Honestly, I still find it hard to believe that this first-person shooter is already eight years old. It almost feels like yesterday when I hopped in a match with a group of friends, so we could try to win the battle with our dumb yet hilarious tactics. Sometimes we were successful, sometimes not, but one thing was constant — we had a great time. Thus, I was naturally curious to see whether my thoughts and memories about those times are still valid or if they got influenced by so-called nostalgic thinking.

Well, I hooked up with an old friend of mine, and we both ventured back into the chaotic skirmishes as if it was the last chance to say our farewells to this title. However, we were surprised that Battlefield 4’s servers are still full of joy and life. Thousands of people are still playing it to this very day, and the player count got even higher after the announcement of the upcoming Battlefield 2042.

To put it simply, the best time to jump in again is now.

Disclaimer: I have already spent almost 300 hours on the Origin version, so I am more than familiar with the game’s mechanics. It also explains why most of my achievements unlocked at one specific time because they carry over. You can click here[gyazo.com] to see the proof of my spent time.

Also, it is not necessary to play Battlefield 4 via the Battlelog app anymore, as there is an in-game server browser. However, we experienced few problems at times, as it did not put us in the same squad, so we had to do it manually.

During the past few days, we managed to find lots of populated servers for several modes, maps and expansions. Nevertheless, some of the less favoured game modes, such as Defuse or Capture the Flag, might have only one or two active matches. It is possible to play them at times, but the franchise’s iconic Conquest is way more popular, and you will not have a problem finding servers for it. Servers’ activity is visible at any time on the abovementioned Battlelog[battlelog.battlefield.com] page, so you can check out how the modes you might want to play are doing.

One should keep in mind that Battlefield 4 is by no means a tactical or even realistic shooter; it is arcadey, and while it looks quite authentic to the modern setting, there are still a lot of inaccuracies. This game is about jumping in and experiencing chaotic skirmishes without thinking much about it. If you want something more sophisticated, you should check out ARMA or Squad.
What I still adore and respect about this title is the inclusion of the Chinese faction because most of the mainstream military shooters tend to focus strictly on the conflict between the USA and Russian Federation or some of the Middle Eastern terrorists. Even though Battlefield 4 has two of the abovementioned superpowers, the Chinese presence spices it up. Thus, this setting provides varied maps from several locations, whether it is the city of Shanghai, Siberian mountains or islands in the Pacific Ocean.

Yet, we are not here for sightseeing, as those locations will taste the horrors of war soon. The environment, mainly buildings, are destructible, which changes the gameplay a bit. Did the enemy squad hide in that shack over there? Why go inside for the possible death when you can blow it up! There is even a so-called Levolution system that usually changes the game’s pace. For example, sunny weather might change into a storm, which will worsen your vision and even makes higher waves, influencing boats’ movement.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2527910831
In these varied and changing environments, you have to focus on your objectives. As Conquests is this series’ iconic and most popular mode, I will describe it a bit. Both teams have a high respawn ticket number, like 1 000. To win the match, you have to lower your opposing team’s tickets down to zero. That is done either by killing enemies, as each death – respawn – takes one ticket; because that would be a bit slow, there are several objective zones, usually five, for you to capture. If you happen to control more of them, enemies’ tickets reduce faster. Due to this system and the fact that there can be up to sixty-four players, there are several ongoing battles at one moment. Thus, you have to choose where your presence might be most helpful.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2527903220
To make things easier, people can join in squads, which allows you to respawn on your comrades and cooperate a bit. If two squads are already on their way towards the objective Echo, go to another one. There is also a commander role; it is not present on the actual battlefield, as it can only watch the whole map and support its team with various tools or even unleash missiles upon enemies. Commander’s presence is not necessary to win, but it surely is a sweet bonus to have one.

While there is an enormous amount of weapons, tools and equipment, it would be a bit tedious to describe all of them, especially as they are all customizable. Instead, I will focus on the classes. There are four of them:

• Assault Class has versatile assault rifles and grenade launchers with several nade types, such as explosives or smokes, which are deadly for enemies infantry. They can also heal others and revive fallen comrades.
  
  
• Engineer Class specialises in disabling vehicles via both mines and rocket launchers, as well as repairing allied ones.
  
  
• Recon Class provides intel and sniper coverage for your team, making them deadly assassins.
  
  
• Support Class supply others with ammo kits, mortar strikes, and their machine guns are always ready to tear apart your foes.

All of those classes have more equipment; I just chose a few to show how they rely on each other. Some of the weapon types, such as shotguns or DRMs, are even available to all. My personal favourite is definitely the engineer class, as with A-91 carbine, it is efficient against the infantry, too. Plus, annoying others’ vehicles is something I love to do.

The abovementioned vehicles are essential but not overpowered. Sure, you can obliterate several lonely soldiers with a tank, but you automatically become a target for others. Apart from that one, there are various transports, boats, helicopters and jets; all of those have different types according to map and faction.
https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2527908419
Just briefly about the single-player campaign before the end — it is not worth getting this title for it. Even though it is one of the better ones that this series offered so far, compared to other franchises, like Call of Duty, which manages to provide enjoyable, action moments, it is still mediocre. The story and characters are bland, generic and unmemorable. What is worse is the fact that AI is simply dumb, especially your companions’ one, which ruins the immersion.

If you lust for a multiplayer, arcadey shooter, which puts you into chaotic encounters, then Battlefield 4 is the right choice for you. With its active player base and tons of content, you cannot go wrong. For me, this my favourite title from this series and the last competent one from it. Perhaps the next one will come close to it? Who knows.

PC Specs and Performance

I played it with an i5 8300H, GTX 1060 6GB, and 16GB RAM, at highest settings, at 80-100 frames per second, at 1920x1080 resolution.

Curator link

Soldiers! Follow my curator, Blue Lips and their Quips!

[h1][b]Wait, what? [i]Battlefield 4[/i] is still alive?![/b][/h1] Honestly, I still find it hard to believe that this first-person shooter is already eight years old. It almost feels like yesterday when I hopped in a match with a group of friends, so we could try to win the battle with our dumb yet hilarious tactics. Sometimes we were successful, sometimes not, but one thing was constant — we had a great time. Thus, I was naturally curious to see whether my thoughts and memories about those times are still valid or if they got influenced by so-called nostalgic thinking. Well, I hooked up with an old friend of mine, and we both ventured back into the chaotic skirmishes as if it was the last chance to say our farewells to this title. However, we were surprised that [i]Battlefield 4’s[/i] servers are still full of joy and life. Thousands of people are still playing it to this very day, and the player count got even higher after the announcement of the upcoming [i]Battlefield 2042[/i]. To put it simply, the best time to jump in again is now. [quote][b]Disclaimer:[/b] I have already spent almost 300 hours on the [i]Origin[/i] version, so I am more than familiar with the game’s mechanics. It also explains why most of my achievements unlocked at one specific time because they carry over. You can click [url=https://gyazo.com/e121f80758ac99aef09abde5cc8ebaf6][b]here[/b][/url] to see the proof of my spent time. Also, it is not necessary to play [i]Battlefield 4[/i] via the [i]Battlelog[/i] app anymore, as there is an in-game server browser. However, we experienced few problems at times, as it did not put us in the same squad, so we had to do it manually.[/quote] During the past few days, we managed to find lots of populated servers for several modes, maps and expansions. Nevertheless, some of the less favoured game modes, such as Defuse or Capture the Flag, might have only one or two active matches. It is possible to play them at times, but the franchise’s iconic Conquest is way more popular, and you will not have a problem finding servers for it. Servers’ activity is visible at any time on the abovementioned [url=https://battlelog.battlefield.com/bf4/servers/ ][i]Battlelog[/i][/url] page, so you can check out how the modes you might want to play are doing. One should keep in mind that [i]Battlefield 4[/i] is by no means a tactical or even realistic shooter; it is arcadey, and while it looks quite authentic to the modern setting, there are still a lot of inaccuracies. This game is about jumping in and experiencing chaotic skirmishes without thinking much about it. If you want something more sophisticated, you should check out [i]ARMA[/i] or [i]Squad[/i]. [h3][b]As good as I remember it![/b][/h3] What I still adore and respect about this title is the inclusion of the Chinese faction because most of the mainstream military shooters tend to focus strictly on the conflict between the USA and Russian Federation or some of the Middle Eastern terrorists. Even though [i]Battlefield 4[/i] has two of the abovementioned superpowers, the Chinese presence spices it up. Thus, this setting provides varied maps from several locations, whether it is the city of Shanghai, Siberian mountains or islands in the Pacific Ocean. Yet, we are not here for sightseeing, as those locations will taste the horrors of war soon. The environment, mainly buildings, are destructible, which changes the gameplay a bit. Did the enemy squad hide in that shack over there? Why go inside for the possible death when you can blow it up! There is even a so-called [i]Levolution[/i] system that usually changes the game’s pace. For example, sunny weather might change into a storm, which will worsen your vision and even makes higher waves, influencing boats’ movement. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2527910831 In these varied and changing environments, you have to focus on your objectives. As Conquests is this series’ iconic and most popular mode, I will describe it a bit. Both teams have a high respawn ticket number, like 1 000. To win the match, you have to lower your opposing team’s tickets down to zero. That is done either by killing enemies, as each death – respawn – takes one ticket; because that would be a bit slow, there are several objective zones, usually five, for you to capture. If you happen to control more of them, enemies’ tickets reduce faster. Due to this system and the fact that there can be up to sixty-four players, there are several ongoing battles at one moment. Thus, you have to choose where your presence might be most helpful. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2527903220 To make things easier, people can join in squads, which allows you to respawn on your comrades and cooperate a bit. If two squads are already on their way towards the objective Echo, go to another one. There is also a commander role; it is not present on the actual battlefield, as it can only watch the whole map and support its team with various tools or even unleash missiles upon enemies. Commander’s presence is not necessary to win, but it surely is a sweet bonus to have one. While there is an enormous amount of weapons, tools and equipment, it would be a bit tedious to describe all of them, especially as they are all customizable. Instead, I will focus on the classes. There are four of them: [list][*][b]Assault Class[/b] has versatile assault rifles and grenade launchers with several nade types, such as explosives or smokes, which are deadly for enemies infantry. They can also heal others and revive fallen comrades. [*][b]Engineer Class[/b] specialises in disabling vehicles via both mines and rocket launchers, as well as repairing allied ones. [*][b]Recon Class[/b] provides intel and sniper coverage for your team, making them deadly assassins. [*][b]Support Class[/b] supply others with ammo kits, mortar strikes, and their machine guns are always ready to tear apart your foes.[/list] All of those classes have more equipment; I just chose a few to show how they rely on each other. Some of the weapon types, such as shotguns or DRMs, are even available to all. My personal favourite is definitely the engineer class, as with A-91 carbine, it is efficient against the infantry, too. Plus, annoying others’ vehicles is something I love to do. The abovementioned vehicles are essential but not overpowered. Sure, you can obliterate several lonely soldiers with a tank, but you automatically become a target for others. Apart from that one, there are various transports, boats, helicopters and jets; all of those have different types according to map and faction. https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2527908419 Just briefly about the single-player campaign before the end — it is not worth getting this title for it. Even though it is one of the better ones that this series offered so far, compared to other franchises, like [i]Call of Duty[/i], which manages to provide enjoyable, action moments, it is still mediocre. The story and characters are bland, generic and unmemorable. What is worse is the fact that AI is simply dumb, especially your companions’ one, which ruins the immersion. [h1][b]What are you waiting for?[/b][/h1] If you lust for a multiplayer, arcadey shooter, which puts you into chaotic encounters, then [i]Battlefield 4[/i] is the right choice for you. With its active player base and tons of content, you cannot go wrong. For me, this my favourite title from this series and the last competent one from it. Perhaps the next one will come close to it? Who knows. [b]PC Specs and Performance[/b] [quote]I played it with an [b]i5 8300H[/b], [b]GTX 1060 6GB[/b], and [b]16GB RAM[/b], at highest settings, at [b]80-100[/b] frames per second, at [b]1920x1080[/b] resolution.[/quote] [b]Curator link[/b] [url=https://store.steampowered.com/curator/41545671][quote]Soldiers! Follow my curator, [b]Blue Lips and their Quips[/b]!