While the franchise has always had a big focus on two massive teams fighting on land, at sea, and in the air, Electronic Arts and DICE took to the Battlefield Blog to detail how team play is getting an upgrade in Battlefield 4.
Engineer, Recon, Support, and Assault classes will return but flexibility in each of those roles has been increased by "building more meaningful interactions between them." I assume this means it's not a matter of rock-paper-scissors-tank, but classes will be more fully detailed in upcoming blog posts.
What was detailed today was Field Upgrades, a system of boosts that affect tight-knit squads. You can earn those boosts by healing, resupplying, repairing, and generally working as a varied and focused team. With the dedicated commander role returning for Battlefield 4, it'll be easy to follow orders as a squad and in turn allow the commander to help your unit with further rewards.
The final team-play element laid out in today's Road to BF4 involves that massive building that collapsed in the Shanghai map you've seen in gameplay footage so far. DICE calls that map-changing element "Levolution" which Lead Multiplayer Designer Thomas Andersson says is "an overarching design concept incorporating a lot of features both big and small, that all affect gameplay in some way."
Andersson says Levolution isn't always as subtle as a skyscraper though. You can protect control points by raising blockades against enemy vehicles, lose visibility thanks to dynamic weather, or force your opponents to fight blind by turning off all lights in an interior map.
The Battlefield 4 blog promises more details on these systems and others in the future. Don't forget to check out our Battlefield 4 hands-on preview from E3 where I totally wasn't responsible for making the building fall over. Honest!
