How a Shooter Rivalry Shaped Modern PC Gaming
Call of Duty and Battlefield have been competing for the attention of PC gamers for years. Both series are huge, both are expensive to make, and both try to deliver intense experiences set across past, present and future wars. That kind of overlap naturally creates a rivalry, but behind the scenes it also sparked a lot of creativity.
David Goldfarb, former lead designer at DICE on Battlefield 3 and Bad Company 2, shared how this rivalry with Call of Duty influenced Battlefield and even slipped into the games themselves.
Taking Shots at Call of Duty
Goldfarb admits that he literally wrote jokes about Call of Duty into Battlefield. In Bad Company 2 there is a helicopter scene where the character Sweetwater cracks a line about special ops soldiers using heartbeat monitors. It is a direct dig at Modern Warfare, which famously let players use a heartbeat sensor attachment on their rifles.
Goldfarb explains that this was not about hating Call of Duty. In fact it was the opposite. He respected what Infinity Ward had done so much that it became fun to poke at them. It was a bit of friendly trash talk between two massive franchises that shared the same audience of PC and console shooter fans.
Underneath the jokes, though, there was serious admiration. Goldfarb calls those early Modern Warfare games tremendous. He says he has never seen a shooter executed on that level and doubts he ever will again. In his view they were almost works of art.
That level of polish and cinematic flair put real pressure on DICE. Instead of simply copying what Call of Duty was doing, the team realised they could never win by trying to be the same thing. So they focused on what Battlefield did best. Large scale multiplayer battles, vehicles, destruction, and more open ended combat became the core of the Battlefield identity.
Pressure, Delays and Doing Their Own Thing
The influence of Call of Duty went beyond design jokes and inspiration. It also changed how EA and DICE planned their games. Goldfarb says that when he first joined DICE, the idea was that he would be lead designer on Bad Company 2. What actually happened was different.
Call of Duty 4 turned out to be so strong that it forced a rethink. Bad Company 1 was pushed back so DICE could spend more time on it, in part because COD 4 raised the bar for modern shooters. Goldfarb ended up working longer on Bad Company 1 and then even touched Mirror's Edge toward the end of that period.
This is where the downside of the rivalry shows up. On the business side, executives were constantly comparing sales targets. The mindset became that Battlefield needed to sell a certain number of units because Call of Duty was expected to sell even more. That commercial pressure filtered down into design decisions.
According to Goldfarb, the competition sometimes led EA to push for features or choices that were not necessarily the best thing for the game itself. When a rival is dominating the charts, there is always a temptation to chase their success by copying surface level ideas, even if they do not fit the strengths of your own series.
Despite that, the rivalry still had a net positive effect on the experience PC gamers received. DICE was driven to polish its multiplayer, innovate with destruction systems, and lean into the sandbox chaos that Battlefield is known for. Meanwhile Call of Duty continued perfecting its tight gunplay, cinematic campaigns, and fast paced competitive modes.
Where the Rivalry Stands Today
Goldfarb has long since left DICE, but the comparison between the two franchises has never really gone away. Every new entry is immediately measured against its rival. Which has the better campaign this year. Which runs smoother on PC. Which offers more interesting multiplayer maps and modes.
Right now it looks like momentum may be shifting again. The upcoming Battlefield 6 is being talked about as a potential big comeback for the series, hinting at a revitalised direction after some uneven years. At the same time Call of Duty is seen by many players as stumbling a bit, with recent releases not always living up to the high point of those classic Modern Warfare days that Goldfarb admired so much.
For PC players this ongoing rivalry is still a good thing. When one series raises the bar, the other is forced to respond. That means more experimentation, more effort put into performance and netcode, and more attention to what players actually enjoy. It also means both sides watch each other very closely, leading to small references, subtle digs, and the kind of inside jokes that long time shooter fans recognise immediately.
In the end Goldfarb’s perspective captures the core of it. Battlefield could not out Call of Duty at being Call of Duty, so it had to fully embrace being Battlefield. That push to find its own strengths rather than just imitate the competition helped shape some of the best multiplayer experiences on PC. And as long as these two giants keep competing, PC gamers will continue to benefit from the pressure they put on each other.
Original article and image: https://www.pcgamer.com/games/call-of-duty/battlefield-liked-to-take-the-p-ss-out-of-call-of-duty-but-it-was-a-very-healthy-rivalry-that-pushed-dice-to-do-its-own-thing/
