How Battlefield 6 reimagines destruction

When gamers consider Battlefield, there’s doubtless one function that first involves thoughts: destruction. The capacity to control the in-game world by destroying objects and buildings to create tactical benefits is a defining function of the Battlefield franchise. It’s the unpredictable, awe-inspiring chaos that turns buildings into cowl to keep away from enemy fireplace and alters the move of fight in actual time. In Battlefield 6, destruction expertise has been taken additional than ever earlier than, each technically and creatively. 

Behind the scenes, groups throughout EA collaborated to ship essentially the most superior destruction system within the franchise’s historical past. The end result isn’t just spectacle, however a fastidiously engineered stability of constancy, efficiency, and tactical gameplay. The destruction expertise that gamers the world over are experiencing as we speak displays years of co-development between the Frostbite staff, who’re answerable for EA’s state-of-the-art, multi-platform Frostbite recreation engine, and Battlefield Studios, the event collective fashioned by Criterion, DICE, Motive, and Ripple Effect.

Building Battlefield’s signature destruction, collectively

“Ever since Battlefield 2042, the destruction and Frostbite physics teams have had a very close collaborative relationship,” explains Rickard Antroia, Principal Game Designer, DICE. “On Battlefield 6, we essentially looked at who had the best expertise for the task, regardless of where the work needed to happen. That’s the benefit of having an in-house engine and an organization that believes in collaboration and technological advancement.”

That collaboration went each methods. The Frostbite staff labored instantly alongside Battlefield builders to enhance the engine itself, guaranteeing each explosion, collapsing construction, and piece of cascading particles felt genuine and ran easily throughout all platforms.

“One of the advantages of an internal engine like Frostbite is that we can work really closely with the game teams,” provides Talan Le Geyt, Senior Software Engineer, Frostbite. “We talk a lot so that we, on the Frostbite team, clearly understand Battlefield’s gameplay vision, and Battlefield knows how to get the best out of Frostbite. A lot of the value in that relationship comes from smaller, targeted improvements we made in direct response to feedback.”

Those enhancements added up:  from new debugging instruments that sped up iteration to editor enhancements that streamlined how builders tweak destructible supplies, the partnership produced a workflow as dynamic because the expertise itself.

Destruction, refined

From the beginning, the Battlefield staff set an bold purpose: destruction ought to be each systemic and managed. The result’s a technical system that permits for various environments that inform a narrative with out devolving into chaos.

“We wanted the players to create a war-torn battlefield, not a moon landscape,” jokes Antroia. “We wanted the result of destruction to stay, creating interesting ruins and level-designed debris piles that reshape the player space.”

This method required technical breakthroughs. The staff revisited the physics constancy of each system, from particles conduct and terrain deformation to automobile behaviors. “We let players and assets in the world affect the destruction systems as chaos agents,” Antroia continues. “That’s why we worked on soldier impulse damage, ragdoll impulse, and vehicle dynamics that are much more integrated in the world’s ecosystem, with crashes and destruction remaining persistent. All of these features add to the authenticity.”

Prioritized Destruction Networking, earlier than (left) and after (proper)

Innovating from the bottom up

The Frostbite engine advanced alongside Battlefield 6, introducing new techniques that made destruction extra versatile and practical. 

“A major focus for Battlefield 6 was making our part-based destruction and debris spawning systems more extensible,” says Le Geyt. “That allowed the Battlefield team to integrate destruction with other gameplay systems, including things like damage to players beneath destroyed buildings, or debris that falls away more realistically.”

“With Frostbite reworking the health transition system, it allowed game teams to customize what happens in health transitions,  like using custom-built processes to alter a state, modify gameplay, or spawn new assets,” notes Johan Leijon, Technical Lead, DICE. “That flexibility has been very important.”

Frostbite and Battlefield Studios groups additionally overhauled how destruction occasions are networked. By optimizing bandwidth and prioritization, the groups ensured that even large 64-player matches full of simultaneous explosions stay synchronized and responsive for all gamers.

“Because we’ve reached a much higher fidelity in our destructible environments, we had to work on network improvements like prioritization and culling of part destruction and debris spawning,” explains Leijon. “All of this work enables everything to feel smooth and connected.”

Meanwhile, the Battlefield Studios groups developed runtime options that blurred the traces between visible spectacle and gameplay impression. 

“We developed seam and surface emitters that listened to debris activation and explosion shockwaves, using the right VFX based on the visual material of the object,” provides Antroia. “The same parameters were also used for our audio systems, to ensure consistency.” In different phrases, the staff created a single supply for the engine to talk to all the asset techniques.

The fruits of this work is destruction that appears, sounds, and feels alive, and responds dynamically to participant motion.

A world that reacts to you

From the tiniest splinter to a bridge’s collapse, Battlefield 6’s destruction is greater than visible drama; it’s the beating coronary heart of the expertise. Every explosion is calculated. Every fragment has a goal. 

As Antroia displays, “The sum of all parts is what I’m most excited for players to experience. The structure that’s there but that you may not notice at first, and how much you can affect it with opportunistic gameplay.”

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