Battlefield 3 for Console Getting Some Multiplayer Cutbacks

I'm pretty sure we saw this coming. Even after being told that Battlefield 3's PC version would run at 60FPS, while the console version would run at 30FPS, we could've assumed that some sacrifices had to be made to get the console versions of the game on par. Well, looking at the very first Fault Line trailers, I don't think a console could've had that much power to get a game to play like that - after all, those trailers were from the PC version of the game.

Although, that's one thing. What was announced by DICE, the developers behind the big franchise, was that multiplayer will be getting some cutbacks for consoles. The most unique thing about Battielfied is the number of players on one- er-...battlfield, heh! On the PC version of the game, which is obviously the lead platform, will contain 64 players all at once, while console will support only up to 24.

Here's what Patrick Bach, executive producer at DICE had to say:

If you want the same quality of game, I would say it's really, really hard. We tried to get more players in [to the console version] but then you need to scale down all the graphics, scale down all the destructibility, and sometimes you need to scale down all the map sizes. Everything is a compromise on: where do you cut?

Everything is a compromise. It's not that we're evil or stupid. We didn't choose not to have more players - we would love to do 64 players on console but then we would have to cut away so much; people would get very upset that it looked worse, played worse and wasn't as fun as the PC version. We would never do that because the fun is always more important."

Another thing that has been confirmed by Bach was that maps will be more "compact" - just a bit smaller. From the sound of how he puts it, he is promising that it won't be anything major.

When we say they are smaller, it's not that we have cut them in half. But we tried to compact them slightly to keep the action up. If you compare it to Battlefield: Bad Company 2, the maps weren't really small on console. We actually had huge maps even for console. We have the same kind of angle on it right now [in Battlefield 3]. We want to create the same experience for PC as for consoles

As October is just a few mere months away, expect to hear way more about Battlefield soon. Not to mention that the multiplayer beta starts not long before the release date.