Having tested and completed the single player mode of Battlefield 4 recently, I can now tell you more about it. Before I start to warn, I want to do this: this is my personal opinion and it is purely subjective.
So what is this single player mode worth? We will be clear from the start, it's disappointing. But before we go any further let's agree that 99,9% of players buy the game for multiplayer mode so it's a lesser evil. This parenthesis being made, let's get to the heart of the matter.
The first mission is gripping despite the fact that it has been revealed to 95% by the multiple trailers of recent months. It is undoubtedly the most successful of all and we feel that it has been particularly well cared for. A long and slow drift follows to really hit bottom in the last mission. The only word that comes to mind once the campaign is over is "sloppy" because of many small flaws that I will detail.
I may be demanding but when we choose to do a single player mode in a multiplayer game (a choice that I personally find useless) it must serve as a showcase in a way and we must have something clean, which is far from being the case. Already the bugs are legion and it really ruins the gameplay. If you want concrete examples, I have a dime a dozen:
- A scripted passage that bugged in the second mission: if you go too fast and eliminate the enemies without waiting for the cutscene, you find yourself blocked without being able to do anything because the rest of the mission does not trigger.
- Another script problem that also happens when you move too fast is ending up with a multitude of enemies that magically appear behind you or next to you.
- The characters blocking your way all the time! You never know if you should go first or last, it's so painful. Or if not sometimes they push you ... Special mention for the mission of the dam where while lying down to shoot a sniper, your teammate behind you advances, follows a slide at high speed on the stomach to end up in the empty.
- Another anecdote, by sticking very closely to Irish while climbing a ladder on the aircraft carrier, I found myself catapulted into the sea 600 meters further.
- Character invisible during a cutscene.
- Artificial intelligence of NPCs is poor. We have enemies who take cover standing behind an element of the scenery that has been destroyed.
- Teammates and enemies shoot at each other 3 meters apart without touching each other. Once, it even occurred to me that they were leaning against the same pillar and glued to each other without killing each other.
- Progress save that crashes in the 6th mission and you are forced to start the entire mission over
- And of course the Origin cloud which saves your progress and updates your stats a bit whenever it wants.
Of course these bugs can be fixed but I don't think anyone is going to have fun redoing the campaign.
The lifespan is quite short, it takes 5 hours in normal mode without rushing. So, we add artificially by putting unlockable content for multiplayer, 6 weapons and dog tags. Let's talk about the latter that you will not have to recover from enemies killed with a knife (no that would be too simple and too logical). In fact, they recover by wandering around completely improbable places in the countryside. They come in the form of a knife stuck in the background with the plates hanging from the end and you have to interact with the E key to take them.
Even the hard mode doesn't turn out to be that complicated and doesn't present anything insurmountable. The 3 different endings are of no interest apart from unlocking weapons for multiplayer. And having to redo the last mission 3 times turns out to be more of an ordeal than anything else.
The characters are hollow and uninteresting. We just have a pseudo friendship that forms between Hannah and Irish which evolves vaguely over the missions. I'm not even talking about the hero we embody who has no charisma, it's normal because he never speaks and we do not see him! If it is to reinforce the immersion and to be able to better identify with the character, it is frankly missed. I much preferred the solo of BF3 where we played a real character with his own personality and that we saw in the cutscenes. Once the leader of the TombStone squad is dead, you take his place. And this is where it's just ridiculous because we're talking to you and you're leading a squad but you're some kind of dumb puppet who doesn't feel a thing.
We have cutscenes without interest and length. We reach the climax in the last mission which should last 15 minutes and where we actually play 5 minutes. Everything is far too scripted and linear, even though we had been promised something more open. Best of all, there isn't even a co-op mode. Too bad all that would have been much less painful for two and it would have undoubtedly made the pill easier to pass.
A phase in the boat a little short, we could have liked to pilot the machine a little longer. This is the novelty of this new opus and they do not seek to highlight it.
Let's talk about the positive points because yes there are all the same. The Frosbite 3 engine throws some, that on that side, there is no problem. Shadows, light, smoke, explosions, it must be recognized that graphically it is sumptuous (feel free to push the graphics, the solo is much less greedy than the multiplayer). Another good point, the boxes of weapons that allow you to change your equipment and really equip what you want is also very nice (good after from there to put it every 50 meters, it's a bit exaggerated ... ).
Believe me, when it comes to Battlefield, I put myself more in the "fanboy" category and it doesn't make me so happy to be so tough but the facts are there. All these small cumulative faults are painful! You have to see the bright side of things: the 5 hours of soloing are nothing compared to the hundreds or even thousands of hours that can be spent on multiplayer: Too bad the solo (and the coop) of Battelfield 3 had left me a good impression, that of Battelfield 4 will be quickly forgotten.
Do not hesitate to react and give me your opinion on this single player campaign!
