Battlefield 4 Gameplay and Performance Preview

Again, this isn't a full review, but from what we've seen, BF4 is shaping up to be Battlefield 3.5 -- and that's not bad. The new game adds the Commander mode back in, adds boats, tweaks map settings and the HUD, increases out-of-combat regeneration dramatically, tweaks the damage model for vehicles, adds new maps, new game modes, a different type of map evolution, adjusts audio cues, allows players to automatically squad up with friends even when joining a new server, and a host of other tweaks.


Sometimes, enough modest changes evolve into an entirely new product, and when you factor in the tessellation improvements, terrain deformation, Mantle API support, enhanced audio cues, and better particle effects, that's what BF4 is shaping up to be. And it appears likely the game is going to be a premiere title across all of the current and future consoles plus PCs.

Battlefield 4 is going to be closely watched for a number of reasons. Mantle performance, comparisons between the Xbox 360 / PS3 and Xbox One / PS4 versions, and, of course, on its own merits. While we can't predict sales results, it's a potential bellwether for any number of product segments, including whether or not PS3 and Xbox 360 games will still sell well with new consoles shipping just weeks from now.

As for the NVIDIA vs. AMD results, we'll wait for the final product and later driver revisions to make any definitive statements, but for now, even when using DX11, the BF4 beta seems to run best on a Radeon.