The Battlefield 5 “dragging teammates” feature, which would have enabled players to drag their teammates out of danger, has now been canceled by the game’s developers. The feature was originally announced as being part of Battlefield 5 at launch. However, the ability to drag your teammates was not present upon the game’s release.
In a blog post on the EA Battlefield 5 website, Dice’s Jonas Elfving explained why the feature was no longer going to be added. “Having discovered that soldier dragging would negatively impact the core gameplay loop, we’ve decided to not add the feature to Battlefield 5.” According to Elfving, the action of dragging a teammate would have required “complex and long” animations to make the mechanic look and feel good to a player. He adds, “This would make reviving feel slow and unresponsive, which would affect the pacing of Battlefield 5’s gameplay. We’ll continue to explore ways to improve Battlefield 5, but in doing so we have to ensure that the core elements, the essence, if you will, of the game remain unaffected.”
The news that the Battlefield 5 “dragging teammates” feature would miss the game’s launch was confirmed, at the time, by Dice multiplayer producer David Sirland via Twitter. Despite Sirland’s reassurances that the feature was being developed to be released post-launch, we now know that Dice has changed its mind. At the time, Sirland was responding to concerns about the lack of the content that was scheduled for launch as well as shortly after. He refuted concerns that the game was suffering a similar fate to Star Wars Battlefront 2, by saying “won’t happen this time … BF is not the same franchise.”
The latest news on the canceled feature was included as part of Dice’s FAQ on Battlefield 5’s recently launched Chapter 3: Trial by Fire update. The update includes new co-op missions, an objective-based mode, and an aerial invasion map, but the centerpiece of the update was Battlefield’s take on the battle royale genre. The mode is called Firestorm and you can find out more about it in our GameRevolution review. If you plan on jumping in yourself, we have a handy guide on the basics of getting started in Firestorm as well as whether you’ll be required to pay for the new mode.
