Customization is, of course, a major aspect in any game that focuses on competitive online play, and Battlefield 5 is seemingly going all in on it. DICE’s producer for engagement and core gameplay, Ryan McArthur, recently did an AMA on Reddit, and fielded a variety of questions from curious fans, many of which pertained to the matter of customization, in some form or another.
One fan, for instance, asked whether players will be restricted by a limited number of soldiers they can create in their Companies, and whether they’ll be restricted to specific classes and sub-classes. McArthur instead stated that you will be able to switch combat roles for soldiers as per your needs and requirements. “Soldiers are done at a class level and players will progress and earn new “combat roles” for that class,” he wrote. “This means you won’t have to make a choice which role to keep as you can change them to fit the situations you are going into.”
Factions, in fact, will also have different visual options, McArthur confirmed, “to both maintain the fantasy, as well as ensure visibility between friend and foe”. In another response, he gave quite a few details on factions. First of all, players will have two factions, and each faction multiples planes and tanks. Each soldier will also be able to have multiple weapons. You will also be able to have duplicates of both the vehicles, as well as your soldiers’ weapons, while both these things can also be customized and specialized in different ways, as per your own choices.
Weapons will also have 5-7 part slots which you can use “to add your choice of visual customization”. Visual customization slots will also be included in planes and tanks. Your soldiers can also be visually customized. More specifically, their customizations will pertain to their face, face paint, helmets, jackets, and pants.
These cosmetic items, though, will be tied to microtransactions. In response to a separate question that inquired about the subject, McArthur confirmed that there will be monetization in the game, but it will be limited to cosmetics. “We want our players to have to earn gameplay,” he said. In addition to that, in response to the question of how long DICE and EA will support the game post-launch in the absence of a season pass, he said, “I can’t give a specific timeline to how long, as the game is designed to be a service and my plan is to continue developing and supporting this service for as long the players are playing and enjoying it.”
Battlefield 5 launches on October 16 for the PS4, Xbox One, and PC. Rumour has it that it will launch with a total of 8 multiplayer modes. DICE and EA are currently working on optimizing the game in response to feedback from the game’s recent alpha. Meanwhile, an open beta for the game is also primed for launch in early September.