Battlefield 4 alpha images show five-man squads and more – rumour

A huge gallery of images allegedly taken from an alpha for Battlefield 4 give some insight into the new DICE shooter’s features.

[DoomeDx]

Damn.. If those are real then this is indeed BF3.5

thats a shame because the jump from BF2 to BF3 was huge (Not saying which one I like more).

BF3 to BF4..not so much

[swishersweets20031]

Im assuming your talking about graphics leaps. battlefield 2 came out in 2005.. bf3 came out in 2011.. 6 years later.. its only been 2 years between 3 and 4.. do you really expect a leap?

[-Mika-]

Funny you mention this. COD comes out yearly with little changes. You guys bash it. Battlefield 4 comes out 2 years later with little changes and you guys make excuses for it.

[MysticStrummer]

@Mika - Don't you think it's a little different when so many CoDs came out with few changes?

[TheFirstClassic]

@Mika cod has experienced little change within the last six titles, each coming out one per year... that's a little different than this situation. Six years of little change. And I'm pretty sure we don't know all of the gameplay changes between this game and the last, so it's too early to make a judgement on that.

And even on the graphics side, it's obvious that this is pretty early in development.

[elhebbo16]

@mika but cod doesnt change, its literally the same thing. BF4 has better destruction, ocean combat, diverse map design (sniping in shanghai seems cool), etc, plus all the little changes. and you cant make a game look better when its already at its best, cod on the other hand looks like shit.

[JP1369]

Mika-
First of all, this footage comes from an Alpha build. It's incomplete to the extent that a lot of geometry hasn't even been textured yet. There already seems to be some improvement in the lighting though. People aren't as hard on Dice because, of the three retail releases we've seen from them this gen, all have been a significant improvement over the others, both in graphics and features. CoD has barely changed at all since 2007. So, if it turns out that Dice have maxed out current tech (this is the 360 version, after all) with their final game on that hardware, then people are going to be more understanding. That isn't hypocrisy at all. However, your inability or unwillingness to see that is either fanboyism or idiocy (I fear I'm being redundant).
Also, you have no idea what kind of changes they've made to the game itself. The level of destructibility is said to have increased over the previous game, which is a resource intense process. You also have to consider the fact that some maps in Battlefield are just about as big as every map combined in a given CoD release and think about how even slight changes can drastically alter the amount of memory and clock cycles that are needed to compensate. All this while land, air and sea vehicles are being used on top of the infantry battles. To compare that to CoD with its maze of corridors and sterile maps is beyond reason.

[PRHB HYBRiiD]

Well i expect a leap cause this is going to come out for PS4 also witch is a 2013 console and PS3 came out in 2006, i know this is coming out for PS3 also but still...

[JP1369]

PHRBHybrid - The footage is from the 360 version, WHICH means that any increase in fidelity at this point in the cycle is going to be minimal.

[Pro Racer]

The graphics are obviously incomplete, but these images do tell us more about in-game mechanics. For instance, this confirms Battlepacks. Looks like they added in the FIFA Ultimate Team mechanic of buying packs to unlock random content - possibly with in-game credits and inevitably with real-world currency, knowing EA.

"The Bronze Battlepack contains 3 items, including:
-A minimum of 2 Standard items
-1 Bonus item with a small likelihood of rewarding an Advanced item"

We'll have to wait and see if Battlepacks are the only way to unlock new items, but this suggests that BF4 multiplayer unlocks run on a credit-based system opposed to a level-based system.

[greenpowerz]

One would think the title was self explanatory

[ddurand1]

the third word is alpha after all.

[THE-COMMANDER]

Those images are alpha trial mate, if you want to make a judgment you will have to wait for the final build.

[Lockon]

This is alpha version from Xbox360 and its missing textures and pretty much the whole city is cardboard. BF3 build the graphics for the future of Battlefield games. Now all DICE has to worry about is gameplay. The graphics will look a bit better as seen from the PC version and the PS4 and Xbone version but don't except PS3 version and 360 Version to look much better from BF3 on consoles.

[notkon]

We're reaching the graphical ceiling. Do not expect big graphics leaps from now on.

[titletownrelo]

F*ck limitations, there is no ceiling

[titletownrelo]

NOT saying that this is a huge jump from BC2->BF3, but still, don't judge a game by its Beta, especially its Alpha.

[dark-hollow]

Its very early shots, besides,
As long as BF4 is on the x360/ps3, then don't expect a major leap at all.

They should make the next battlefield game for ps4/xbone and PC only then you'll see a massive difference.

[oof46]

If, in your opinion, Bad Company 2 is actually Bad Company 1.5, then we're in for a treat.

Bad Company 1 was okay, but rough around the edges. With part 2, DICE fixed most of what they did wrong and made a memorable multiplayer experience.

So, if Bf4 plays more like Bf3.5...I'm okay with that.

[DeadlyFire]

This is just the PS3/X360 max detail you are witnessing with barebone maps. They final version will look better, but to PS3/X360's max limits for the engine. 24 player limit.

PC, PS4, XB1 version will be massively better looking with 64 players.

The engine they claim is version 3 of Frostbite, but in reality its just a reworked, and highly optimized build of Frostbite 2.x engine. Should still be pretty impressive on PS4/XB1/PC with its upgrades though.

Most important part of this article is that they increased squad size. Unfortunately only by one it appears. Could be 6 person squads tested in a 5v5 mode though.

[PurpHerbison]

Next gen is just an extension of current gen. Sure... technically it is still considered "NextGen" but it boasts absolutely nothing significant. We are about half-way there til something that can really hold the title of "next gen".

[Plagasx]

Battlefield 3.5

[BALLARD32]

I'm assuming a lot of that stuff is placeholder. Really hoping that the battle pack stuff doesn't into pay-to-win.

[venom06]

boy its a BUNCH of stupid people quick to try to talk this down, and dont even take the time to use their brain and realize this is PRE ALPHA.. do you really think what we're gonna see tomorrow will look like this???

[UNGR]

5 man squads? I was kinda hoping for 8 just because that's the size of group I'm usually with, but I'll take it. Get the mechanics down to a T, and the guns nice and balanced and I'm down.

[MidnytRain]

Wait...

32 players / 5-man squads = uneven squads?

Uncharted 3 did the same thing with the buddy system despite having five players on each time, which means no matter what, someone would end up without a buddy.

[UNGR]

I had the problem already with 4 man squads. People would often have 2-3 man squads and set the thing to private, or a lot of solo players just never got into one. It's not like everyone played in a squad anyways, giving the chance for larger friend groups to play together would be fantastic. But I'll take 5, improvement is improvement, and I love improvement.

[quenomamen]

BF4 on 360 still looks better than COD on Xbox 1.

[OC_MurphysLaw]

I am really hoping BF4 is as good as advertised both MP and SP....looks really promising.

[ginsunuva]

5 man squads so that the 16, 24, 32, and 64 players can be evenly divided into equal groups of five..... Wait....

[SKUD]

Five man squads. Lol. Almost there I guess.

[ShadowIX]

This is BF3.5