Battlefield Labs will have its first-ever playtest for the next Battlefield game today and with it, the developers have released the first community update.
The update is intended to keep the entire community updated on Battlefield Labs – even those not in the playtest. For the first test, Battlefield Labs will be testing the games Gun and Movement. If you’re not in the test, players can still sign up to Battlefield Labs.
The first Battlefield Labs test update reads:
We’ve continually evolved our gunplay and movement mechanics throughout the Battlefield series. Now, within Battlefield Labs, we’re focused on refining the best elements from past titles, modernizing them, and validating if they feel fun and rewarding, and have the right balance between intuitive control and dynamic combat.
We’re designing the combat experience to ensure players of all skill levels can enjoy our gunplay and movement systems. Our goal is to offer gameplay that rewards skill with precise weapon feedback and movement options for veterans, while providing an intuitive experience for new players to learn and enjoy.
For gunplay we’re exploring designs centered on helping you learn and develop skills and muscle memory through action, as weapons naturally signal their recoil direction. This feedback loop allows you to understand and adjust your aim, making it easier to handle different weapons. This system not only adds variety but also enhances each weapon’s unique feel and play style.
Movement is also deeply integrated with gunplay, as your actions and targets are all part of the same cohesive combat experience. We aim to make movement both feel intuitive and rewarding to move within the world and during combat, but also when playing against someone using both the gunplay and movement systems to their maximum potential.
What’s new and improved for gunplay and movement?
Initially we’ll test select but important areas that create the foundation required to create a fun and rewarding Battlefield combat experience. We’re making focused efforts to create consistent and optimized millisecond-to-millisecond soldier combat, and we’ll share some key examples of changes that will be available during our initial playsessions.
We’ve reduced the time it takes for bullets to appear on your screen from when you press fire. This change decreases input delay, makes shooting feel more responsive, and helps you better track and hit moving targets.
We’re optimizing for a 60Hz tick rate, ensuring the game server more frequently updates the positions and actions for all players. This results in responsive gameplay across all platforms and inputs. You’ll notice more precise shooting and movement, enhanced damage feedback, and more accurate representation of other players’ positions and combat outcomes.
We’ve adjusted the recoil system to make the different weapon types feel unique when firing them. Through enhancements to gunplay recoil, camera shakes, and firing settles, each shot’s recoil direction now matches its gameplay angle. The weapon visually stabilizes the more accurate your handling is, making you feel like you’re actually firing and controlling it.
To evolve the moment system we’ve revamped animations and reintroduced movement features such as crouch sprint, combat dive and landing roll, and added visual indicators to make it easier to understand when movements such as vaulting or leaning are possible.
Feedback and Validation
At this stage content within Battlefield Labs is pre-alpha, and playsessions take place within a closed dev environment focused on testing small chunks of a larger array of features. Some gameplay features are placeholder, work-in-progress and with bugs and performance not being representative of the final experience. However, even during this early stage of development you’ll get a good sense of our new design approach.
During our first playsession our teams will be validating the systems and stability of Battlefield Labs such as server performance, while participants will be able to familiarise themselves with what’s next for Battlefield through testing the gunplay and movement experience, focused on:
- Feel of the different weapon archetypes
- Improvements to aim and control
- Weapon balance and fun factor
- Look and feel of movement
- Moving and interacting within the map
- Combat pacing
Stay Tuned
Lastly, a reminder that while our playsession will be within a closed environment, and we can’t invite everyone to every session, we’ll make sure to keep you informed on ongoing Battlefield Labs playsessions and learnings through these regular Community Updates.
We’ll be back in the coming weeks to talk more about our learnings from our first playsessions, as well as another feature focused Community Update.
Have you already signed up to the Battlefield Labs playtests? Let us know on the Insider Gaming forum if you have any success.
For more Insider Gaming, read about the latest Xbox Insider update reportedly causing consoles to reset to their factory settings. And don’t forget to sign up for our newsletter.
Comments