Game Info Platform 360, PS3, Win, PS4, Xbox One Publisher Electronic Arts Developer EA Digital Illusions CE Release Date Oct 29, 2013

Battlefield 4 takes the scope of the previous games and blows it up, with maps that span virtual kilometers of space that take minutes to run across on foot. Battlefield 4's multiplayer levels feel less compromised in scale than in Battlefield 3 — which has the unfortunate side effect of feast or famine. When one of the larger maps had less than 50 players, for example, I found it easy to wander for multiple minutes looking for something to do, for someone to shoot or assist or something. Anything. But when those levels are full — when, for example, 64 players are battling for control of Hainan Resort's five capture points — there's no shortage of engagement. As infantry cross bridges and hills on foot to take points and attack boats rush along the shore to ferry troops to unguarded areas, the new Commander element allows one player on each team to direct support and assume control of a missile truck in the center of the map. At one point, I watched as the resort hotel crumbled under the explosives of my teammates and jets screamed overhead, and then I ran to the next capture point, gunning down other players and avoiding turret fire from a Little Bird attack chopper. It's exhilarating in a way no other shooter is. Moments like these are what Battlefield as a series has worked toward for more than a decade, and when they come, they're better realized than they've ever been. Battlefield 4 takes the casual destruction of structures from Battlefield: Bad Company 2, and the vehicle-oriented size and player counts of Battlefield 3, and weaves them tightly together. And it does it with subtly improved mechanics. A new emphasis on framerate courtesy of next-gen consoles as a baseline leads to more fluid motion on the ground and with a gun. Other changes are subtle. Suppression — where weapons fire causes an enemy's vision to blur — feels more effective, and it's more of a threat than it used to be. Where I often fired through suppression in Battlefield 3, in Battlefield 4 I found it more appropriate to run, to reposition, to attack from a different angle — or find a less defended target. Battlefield 4 requires a constant awareness of more angles, more possibilities, more dangers and more options than most of its competition combined. There's never only one solution to a problem. And this is where the game excels. It's a shooter that engenders more than a primal satisfaction of success. It's not just clever — it's smart. And it's singular in its combination of elements that enable players to feel that way. Battlefield 4 also manages to take small lessons from other faster shooters. While Conquest, the objective-based multi-point capture mode on large, vehicle-laden maps, is still the star of the show, the addition of a dedicated, infantry only variation called Domination is often inspired. One match on the prison compound of Operation Locker may have been the most fun I've ever had with a Battlefield game. As each team smashed against each other head-on, or flanked from above, or below or the sides, it emphasized shooting that's never worked as well as it does here.

Next Gen As part of EA's review event for Battlefield 4, reviewers were given the opportunity to spend extensive time with the next-generation console versions of Battlefield 4, in addition to the PC version of the game. Unlike the Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of Battlefield 4, the Xbox One and PS4 releases have feature parity with the PC release — they have the same maps, the same player counts and the same framerate. The most discerning graphics pixel counters will find fodder for pointed fingers and debate on next-gen platforms, as neither console is rendering Battlefield 4 at a native 1080p resolution. The Xbox One version of Battlefield 4 is currently rendering at 1280x720, while the PS4 is natively rendering at 1600x900. As a result, the PS4 version is somewhat sharper than the Xbox One release. Other than that, the two games look very similar over the course of Battlefield 4's single-player campaign, with the same lighting and framerate throughout (see gallery below for unmarked screenshots from both systems — see if you can tell which is which). Unfortunately, at this time, we can't provide final verdicts for either the Xbox One or PS4 versions of the game. Microsoft has specified that review scores must be held until Nov. 12th at 9:00AM PST, and we were not given the opportunity to play the Xbox One version's multiplayer component. Regarding PS4, there were serious stability issues that repeatedly led to crashes after multiplayer matches concluded. As the PS4 is still more than two weeks away from its Nov. 15th launch date, it seems premature to assume that this issue will not be resolved — and penalizing the game this far from the PS4's launch doesn't seem especially fair. We will further evaluate both next-generation versions of Battlefield 4 once they launch on their respective platforms next month.

Editor markup for Battlefield 4 Xbox One & PS4 Campaign Comparison. This is only visible in the story editor.

DICE's relentlessly advertised "Levolution" adds an additional sense of unpredictability and shifting considerations to the game. In Operation Locker, a blizzard would often kick up outside the complex, making it difficult to spot enemies while moving and frosting my red-dot sight, rendering it useless until I spent a few seconds indoors. On Paracel Storm, a heated match of Conquest was interrupted by an intense hurricane that sent boats off course and had enemy combatants a dozen or so feet in front of each other without realizing it. The complete destruction of large sections of levels adds new tactical considerations to many maps — do we take out the dam and flood the valley, making an approach on this point more difficult, or do we leave it intact so we can bring our vehicles more easily across? And in turn, our team had to decide whether or not to let the other team make the same decision.

On the other hand, the shift in terrain made some maps less fun to play. There have always been maps that favor play styles that feel alien to Battlefield's conceit of creative play and improvisation, but now some maps shift from one extreme to the other over the course of play — swimming more than shooting in Flood Zone wasn't my idea of a good time, and Siege of Shanghai is a less fun map to play with its central tower in ruins. This is joined by a problem that plagued Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3 alike: every map supports every game type, but not every map works for every game type. Golmud Railway is a dream for Conquest players and tank commanders. But for Obliteration mode, where one bomb appears on a map at a time for either team to grab and destroy the other team's capture points, it led to matches that quickly turned lopsided and frustrating. Rush often forces map configurations that bleed the versatility and variability of attack from Battlefield 4, which almost defeats the purpose of the game entirely. Or so I told myself as I spent the bulk of one Rush round on Paracel Storm swimming from the belly of one troop ship to the partially submerged deck of another, only to get annihilated by the enemy team as I dragged myself out of the water. But the occasional balance problems of multiplayer are minor given Battlefield 4's aggressive mediocrity in single-player. Taking a cue from Battlefield 3, DICE's latest features a single-player campaign that drips production values even as it grabs you by the collar and drags you through some very familiar motions.

Class War One of the most worrying elements of Battlefield 4 will have to play out over time, as DICE has radically altered the existing class system from previous games. There are still support troops who supply ammo while laying down light machine gun fire, assault classes who dispense med kits while using grenade launchers and ARs on the front lines, engineers who can handle enemy armor with rockets and mines while mixing it up from medium range, and recon kits, who oversee the field with sniper rifles and traps. This ecosystem helps players learn different roles in the Battlefield series, and play an important part in matches without being murder gods with a 2.5 kill/death ratio. But every class now also has access to slowly unlocked carbines and shotguns. It's a clear nod to the customization options of Call of Duty, along with Battlefield 4's poorly considered Team Deathmatch mode, and one that seems at odds with the delicate class ecosystem of Battlefield. Small changes to Battlefield have proven in the past to have complicated ripple effects throughout the life of DICE's games — time will have to tell if this harms the class focus that the series depends on.

Editor's note: Current generation reviews for Battlefield 4 are in progress. The Xbox 360 and PS3 versions of the game feature smaller maps and much lower player counts than their PC and next-generation console counterparts, and we were not given sufficient opportunity to evaluate the differences this would cause. Battlefield 4 has all the necessary components for a good, story-driven shooter campaign. It's got a well-developed set of mechanics, oriented as much around strategic movement — vaulting over barriers, a workable lean system that works nearly auto-magically — as they are around the first-person shooting that so often takes center stage. Guns roar as concrete flies off of barriers and columns. But for all the fury and fire that Battlefield 4 promises when you pull the trigger, there's little impact during firefights. There's a dizzying disconnect present in the damage it felt like I should be doing and the damage I did. In Battlefield 4, shy of a headshot, you'll be reloading often as you fling magazine after magazine at AI opponents. This combines with the enemies' tendency to hide behind cover for, well, forever, popping up every few seconds or so, leading to extended firefights where it doesn't feel like anything interesting is happening at all. All of which directly contradicts a campaign that otherwise seems hellbent on throwing you forward, or down, or out of something — just about every chapter ends with your character getting tossed out of something at high speed and/or losing consciousness. Battlefield 4's campaign is a jumbled, minimally coherent collection of guided shooter clichés. It isn't just forgettable, it's consistently, often willfully stupid.

Battlefield 4 melds elements of its predecessors, but their baggage weighs it down

DICE has failed once again to make Battlefield 4 a serious single-player contender. But its emphasis on ambitious, team-based multiplayer does wonders to wash the taste of that failure away. Battlefield 4 takes the elements that have made each installment work and glues them together successfully - even if some rough edges show here or there. Battlefield 4 was reviewed at an EA-hosted review event at EA Redwood Shores on provided PCs with AMD 8-Core CPUs and crossfire'd AMD 7970 video cards. Additional time was spent in singleplayer and multiplayer on Xbox One and PS4 development kits. You can find additional information on Polygon's ethics policy here.

Our review of Battlefield 4 4 out of 10 Platform 360, PS3, Win, PS4, Xbox One

Publisher Electronic Arts

Release Date Oct 29, 2013

PS4 Score 4

Developer EA Digital Illusions CE About Polygon Reviews

Update: 12/02/2013

Battlefield 4 review update two

After a brief period of reliability in the day or so before Thanksgiving in the US, Battlefield 4 has again succumbed to repeated and consistent issues on every platform. PC players are reporting crashes, while Xbox One and PS4 players are once again suffering from crashes to the homescreen of their respective platforms, as well as general matchmaking problems for the Conquest game type. More than a month after its initial release, Battlefield 4 is still barely playable for many players, and EA and DICE can't seem to fix the problem (though EA has informed us a new patch is going live on PC tomorrow, delaying our appraisal of that platform for at least a day or two). As such, it's difficult for us to recommend a game that otherwise may be the strongest multiplayer shooter of the year.

Our review of Battlefield 4 7.5 out of 10 Platform 360, PS3, Win, PS4, Xbox One

Publisher Electronic Arts

Release Date Oct 29, 2013

Developer EA Digital Illusions CE Scores per platform: 7.5 Win

7.5 PS4 About Polygon Reviews

Update: 11/27/2013

Battlefield 4 review update: Xbox One and PS4

Both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One releases of Battlefield 4 have been off to a rocky start. As recently as this week, both were beset by issues accessing Conquest mode and hard system crashes to their consoles respective home screens. Arguably worse, pronounced lag on all servers and gametypes has hampered basic gameplay — even running in a straight line has been frequently interrupted by stutters.

After a PS4 client update yesterday and general server updates on EA and DICE's backend, the gameplay experience for Battlefield 4 on both next-gen consoles has improved considerably — for now. Spending a couple of hours each with the Xbox One and PlayStation 4 releases today, multiplayer has been smooth and stable, even with full servers. The question, of course, is whether EA's servers can withstand one final regional console launch this week as the PS4 arrives in Europe, bringing with it a new crop of players eager to join the fray.

For now, though, the Xbox One and PS4 versions of Battlefield 4 offer an experience comparable to last month's PC release, and warrant the same recommendation. But we'll keep an eye out for renewed server/game issues in the coming weeks, and more cautious players wouldn't be remiss in waiting a few more days to see how the holiday weekend affects online play.

Our review of Battlefield 4 7.5 out of 10 Platform 360, PS3, Win, PS4, Xbox One

Publisher Electronic Arts

Release Date Oct 29, 2013

Win Score 7.5

Developer EA Digital Illusions CE About Polygon Reviews

Initial Review: 10/29/2013

Battlefield 4 review: bullet drop