The maps of each battlefield compared and ranked- DICE take note
Let's start off with 1942- as the first battlefield game, I can't really be too harsh with it as there no history saying that will and what won't work. Everything here is experimental really. Still, it had some amazing maps in it and it had some terrible maps in it. Overall, though, it had a good mix of air land and sea maps, of desert maps, of European maps, and of pacific maps. The 2 expansions brought the total up to 30 maps. The vast majority execeltny made. The pacific maps had a wealth of navel combat with large ships ranging from small landing craft and pt bots to large capital ships like battleships and aircraft carriers and even submarines that you could control and walk around on. The maps featured the entire islands and though many were smaller than today's counterparts they felt alot better most of the time.
Something 1942 did that the others didn't was, let's take wake island for instance. Yiu could target anywhere on that map for a landing. On top of that, you had the primary airstrip flag that was the main flag of the map. Japan took that flag and immidiatly the us started bleeding tickets and Japan stopped. Each flag wasnt created equal.
The battle of britan was the single air based map. Each side spawned many many many fighters, the Germans had bigger versions that held up to six people. The British job was to protect 5 key radar instalations and a factory while the Germans only objective was to destroy those objective. Battlefield needs more map deisgn like this.
Even in this game there's a variety of conquest assualt head on assualt and conquest maps with a veriety of flags. Everything's not heres 5 flags, fight. There's asetrical maps and symetrical maps, ones with 3, 4, 5, 6, even 7 flags.
Overall I'd give 1942 a 7/10 in terms of map deisgn.
Next up is vietnam. Vietnam took away the big ships of the previous entry and replaced it with various smaller watercraft that one could still walk around and explore. They just dont function as spawn points anymore, save a us craft which is only found on certain maps. There's still many emplacements from MG to artillary scattered throughout the map. The maps are a bit bigger now that dice actually has experience and knows a bit more about what works and doesn't work. In this map they've added different map variations, for instance, hue 1968, and hue, 1972. The flags positions change spots as does map layout. Reflecting changes in the battlefiekd. There's also missions such as flaming dart, that, while it is conquest, theres flags on the ground, theres much more than that. The us start on a group of islands.holding an air base with several jets. The Vietnamese have several airbase on the main portion as well as the 3 capturable flags on the main sector. There's fighting over those flags but what sets this map apart is the airbase. The towers can be destroyed eliminating those spawn points from play giving the map alot of room tofuggt and play over as well as various objectives to complete.
In every way vietnam is a.step up from its.competetors, minutes the taking away of the predominatly navel orinted maps.
Overall, I'm raiting vietnam as an 8/10.
BF2......responsible for such legends as jalalabad, mushataar and who can forget karkand. Bf2 didn't have any of the mission orinted maps or air and lad maps listed above which I was disjointed when it came out, but it had some of the best maps the series has ever seen. It had a wealth of veriety from invasion maps to double head on conquest assualt where there were no uncaps and every flag could be taken. It had fierce urban fighting in karkand where even though the flags didn't start of balanced and the meu had no uncap, the whole map was indeed balanced. The us started with more tickets but they had a constant bleed and they needed to take a single point to get the bleed to stop. There were plenty of maps like this with plenty of flanking routes, and plenty of space where combat wasnt always a constant draining experience even on the smallest of maps. There were limoted sightlines that worked woth the engines limitations.
Bf2 is a 10/10 maps wise. What it lacks, it more than makes up for instance the brilliantly deisgned maps. I only played the 2142 demo but just looking at the mpas, 2142 is in league with bf2 in both gameplay and map deisgn.
Bf3.... I've never had any complaints about bf3s map deisgn. It had decent veriety, many biometric, conquest assault and headon assualt. Really the only issue is that with the addition of unlimited sprint and the vision increase, it made the maps feel smaller than they were. But really that's the only complaint.
Bf3 is a 8/10.
Bf4...
Gone are the asymetircal maps. Now everything feels smaller and more limited. The flags names are replaced with letters. The uncap can no longer be entered by the opposing team meaning the team that has the uncap can stay in the uncap and shoot out of it with no conesequnces. It makes the entire map smaller. There's no double assault or coneisqyes assualt. The maps are extrmly symtrical but at least theres variation in flag locations.
5/10 for bf4.
Bf hardline. I can't say I remember many of the maps so its unfair for me to judge it.
Bf1. The same as bf4 but worse. But at least it addrd ships back even if it did it in a sloppy way compared to 1942. 5/10.
Bf 5.... we take 1942 and make it so much worse. Bf5 has som we of the worst maps in the game especially compared to its predecessor wwii game, 1942.
3/10
2042.......just put it in the trash bin.
It had good idea. It really did. But the execution failed epically. All of the issues starting with 4 are present here.
Then we have 6
Extremly limited veriety. All the maps are basically 5 points in more or less a horizontal line. They're all small compared to predecessors. All the maps essentially feel the same. There's really nothing to them. Even in bf1, I could at least recall the points becuase they felt unique somehow. They had something that was easily remembered about every flag in the game. Starting at 5 that kinda fell away. Come to 6, every point feels the same, every maps feels the same.
Its not 2042 levels of bad or 5 levels of bad, but its close.
4/10
