Battlefield 4 different on PS4, Xbox One than PC

Not “night and day” though. Executive producer Patrick Bach, speaking with VideoGamer.com, said that DICE is ”doing as much as [it] can” with the next-gen versions, “but we need to compromise in some places”.

The PC version will look better than next-gen consoles’ versions, and Bach said that “from a CPU/GPU perspective, no, [PS4 & Xbox One cannot match PC].

PC will always be… You can just add more to a PC. There’s always more. The game supports to a big extent better hardware, but not completely, so it won’t be night and day.”

The PS4 demo at last week’s GamesCom was lacking, with IGN noting the visuals were “soft and muddled” and that wall textures “looked half-finished, lacking some of the smaller material nuances or 3D variation”.

It’s still unfinished, so we’re withholding judgment until we get the finished game, or footage touted as “finished”, in our hands.

“I try to remember what it looked like back then. To me it’s back then! It has come a long way. This is why I’m not completely sure on how to answer the question, because some people might not see the difference. When they look at it, [they'll say,] ‘Yes, it looks exactly the same.’ To me, I will see the difference because there are so many levels of fidelity that is for some people hard to spot. The experience will be very, very similar, but then what it is might not be the same.”

Bach was then asked if he was happy with the final specs of the Playstation 4 and the Xbox One, to which he replied:

“I’m never happy. I always feel like there’s more that we can do [and] there’s always more that other people could do.”

Did he wish they offered more?

“Of course I do. I want PCs to be twice as fast as well. I think [PS4 & Xbox One] will do what they are supposed to do. They will move console gaming farther. It will take console gaming into a new generation. Then the question is, could they have done more? Yes. Would it cost the same? No. It would be twice the price. Would that be a reasonable thing to sell to consumers? Probably not.

But then again, there’s always a balance, and the same for us. There’s always a balance. ‘You should have done more with Battlefield 4.’ It’s like, well, we do as much as we can but we need to compromise in some places, and in other places we don’t compromise at all, and you think we should have done the opposite. Sorry, that’s our creative choice. I think that both Microsoft and Sony, they probably have very clever people finding the right balance where you get the most bang for the right buck. And I think looking at that and looking at from what I understand when it comes to pricing that they are hitting a very good target.”

In spite of all the differences between next-gen and PC versions of Battlefield 4, Bach still believes that DICE reached a milestone.

“I think the cool thing that we are extremely excited about is that you will, for the first time, get a full Battlefield experience on a console. It’s the same core, it’s the same game, it’s the same feature set, there’s nothing left out, so to speak. But there’s also the 64 players, 60FPS experience that you haven’t really seen on a console previously which will move it up a big notch and eliminate some of the gap between PC and console.

Then it’s more of a question on graphical fidelity, graphical detail and stuff like that. But then on the other hand, [PS4 & Xbox One] have some cool features that [benefit] it being a console game. You know, how Battlelog is integrated into the game in a much better way, you have the second screen features, you have the whole friends network which is super nifty on the consoles, and stuff like that.”

Battlefield 4 launches on PlayStation 3, Xbox 360, and PC on November 1, with PlayStation 4 and Xbox One versions available at launch.

Our take: It’s nothing new that consoles can’t be compared to PC’s. Even if they’re equal at launch, even then, they’ll be outperformed in a matter of months. PC’s are always evolving, that’s literally nothing new, and it’s pointless to compare the two on that level.