Battlefield V Battle Royale Mode May Be Ready in Time for Game's Launch

Call of Duty: Black Ops 4 may not be the only big budget military shooter with a battle royale mode. Battlefield V may have a battle royale mode as well. According to a report from Gamesbeat, Battlefield V could have the mode made popular by Fortnite and PUBG. However it's not a given at this stage. Developer Dice is still prototyping ideas on how it could work, so there's no telling if it could make it in time for Battlefield V's release date. The mode could still be dropped, reworked into another Battlefield or Star Wars title or spun-off into a new game itself. Or at the very least, Battlefield V could see a battle royale mode pushed as a free update.

Citing "someone with knowledge of the studio who asked to remain anonymous", the report states that Dice's owner, EA did not reply to a request for comment. It further goes on to shed light on EA's rocky history with chasing trends.

"Battle royale is seismic shift for the shooter space, and Dice doesn’t want to ignore it. If it’s possible that the genre is not settled in terms of a dominant game, then a lot of money is up for grabs. At the same time, the odds are against any game unseating Fortnite. EA will have to tread carefully here if it decides to put significant resources into chasing Fortnite and PUBG. It has done this before with similar genres. Its Star Wars: The Old Republic massively multiplayer online role-playing game is doing well now as a free-to-play alternative to World of Warcraft, but it didn’t start that way. And the publisher ended up canceling its multiplayer online battle arena Dawngate because it knew it couldn’t compete with League of Legends and DOTA 2. Maybe we’ll get to see if it learned any lessons from that past," writes Gamesbeat's Jeff Grubb.

Battlefield V is set for a 2018 release date. Considering that the last game was Battlefield 1, it's odd to see EA call the next game Battlefield V. The reasons for the inconsistency in nomenclature are unknown at this juncture. Possibly done as a reference to the use of the V sign during World War 2 to denote victory. Perhaps it won't be Battlefield 2 so as to not clash with the 2005 game of the same name. Though EA has referred to Battlefield V as Battlefield 2 internally.

Nonetheless, considering the success of Battlefield 1, a follow up is all but expected. EA already confirmed this to investors stating that instead of Anthem a new Battlefield game will be released, albeit not stating if it would be Battlefield V or Battlefield: Bad Company 3.

“Regardless of how it’s being portrayed, we’re not look at that as a delay, we’ve chosen to launch Anthem in [the fourth quarter]. The date is chosen by by portfolio balance, not product readiness,” EA CEO Andrew Wilson said in a call to investors. “And we’re really excited by the way the new Battlefield is shaping up. It probably doesn’t make too much sense to launch Anthem right by it. As a new IP, it probably makes sense to give [Anthem] its own launch window.”

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