Ever wanted to create your own Battlefield experience? With Battlefield Portal in 2042, you can do just that! Revealed during the latest EA Play Live showcase, Electronic Arts and Ripple Effect Studios (formerly known as DICE LA) shared a new Battlefield 2042 gameplay trailer that shows off the community-driven experience that is Battlefield Portal. 

Everything seen thus far of Battlefield 2042 has had longtime fans of the FPS franchise excited. Despite the always-online requirement, the return of total verticality and the freedom that Battlefield is known for has the community buzzing. That's why the community-driven feature known as Portal is so exciting; it's a feature that was designed specifically because players have been asking for years for a detailed experience like this, one where players could completely tailor a game however they see fit. As seen in the video below, that even includes bringing a defibrillator to a knife fight, but that's just the start. 

Players can go all sniper if they want, reduce the pool size to a much lower number, pull from assets - including maps - from several Battlefield games from the past, and so much more. So how does it work? Battlefield Portal is a creation suite that allows players to customize game settings to their liking. It includes various settings, custom modes, and a Logic Editor. The Logic Editor will allow players to play around with the game's code to not only create the ultimate Battlefield experience, but also to share it with the community.

While creative modes aren't totally new to the Battlefield franchise, the level of customization seen with Portal and the Logic Editor is. “Battlefield Portal is truly a love letter to our passionate and long-time fans,” said Justin Wiebe, senior design director at Ripple Effect Studios. “We’ve created a set of tools that really gives the community the chance to create their own signature Battlefield experiences, while also bringing back these iconic Battlefield classics for our veteran players to revel in and our new players to experience for the first time.”

With pulling from previous Battlefield experiences, here is a breakdown of assets available through Battlefield Portal: 

Classic Maps:

• Battle Of The Bulge (Battlefield 1942)
• El Alamein (Battlefield 1942)
• Arica Harbor (Battlefield: Bad Company 2)
• Valparaiso  (Battlefield: Bad Company 2)
• Caspian Border (Battlefield 3)
• Noshahr Canals (Battlefield 3)

Weapons:

• 40+ Weapons from 3 Theaters of War
• M1 Garand, Panzerschreck, G3, M416 and more
• Plus the inclusion of Battlefield 2042’s All-Out Warfare Arsenal

Vehicles:

• 40+ Vehicles from 3 Theaters of War
• The Spitfire and B17 Bomber make their return alongside modern hardware such as the Quad Bike and Little Bird
• Plus the inclusion of Battlefield 2042’s All-Out Warfare array of vehicles

Gadgets:

• 30+ Gadgets from 3 Theaters of War
• Reconnaissance items such as the MAV and Radio Beacon will be available as gadget selections alongside the Defibrillator and EOD Bot
• Plus the inclusion of Battlefield 2042’s Gadgets

Armies:

• Classic Factions will be making their return in Battlefield Portal as you remember them, allowing you the ability to mix and match between 7 different armies from the Classic titles as well as Battlefield 2042’s Specialists
• Armies such as 1942’s UK, US, and Germany as well as Bad Company 2’s US and Russia will feature exclusively in Battlefield Portal

Soldiers

• The return of Factions to Battlefield Portal, we will also mean that we are bringing back soldier archetypes as you know them to be within their relevant titles. As an example, Battlefield 3’s Assault, Engineer, Support and Recon roles make their return in Battlefield Portal

With confirmed four seasons of Battlefield 2042 for the first year after launch, Battlefield Portal will also see new content added with each new season. To learn more about all things Battlefield, including our previous impressions with some up close and personal time with the game, check out our game hub here. 

Today’s EA Play presentation concluded with a bang with the reveal that the original Dead Space is getting a full-on remake. The long-rumored project is being developed exclusively for new-gen consoles and PC and will give a premium facelift to Isaac Clarke’s horrific adventure aboard the USG Ishimura. 

EA's Motive Studios, the developer behind Star Wars Squadrons and Star Wars Battlefront II, is rebuilding Dead Space from the ground-up using the Frostbite Engine. Besides reassembling the game with high-end lighting, textures, and assets, EA’s press release states that the game will feature an “improved story, characters, and gameplay mechanics”.

The publisher doesn’t go into details on what those improvements entail, but the narrative premise remains the same: as everyman space engineer Isaac Clarke, you’re on a mission to repair the USG Ishimura, a mining ship, only to discover it's been overrun by terrifying alien creatures called necromorphs. These monsters have not only slaughtered most of the Ishimura’s crew, but they can also reanimate corpses. The worst news is that your girlfriend Nicole, is stationed somewhere on the ship. Isaac must race to find Nicole while combating the necromorph scourge as well as his own deteriorating sanity. 

Dead Space released in October 2008 and was hailed as a horror masterpiece that blended the tense sci-fi horror of Alien with exceptional storytelling and satisfying, dismemberment-focused combat. Game Informer scored the game a 9.25 out of 10, with reviewer Andrew Reiner summing up the game’s horror saying “Dead Space is technically a survival horror game, but it should really be compared to motion picture juggernauts The Thing and Aliens, as it channels the essence of those films more than it does any other game. If horror is your forte, dim the lights, crank up the surround sound, and take the deepest breath you ever have. I think you'll agree, no game has ever been this frightening.” 

In a press release, Phillippe Ducharme, senior producer on the project, expresses the love and care going into the project saying  “The Dead Space franchise made a huge impact on the survival horror genre when it was released 12 years ago, and I came to Motive as a fan first to specifically work on this game. We have a passionate team at Motive who are approaching this remake as a love letter to the franchise. Going back to the original and having the opportunity to do so on next gen consoles excited everyone on the team. As we look to modernize the game, we’ve reached out to dedicated fans and invited them to provide us with feedback since the early stages of production to deliver the Dead Space game they want and for new players to enjoy as well.”

The original Dead Space, as well as its two sequels and Wii spin-off, were developed by Visceral Games, which was shut down in 2017. Even before the studio's closure, the series had been on hiatus since Dead Space 3 launched in 2013. Meanwhile, Dead Space's creator, Glen Schofield, has since formed his own studio to develop a new sci-fi horror game, The Callisto Protocol. 

Sadly, EA didn’t share a release window for the Dead Space remake but it’s slated to launch for PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S, and PC. 

What improvements do you hope to see in the Dead Space remake? Let us know in the comments!

Earlier today, Ripple Effect Studios debuted Battlefield Portal, a new creative suite for players to essentially build the Battlefield match of their dreams. From pulling from previous games' assets to being able to get silly like going a round with nothing but defibrillators, Portal offers a lot of freedom for players to enjoy. That being said, the Logic Editor requires a little coding goodness, so how easy it that for those that may be completely new to this sort of editing? Turns out, pretty easy! 

Speaking with creative director Thomas Anderesson from Ripple Effect Studios, we wanted to know how easy a massive creation tool like this to use would be for coding "noobs" and what Ripple Effect is doing to make it enjoyable for all. "I don't think it's so much of a concern, as we don't expect the logic editor and the depth of the logic editor to maybe be of interest to everyone," said the creative director when we asked if there were any concerns about usability for Portal. "What we are offering is, of course, we expect a lot of people to come in and look at experiences. So giving more power, a little more advanced logic editor for the power users will allow for more interesting and unexpected experiences for the masses, if that makes sense. And I also there's an in the builder portion of Portal, there's, of course, aside from the logic editor, you have mutators, and settings that are very easy to tweak and very easy to set up. So I expect a lot of people to be able to curate and customize their server the way they want it without having to dabble in logic."

Ripple Effect Studios doesn't expect players just to already know how to use this feature, so they are creating guides and tips for Portal users to utilize before diving all in. Anderesson confirmed that the studio has a few plans in the works to help players through using Portal, saying: "So in the website itself, there will be hints, we're talking about videos, we want to, we wanted to have a robust set of tutorials and stuff ready for launch, so people can learn how to do this. And then of course, we're hoping that the community takes over for things that maybe we have missed falling through the cracks, that kind of stuff, where maybe influencers, community, people set up their own tutorials for things and that people even share, I think Rob or Justin mentioned that you can actually copy the URL for your creation and get help for from the community in like, Oh, this doesn't quite work as I expected it kind of I get helped to fix this. And through the tools you can, you can get other people to help you. It's pretty cool."

For those that may feel intimidated by the coding aspect: don't be. When asked if he had any advice for those that may feel that the coding aspect might be a little too difficult, he responded, saying, "Oh, that even goes farther than a portal question. I think it's easy to say I think there's nothing really to be intimidated by, I think the system is robust enough for you to be able to experiment and see what happens when you do a certain thing. If people want to practice and look at this programming language before released, it's based on something called blockly that you can find in various implementations. I know I saw something that I think makes code is what Microsoft calls it. And people can experiment with that on other platforms today. But it's nothing to be afraid of if it's not the most amazing experience. In the beginning, I'm sure people will pick this up fairly fast. And it's based on a very kind of, in a human way you can think of it as When this happens, do this. And there's plenty of options and things to choose from. But there's no better way and get stuck in it. And just try things out, experiment, and play against AI. If you're afraid that people will laugh at something that you created play against AI, it's a safe, safe environment for you to test your creations."

If Ripple's answers put you at ease a little bit, don't be afraid to dive into the new features that the studio is creating. To learn more about what Battlefield Portal has to offer, including how it's pulling from older games, check out the full reveal right here.