Getting a little air and seeing things from afar is useful in a game that demands you take a holistic view of the fight
Not for the first time, a Battlefield game has left us wondering whether the series really is a mainstream shooter in spirit, or has something more niche at its core. Yes, the speeding rickshaws and intuitive tanks lend themselves to rollicking escapades that any solo player can hop in and enjoy. But beneath that is a game that values coordination above all else. Battlefield’s quintessential class is the medic: a support role built to keep a squad’s roving spawn point alive, and thus enable glory for the team, not just the individual. Perhaps DICE’s peers aren’t Infinity Ward and Sledgehammer after all, but the teams behind Natural Selection, Squad and Hell Let Loose – tactical games in which victory is more a matter of effective communication and wellmaintained hierarchy than shooting straight.