Battlefield 1 will be, like all DICE games are, a technical marvel, and another monument to the glory that is the Frostbite engine. However, a lot of DICEs work has been lost on the current generation of consoles- the PS4 and Xbox One are far too weak to handle the full extent of DICE’s vision for their games, so any fan wishing to play Battlefield 4 or Battlefront in all their glory must play them on PC, or put up with compromised versions.
But surely that problem will be alleviated, at least to some extent, with the launch of the Xbox One Scorpio next year, which promises to be a far more powerful console than either the Xbox One or the PS4? Did DICE have the Scorpio in mind when they were creating Battlefield 1? In an interview with Metro UK, DICE’s Patrick Bach discussed how the company approached the Scorpio, and how it fit into their development plans.
“Since we are on PC this is not a problem for us, we just scale,” Bach said. “We just crank it up. When we build the games we build them here [indicates one end of a line with his hands], and then the PC that you can buy today is here [indicates slightly further down the line] and the question is just where are the consoles on this scale? So if they give us a better console we just crank it up and it’ll be more awesome.”
Bach also shared his opinion on the notion that consoles may ever be able to outperform gaming PCs again- at least for a while. This used to be the case long ago, when consoles such as the N64 were far beyond gaming PCs, at least at launch. When asked whether there will be a time when consoles will be more powerful than PCs, just like the old days, Bach sounded optimistic.
“I hope so. I thought [the N64] days were awesome, when they actually out PC-ed the PCs,” he enthused. “But I think the PC industry has learnt now that they can’t rest. They have to always move on, and that’s what’s happened for the last 10 years. Every time there’s a new console and it beats the PC, then the PC that comes out before the console comes out is actually better.”
Battlefield 1 is going to launch on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC. The Xbox One Scorpio is due out by Holiday 2017.
