforcements removed per kill, per-squad character limit, and how squad spawns are handled.
DICE notes that TDM and FFA will have a more streamlined set of sliders, toggles, and menus that are more specific to those modes.
Modifiers
Here is where you'll really start to be able to customize your Portal experiences. Modifiers that impact gameplay, soldiers, vehicles, the user interface, and even AI combatants can all be tweaked to your liking.
Want friendly fire on? You can do that. Want to disable extreme weather in maps that support it? Sure, go ahead. Tired of people sliding or going prone? You can disable those abilities with a toggle. Maybe you hate that everyone has a HUD. Well, it's a good thing that you can disable that if you so desire.
Below, you will see a number of modifiers that will have on/off toggles.
Gameplay
- Friendly Fire
- Extreme Weather Events (applicable maps only)
- Stationary Weapon Emplacements
- Classic Soldier Weapon Tuning
- Aim Assist
- Aim Assist Zoom Snap
Soldier
- Prone
- Strafe while sprinting
- Sprint
- Aim Down Sights
- Health Regeneration
- Traversal Sprint
- Slide
- Squad Revive
Vehicle
- No Combat Vehicles
- On-Foot Call-ins Only
- Deploy Menu Only
- On-Foot Call-ins and Deploy Menu
- Spawn on Map
User Interface
- Compass
- Minimap (including Big Map)
- HUD
- Soldier Weapon Modification Plus Menu
- Ally Identification
AI
You are able to add bots to your game if you desire. You can define the bots to be PvE or PvP. PvE ensures that the AI count is locked at the designated number. PvP means that human players can take away those slots from bots.
If you are using Bots, you’re able to either synchronise your settings with the options you’ve set for Human players previously, or you can separately define the behaviours using many of the same modifiers available for Human players you previously set.
Restrictions
After setting modifiers, it's time to move on to setting some restrictions. If you want to go vanilla and have era-appropriate factions with each map rotation, you can just select Map Defaults. Doing this will prevent you from setting any restrictions on characters, weapons, attachments, vehicles, or gadgets.
However, if you don't want the defaults, you'll be able to customize the experience.
Characters
Choose which factions are available. From there, you can select or deselect which classes (or Specialists) are available for people to choose from.
Weapons
There are 75 different weapons included at launch in Portal. Just as the case is with factions and classes, you will be able to filter any weapons or weapon types as being available, even on a per team basis. If you disable all weapon types, players will only have access to melee weapons.
Attachments
You can restrict any attachments you like just as you can with the weapons. DICE says that they have included "a huge range of attachments" for the weapons from Battlefield 3, Bad Company 2, and Battlefield 1942.
Vehicles
If you did not choose to disable vehicles, you will now have the option to define which vehicles are restricted from players.
Gadgets
Don't like claymores? Disable them here. You will be able to restrict gadgets on a per-team basis here.
Rules Editor
Here is where things can get a little wild. The Rules Editor is a visual scripting tool that will allow you to dictate the finer details of the gameplay experience. Think of this as a bit more complex way to set many of the rules you saw outlined above but for the FFA and TDM modes.
The toolbar will let you start building out the scripts that "governs the conditions and behaviors of your Battlefield Portal experience. If you don't know what something does, you can right click on the item and select "Help" and it will show you details about what it does and how it can be used.
There will be some templates that you can use as a basis for your own settings if you desire. You can duplicate templates to make them your own, then tweak them and rebuild them however you want.
Once you're ready to publish your experience, you can set a title and description of the game mode. You then create something called an Experience Code. You can use this in game or share it with others. This Experience Code is unique for each ruleset and it is protected. You will not be able to modify someone else's rules without being given a dedicated URL by the creator.
Tags will also allow players to find game modes that fit their desired gameplay style. These tags seem to be auto-generated. For instance, if a tag says that a game is asymmetrical, then it's definitely asymmetrical. These tags will allow players to quickly find servers that they want to play on.
If you go back to make changes to an already published Experience Code, the changes will be loaded up the next time someone uses your code.
Battlefield Portal - Featured Experiences
Finally, if you just want to play on these experiences, nobody will stop you. You don't have to create a game mode. You can just hop into any of the existing ones available through Portal.
There is a quickmatch option that will plunk you directly into an experience. If you want to find something more specific, there will be a Server Browser that lets you find the experience you want at that moment in time.
There is also a Collections section that will allow you to customize your loadouts across the classic Battlefield experiences, just as you can in All-Out-Warfare from Battlefield 2042.
Players can browse experiences or input an Experience Code to start their own servers. These servers are free and will spool up relative to your locale. Once you have your own server up and running, you can manage the server via the Pause Menu. You will be able to carry out the following commands to the server:
- Broadcast Message
- Kick Player
- Ban Player
- Unban Player
- Restart Map
- Next Map
- Take Down Server
And as a spoiled brat, I'm upset that Battlefield Vietnam wasn't included. Strictly speaking as a spoiled unappreciative brat though, and not as a valid criticism.
So this is Ripple Effect's final gift as a support role before finally spreading its wings, and flying away with development on something they can at long last call their own. Thanks for redeeming Battlefield 4, and I hope Battlefield Portal doesn't suck, because this is more interesting than the rest of the game so far.
...I wished Unreal Tournament did something like this.