14 DAY TRIAL // The new boats and water crafts in Battlefield 4 will behave in a way similar to the transport helicopters from Battlefield 3, as passengers can engage in different activities while another player actually controls the vehicle.
Battlefield 4 introduces a naval warfare mechanic that will allow players to control not just regular vehicles like jets, helicopters, or tanks, like they did in Battlefield 3, but also new water crafts, from gunboats, to smaller vessels, and more.
Quite a few challenges were encountered by the DICE team during the development of the naval combat aspect, according to designer Patrick O’Shaughnessy, who revealed them on the Battlefield blog.
"One challenge with developing Battlefield 4’s naval combat was the difficulty to get other players in the vehicle with you. Unlike a tank or jeep, where you are likely close to friendly infantry, players don’t tend to hang out in the open water," he said.
"Ultimately it was the transport helicopter that we looked at when solving these problems. The gunner seats of the transport helicopters are one of the most fun places to be in the entire game. So we added those types of weapons for the passengers of the attack boat, and made the vehicle a team spawn point, like the transport helis, to make it easier and more attractive for people to get in the vehicle."
What's more, in order to make the attack boat even more attractive to players, it has a range of customization options that allows it to take on different enemy vehicles.
"Because the attack boat has more limited options when it comes to what types of enemies to engage, in a large part because of its necessity to be in water, we decided to give it a more varied set of customization options than other vehicles, so that you really can be versatile and engage many different types of targets depending on your choices when building your loadout."
What's more, for those who don't really like being in the attack boat, passengers can deploy their Personal Water Carrier from the rear of the boat and just navigate to a new area.
Battlefield 4 is coming this fall for PC, PS3, Xbox 360, PS4, and Xbox One.