About

Battlefield is a series of First Person Shooters published by Electronic Arts ^TM and developed by Digital Illusions CE. The series focuses on online multiplayer combined arms combat featuring infantry, Aerial, Naval, and Ground Vehicles over a large, open ended maps and teamwork-focused gameplay.

History

Early Series

Battlefield 1942 was released on September 10, 2002, and introducing the “Conquest” gameplay mode, in which players fought for “capture points” throughout the map, boasting a impressive 64 players available in one instance of gameplay, and creating it’s signature 6-string sting, which is now the ubiquitous theme for the series

Battlefield Vietnam, released in 2004, moved the setting to the Vietnam War, various gameplay improvements, such as firing personal weapons while seated in vehicles. It also marked the series’ first use of licensed soundtracks, utilizing such era-defining tracks such as The Trashmen’s Surfin’ Bird and Creedence Clearwater Revival’s Fortunate Son

Battlefield 2 , released in 2005 takes place in the modern day, during a fictional war between the United States, China, and the fictional Middle Eastern Coalition. It was a commercial success, selling over 2,250,000 copies worldwide, A version of the game called Battlefield 2: Modern Combat was also released for consoles.

Battlefield 2142 was released in 2006, taking place during a global ice age in the 22nd century, featuring science fiction weaponry, ordnance, and vehicles and battles between two giant “Titan” airships. This was the first game in the series to award players with the enemy’s dogtags after a successful melee kill.

Modern Series

Battlefield: Bad Company and Bad Company 2, released in 2008 and 2009 respectively, introduced a story driven, singleplayer experience to the series, following the infamous “B” Company’s AWOL escapades and their search for mercenary gold. This spin-off series features modern day weapons, as well as a variety of vehicles for land, air and sea. It also served as the tech demo for the Frostbite engine developed for the next generation of games, featuring improvements in all aspects of development including audio, animation, cinematics, scripting, artificial intelligence, physics, destruction, rendering, and visual effects.

Battlefield 3 and 4 was released in 2011 and 2013 respectively, reintroducing several elements absent from the Bad Company games, including fighter jets, the prone position and 64-player battles on PC. and launched the next iteration of the Frostbite engine, allowing for larger-scale set pieces and enhanced destruction.

Battlefield: Hardline is the next upcoming iteration of the series, moving away from military warfare to law enforcement and organized crime combat. Expected to release in 2015.

Reception

In 2012, Joystiq reports that the series has served over 50 million players^[1], and over the course of 14 games and 17 expansions, has won hundreds of awards and accolades from major review sites, including GameSpot, Gameinformer, and GamePro.^[2]

Community Works and Parodies

The series has spawned many works from the community and fanbase across the web, including stunt videos, machinima, and parodies, one of the earliest being “Mine!!!” by Snoken and Sudden^[3] , a Battlefield 2 machinima uploaded on October 23, 2006, which has currently received 1.3 million views and over 13,000 upvotes.

On December 8, 2011, Youtuber Stun_gravy uploaded a video entitled “Battlefield 3 – RendeZook”^[4], which gained over 11 million views and over 35,000 comments. the impressive feat featured has also gained fame within the community with many reproductions around the internet.

Battlefield Friends is a web animation series created by YouTube channel HankandJed^[5] , which features comedy and parodies of many elements of the game Battlefield 4 . The series was met with positive reception, Gaining 3 million views from it’s premiere episode and spawning numerous dubs.

Search Interest

External References

^[1]Joystiq – " Battlefield series celebrates 7 year anniversary: over 50 million served

^[2]EA – Battlefield 3 -- More than 60 Awards From Worldwide Press

^[3]YouTube – battlefield 2 Mine!!!! by Snoken and Sudden

^[4]YouTube – Battlefield 3 RendeZook

^[5]YouTube – Battlefield Friends by Hank and Jed