After showcasing the co-op campaign for Battlefield 3 at GamesCom a couple weeks ago, DICE product manager Tommy Rydling has pulled back the curtain further on what the newly implemented mode means for the game.
While speaking to Playstation Blog he mentioned that working with a buddy is “the perfect blend between the strong narrative from single player and the open-ended action from multiplayer”. He also added that ” fusing the replayability of multiplayer with a pick up and play mentality” will establish a new way to approach the action of Battlefield.
Rydling explained that the game’s co-op missions are varied in structure and design.
“This means that one mission can have you piloting a helicopter while your friend is the gunner, for example. Other situations have one player disarming a bomb and the other one defending him. Or (as you could see in our press conference playthrough at GamesCom) you can do tandem kills to avoid detection.”
That demo he refers to, is an escort mission where you must help a defecting informant get to safety.
As for who you play as in co-op, the soldiers being controlled are not designated to one specific Armed Forces squad, this allows for “a vast variety in gameplay in the different co-op missions”. Just like in other cooperative modes, players can revive fallen partners as they slowly bleed out while shooting at oncoming enemies with a secondary weapon for covering fire.
This will happen often too, as Rydling depicts how relentless the difficulty for co-op will be.
“We are definitely going for a tough challenge in all missions. Also, since competitive players will likely try each mission several times, all of the co-op missions contain randomised elements to keep every playthrough fresh.”
He went on to explain how clearing the co-op missions not only gives you scores and bragging rights – it also has benefits for your multiplayer career. There are a number of weapons that you can unlock in co-op and take with you to the regular multiplayer modes. These unlocks are based on your combined scores accumulated throughout the co-op campaign.”
DICE general manager Karl Magnus Troedsson said earlier this month there’ll be six co-op missions when the game launches in October and they’ll be unconnected to the main campaign. Although they’ll share some environments, there’ll be different difficulty levels and achievements, and each map should take between 20 and 50 minutes to complete.
