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" Battlefield 4 is the anticipated return of EA&amp;#039;s premier shooting franchise that&amp;#039;s been teased in one form or another for the past year. It&amp;#039;s the debut title for the visually impressive Frostbite 3 engine, which powers a more open single-player campaign and a story that aims to be more emotional and personal with its cast of soldiers. Running on high-end PCs and previously confirmed for next-generation systems, the good news is that Frostbite 3&amp;#039;s scalable nature will also see the title launch on Xbox 360 and PS3 late this year. We witnessed 17 minutes of the game - the opening mission called &amp;#039;Fishing in Baku&amp;#039; - which sees a tight-knit group of soldiers escape from behind enemy lines with vital information that could have far-reaching ramifications in a world that&amp;#039;s on the brink of global war. A more open, sandbox single player campaign After a linear, Call of Duty-style campaign, single-player will become more of an open, sandbox experience with the franchise&amp;#039;s trademark &amp;quot;Battlefield moments&amp;quot; that we&amp;#039;ve come to expect from multiplayer. While the demonstration was book-ended with corridor-shooting and scripted cutscenes familiar to those who played Battlefield 3&amp;#039;s campaign, the middle section sees your squad stumble across a vast, open construction site that players can freely roam.  Using a vehicle, for example, you&amp;#039;re able to drive around and engage enemies however you want to. Destructibility is also key to this more open experience. Pinned down by an enemy gunner, the demonstrator used a shotgun to blast apart a nearby wall, followed by a well-placed grenade round on a solidly-constructed building to forge their own path around the enemy position to flank them. Even outside of these sandbox moments there are more options thanks to being able to spot targets, directing the attention of the squad for offensive and defensive options. One particular moment saw you target around a dozen enemies dotted in a half-finished structure, calling in a helicopter strike that lit up the battlefield with a colossal fireball, causing a nearby wireframe structure to collapse. We weren&amp;#039;t sure whether this particularly impressive moment had some element of scripting to it - or whether such a prime opportunity like this would naturally emerge during play - but it certainly teases what&amp;#039;s possible from directing team mates and sandbox gameplay.  Learning from Battlefield 3&amp;#039;s single player shortcomings Game director Lars&amp;amp;nbsp;Gustavsson said the lack of open-ended gameplay in Battlefield 3 was something the development team at DICE wanted to address in this sequel. &amp;quot;The number one thing to me was that in some areas we forgot our roots in Battlefield,&amp;quot; he told Digital Spy. &amp;quot;In many ways I would give credit to the team \u2013 we were [so] dedicated and focused on delivering a good story that in the process of making it, we lost the level of destruction we had in multiplayer, and we lost the sandbox gameplay.&amp;quot; Gustavsson continued: &amp;quot;I think we&amp;#039;re striking a balance where we want to hand the player autonomy, while trying to tell a good story. &amp;quot;Going off the demonstration, we estimated that the balance of open-ended gameplay and more linear moments was about half and half. What the ratio in the final game will be is still undecided. &amp;quot;I would be honest and say that it&amp;#039;s still too early to tell, as we&amp;#039;re still hammering away in the studio,&amp;quot; Gustavsson added. &amp;quot;But overall we&amp;#039;re trying to use [open gameplay] as much as possible that the story allows. It&amp;#039;s definitely our ambition and desire to do as much as possible.&amp;quot;  Delivering a more emotional, impactful story The most surprising part of Battlefield 4&amp;#039;s reveal was DICE&amp;#039;s desire to tell a more emotional story that the team hopes will touch and affect the player - something which the gameplay demonstration hints at during several moments. The opening moments of the game sees your team trapped inside a car that&amp;#039;s slowly sinking in water, with soldiers panicking about what to do next. With your squad leader Duun trapped in the wreckage, he gives you his gun and orders you to shoot out the window to escape before you&amp;#039;re all killed. It was a tense moment given a bizarre and surreal edge with the addition of Bonnie Tyler&amp;#039;s &amp;#039;Total Eclipse of the Heart&amp;#039; playing on the car radio. One of the soldier directly references the bizarre situation, saying &amp;quot;Oh man, I don&amp;#039;t want to die to this song!&amp;quot; Another moment comes shortly after the climax of the construction yard section, as the building you&amp;#039;re in collapses with the arrival of an enemy chopper. With a soldier trapped underneath the rubble, you have to cut through his leg to free him and escape. It&amp;#039;s a scene that gives the player agency, but one that&amp;#039;s just a simple button press and a quick knife swipe rather than anything close to the horrifying and truly impactful hacking seen in 127 Hours. But again, it&amp;#039;s a clear attempt at dramatic, impactful storytelling.  Do you think love can bloom even on a Battlefield? Gustavsson says this more emotional story is achieved both in advances in its next-generation Frostbite 3 engine, and by focusing on a more personal story about you and your squad. &amp;quot;Now we have Frostbite 3, we developed it [and] one of the key focuses has been to deliver better characters, better human interactivity with these characters,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;Everything from the hand system - that was kind of vanilla in Battlefield 3 - now hopefully it&amp;#039;s so much more fluid, everything from how they react to you to how we build our characters, how we build our dialogue. &amp;quot;It&amp;#039;s all much more intended to be focused on the individuals. Previously it&amp;#039;s been more about the geopolitics and the big thing, but to be honest, you want to care about you, yourself, your squad, and getting through.&amp;quot; The engine&amp;#039;s advancements will also see motion capture and hand animations blend together more seamlessly, making the jarring leap between the two less noticeable and aiding immersion. It also employs the use of recognisable actors such as Michael K Williams - who played Omar in The Wire - helping to bring one of the unit&amp;#039;s soldiers to life.  Introducing social features into single player The campaign will see also introduce some kind of social connectivity and &amp;quot;persistence&amp;quot; with friends. While specifics on this will be revealed in the near future, Gustavsson explained it would be about those &amp;quot;Battlefield moments&amp;quot; and sharing your journey with others. &amp;quot;We centre the game about you, about your squad, about emotions, about your journey together with the group,&amp;quot; he said. &amp;quot;To be honest that goes into multiplayer as well. You&amp;#039;ll have your Battlefield moments. It&amp;#039;s about you and your journey you created, and hopefully you&amp;#039;ll be able to create your own moments in single player now as well. &amp;quot;To be able to share that with friends, and more of these social layers, will be a great addition.&amp;quot; With such emphasis on social, persistent elements in single player, could this mean the introduction of a compulsory internet connection seen recently in SimCity, or will such features be optional? &amp;quot;That&amp;#039;s still something we&amp;#039;re looking into,&amp;quot; Gustavsson replied. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;re hammering away back home, but it&amp;#039;s those stakes where you really want to make sure that you hit home and do the right thing.&amp;quot; Watch the new 17-minute extended gameplay trailer for Battlefield 4:      What can we expect from multiplayer? Battlefield 4 will obviously feature multiplayer, but with the reveal focused on the single-player campaign, details are currently thin on the ground. What is clear is that sea combat will feature - as recent teaser videos had suggested - with attack boats and jet skis confirmed to feature in the game. DICE is also planning for the long haul and has confirmed that Battlefield Premium - the online subscription service that provided players with early DLC maps and exclusive content - will return. &amp;quot;We&amp;#039;ll definitely do Premium for Battlefield 4,&amp;quot; Gustavsson said. &amp;quot;It was so well received and we got good feedback from the community, so it&amp;#039;s definitely something we&amp;#039;re going to continue with.&amp;quot; Finally, multiplayer was teased to be &amp;quot;innovative&amp;quot;, and will &amp;quot;push the boundaries&amp;quot; of what we can expect from the franchise. &amp;quot;Next month is 14 years since I was part of creating the first demo, and I was responsible for multiplayer in Battlefield 3,&amp;quot; Gustavsson explained. &amp;quot;I&amp;#039;ve been with the franchise all the way, and it&amp;#039;s dear to us. Trust me, we&amp;#039;re really trying to push the boundaries and deliver more, better, cooler [multiplayer]. I&amp;#039;m longing to talk about it.&amp;quot; Battlefield 4 will be available on Xbox 360, PS3 and PC in late 2013. "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/gaming/battlefield/news/a468700/battlefield-4-preview-first-look-at-the-more-open-emotional-campaign/>