Battlefield Studios launches a free-to-play battle royale
Battlefield Studios and EA have released Battlefield Redsec, a free-to-play battle royale mode that can be accessed separately from Battlefield 6.
Available today, Redsec takes place in a new destructible environment called Fort Lyndon, which EA has described as a "sandbox set" in the official announcement. This connotation makes sense, considering the inclusion of the new iteration of Battlefield Portal, a toolset for user-generated content (UGC) that was first introduced with Battlefield 2042.
"Create a grueling battle environment with sledgehammers only, fight against the best of the best in a headshot contest, or create something truly unexpected, with these powerful scripting and customization tools, all available within the Fort Lyndon sandbox for free," reads the announcement.
Battlefield Studios is betting on user-generated contentEarlier this year, Game Developer spoke with Motive Studios director of production Alma Talbot and Ripple Effect senior producer Ryan McArthur about the making of Battlefield 6 (Motive Studios, Ripple Effect, and Criterion are supporting lead developer DICE). Alongside the announcement that Battlefield Portal is powered by Godot, the developers spoke at length about the push for UGC.
The toolset features map and gameplay customization that's in line with Fortnite and PUBG Battlegrounds' creator modes, an example including Battlefield's take on the popular Only Up game mode.
"The reaction we had in the room when we showed what players could do with Battlefield Portal was super galvanizing to hear," Talbot said during the interview. "We love the idea of having this toolset that provides players the opportunity to create their own community experiences. As a developer, it's cool to playtest the game all the time, and we're always kind of thinking about how great it will be when our players have their hands on these tools. But what's even cooler is when our players use our tools in a way that we don't even expect. So I know that Portal is going to blow us all away with what everybody's able to create out of those community experiences."UGC has been in conversation throughout the year around multiple studios and projects. In April, industry veterans established Onibi to create the "most accessible UGC open world" ever. Three months later, Roblox UGC game Grow a Garden had nearly 22 million concurrent users.But there have been some downsides as well. Developer Rec Room, the team behind the namesake UGC driven social game, laid off "about half" its staff in August, calling the job cuts a "business necessity based on the financial trajectory of the company."
