BF3 Information

Battlefield 3 on PC forces you to leave the game to change servers
Aug. 19, 2011 (4:44 pm) By: Matthew Humphries

Developer DICE and its parent company/publisher EA have just made one of the most perplexing decisions for an FPS on PC. When playing Battlefield 3, in order to change the multiplayer server you are playing on you have to exit the game.

This decision is made even more perplexing because DICE only a couple of days ago confirmed that console versions of the game will have a server browser available while playing. In other words, the server browsing feature PC gamers are so used to seeing has been removed, while console gamers get it for the first time.

There’s been no real explanation as to why this decision has been made. In a tweet responding to the question as to why this has been done, Alan Kertz, game designer at DICE, simply said, “It starts up REAL fast.”

The decision is not going to win the game many fans on PC if they are purchasing mainly for the multiplayer aspect. Even if the game does start up quickly, why on earth would you force the player to quit to pick a server? And why when other versions of the game do not?

Further tweets by Kertz have suggested that this is all to do with Battlelog, the web destination for the game detailing player stats, offering access to social tools, and handling server access. Because it runs in a web browser it seems that’s why you need to exit the game in order to access it and launch the game again on a different server. It’s not totally clear why this can’t be done within the game, though.

I hope that DICE or EA take the time to respond properly to the upset this is causing. A simple explanation as to the reasoning may make players angry once again, but at least they’d know why a decision that seems counterintutive has been made.