Battlefield 3

🎮 Steam ⏳ 20 hours ⭐⭐⭐⭐⭐ (5/5)

Frostbite Visual Showcase #

This mainline BF entry is a visually stunning and ambitious FPS developed by DICE, powered by the Frostbite 2 engine, it delivered groundbreaking graphics, destructible environments, and immersive sound design for its time. This engine was, and still is, considered one of the best engines of all time and it set new standards by the time of it’s release. Though it is still very impressive even for today’s standards, and one of the biggest selling points of this game, even though it’s first release was in the Bad Company titles.

Multiplayer Excellence #

The multiplayer mode is the star of the show, featuring large-scale battles with up to 64 players, diverse maps, and a deep class-based system with vehicles, jets, and teamwork-focused gameplay. It’s chaotic, strategic, and highly replayable. It had an amazing balance between being a realistic shooter, and an arcade one, especially with mechanics such as the sniper rifles which needed aim compensation for longer range targets.

Clunky Battlelog Launcher #

One downside in my opinion was the launcher application for the servers and lobby, you needed to use the browser in order to start a match, instead of having an in-game feature for this. And it was very very clunky, unfortunately this trait continued on to the next entry, Battlefield 4, and I admit that I decided to stop playing this franchise afterwards, so I cannot tell if this was improved or not.

Weak Campaign, Strong Legacy #

The single-player campaign, however, is more linear and generic, borrowing heavily from modern military shooter tropes and lacking the freedom that defines Battlefield’s multiplayer, I would skip this title if the single-player is what you are looking for. Overall, Battlefield 3 was a major leap forward for the series and remains a landmark title in the FPS genre, especially for fans of tactical, large-scale online warfare.