Last week DICE released a new game mode for Battlefield 2042 called Zombie Survival, in which a small team of human players would face off against a horde of undead. It was about a day before it had to be removed for unrelated reasons Zombie Survival self.
Justin Wiebe is Senior Design Director at Ripple Effect Studios, formerly known as Danger Close Games and DICE LA, a studio that’s now primarily a contributor battlefield with things like game modes and expansions. He took to Twitter over the weekend to explain why the mode was discontinued so quickly (basically players were getting XP too quickly and easily):
“We removed zombie mode and replaced it with Gun Game,” he wrote. “Hopefully we can fix it in the future and bring it in line with standard game progression. We’ve also tightened our review process to ensure this doesn’t happen again. Thank you for your patience and understanding.”
Wiebe then responded to a player who said the mode had seen a “mixed amount of reaction” from fans, adding, “I think there was potential for the mode, but I still have a bit of work to do.” walk. Regardless, we need to focus on more important issues like improving core XP progression for the BF Portal.”
“I’m not going to lie, this one shouldn’t have gone through our review process,” he says in another, later tweet. “I think our desire to create a fun zombie mode clouded our ability to see something as simple as the impact it would have on progression. I am very sorry for the difficulties this has caused.”
The problem here is the Battlefield 2042, for better and for the most part for the worse, is based around the idea that as you play you gain XP, which you can use to unlock new weapons, vehicles, skins, and gear in the main game modes. That makes getting it right one of the most important things for the team, and the introduction of fan-made modes into Portal – the game’s creation suite – interrupting that progression threatens to undermine the entire system the game relies on Exit main game modes.
Of course, that sucks, no matter if you liked it Zombie Survival or not, because it reminds us that the progression system is deeply unsatisfactory even for anyone who plays the game seriously, and to see how interesting game modes like this are destroyed to get it shows that the priorities of this game levels are fundamentally wrong.
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