Battlefield V Producer Answers Players' Biggest Questions

No Killswitch on Cosmetics

Battlefield V will have plenty of cosmetic options to allow players to customize their soldiers' race, gender, appearance, equipment, and more. Whether the reasoning stems from historical accuracy debates or a desire for clarity when playing online and knowing who exactly you're shooting, what class they are, and what equipment they have, players have wondered whether or not there'd be a "killswitch" added for cosmetics to effectively turn them off.

While it'd help players from a competitive perspective by flipping a switch so that you would only see base models and no customization, it'd invalidate everyone's efforts and time to create their own unique characters. Regardless of the reasoning why players would want or dislike the idea of a customize killswitch, Dice has no plans to add one.

"At this point we are not planning to implement a killswitch on cosmetics," McArthur said.

Customizing Your Company

In the same vein as the talks about customization options, players will be able to build their "Company" the way that they want. When asked what exactly the Company is, McArthur defined it and what's included.

"The company is your personal collection of soldiers, vehicles and weapons. Each of these you will be able to progress and customize each of these to fit your personality and play style," he said.

When asked to expand on how soldiers and factions would work, McArthur went into more detail.

• You will have 2 factions
• You can have multiple planes and tanks and duplicates of each. These can be specialized in different ways
• You can have multiple weapons for each soldier including duplicates, each of these specialized based on the choices you make
• Each soldier and be customized visually, in face, helmet, face paint, jacket and pants
• Weapons have 5-7 part slots to add your choice of visual customization
• Vehicle (planes and tanks) also have multiple visual customization slots

Tides of War

Battlefield V offers a feature called Tides of War, something that's been described as an "evolving journey featuring a new narrative every few months." There are rewards to be earned throughout the stretch of the feature, rewards that EA Dice is looking to balance and make accessible.

"BFV will have multiple ways earn and collect items, both gameplay based and cosmetic," McArthur said. "Certain events during the Tides of War will be exclusive for some period of time, some gameplay and cosmetic. We are working to make sure we balance the work and time players put in to earn rewards, as well and not punish players who miss out on things."

He added that the team plans to support Tides of War "for as long as players are engaged and enjoying the game."

Planes and Tanks

EA Dice talked not long ago about everything that the developers learned from the game's alpha test. From the ammunition system to revives to the time it takes to kill opponents, you can see some of the biggest discoveries from the team here. One player wanted to know more about the aerial combat system as well as the state of tanks, and while McArthur couldn't offer as much info specifically on that, he said that they're using all of the feedback from players to make changes and should have more discussions during the open beta.

"The alpha is a great check point to measure our decisions against what the community thinks, and what our data shows,"

. "We are using all this info to make improvements for a better experience. I can't say exactly what those are but we are working to improve as much as we can so you can all give more feedback during the Open Beta."

The full AMA can be read here.