Battlefield 3 on consoles will only be 720p at 30 FPS

As if the war between Call of Duty and Battlefield 3 wasn’t already in full swing, DICE has revealed that its upcoming shooter based off the impressive Frost Engine 2 will run in only 720p on game consoles at 30 frames per second, whereas the PC version of the game will be 1080p at 60 frames per second. The reason?

Well, DICE’s rendering architect Johan Andersson says “We think huge levels, lots of players, great effects, destruction, vehicles & varied gameplay are more important than 1080p” and adds “How is that a shame? Name a single FPS game that runs at 1080p on any of the consoles? [We] would have to do huge gameplay cuts.” While Sony and Nintendo (Wii U) are touting the 1080p powers of their consoles, we kind of have to agree that “99.9% of PS3 and Xbox 360 games are 720p. and a lot of them, including MW2 is way lower than that.”

It still stings that Call of Duty games can run at silky smooth 60 frames per second whereas BF3 will only run at half. But hey, tradeoffs need to be made when you’re not running the game on an overclocked PC rig. Will this little tidbit change your mind on what platform to play BF3?

Raymond Wong
Categories: Gaming
Tags: battlefield, EA, fps