In the game, players can hold one primary weapon which each has its own secondary, along with a combat knife, grenades and other picked up explosives and devices. Players start with 100 health, which is reduced by damage. Wounded players heal by using the LIFE-2 auto-injector. The environment is almost entirely destructible, but bullets cannot go through most walls. The ammunition system uses a bullet calculator, shown on the HUD, and players can endlessly repair vehicles with power tools unless they are completely destroyed. Airstrikes and Mortar Strikes can also be utilized.
Battlefield: Bad Company has an assortment of military vehicles from each of the game's three factions that can be used by the player.
Tanks,
infantry fighting vehicles,
armored cars,
attack helicopters,
patrol boats, mobile anti-aircraft weapon system. Unlike some previous versions in the
Battlefield series,
fixed-wing aircraft such as fighter jets and bomber planes are not available in this game. The
Frostbite game engine allows 90% of the environment to be destroyed, including buildings, vegetation (including trees, grass, and bushes), vehicles, other players and the ground itself. For gameplay purposes, the frames of some buildings and objects remain indestructible to prevent total destruction of key points and to prevent the map from being completely flat. Additionally, the game features dynamic lighting to correlate with the changing environment.
Multiplayer Multiplayer supports up to 24 players.
Gold Rush was the only multiplayer mode included in the initial release of
Battlefield: Bad Company. The setup of the game is an Attackers vs. Defenders scenario. The eight initial maps are Harvest Day, Over and Out, End of the Line, Ascension, Valley Run, Deconstruction, Oasis, and Final Ignition, each with destructible environments, certain atmospheres, and vehicles. One team must defend two crates filled with gold while the other team attempts to destroy the crates. Once the crates are destroyed, more of the map is available to fight on with new crates appearing, along with added reinforcement numbers. The attacking team has a limited amount of respawns to achieve their goal of capturing the 3-5 gold stashes either by setting charges or simply destroying the two crates of gold at each base. The defending team has an unlimited amount of respawns available, but their goal is to exhaust the attacking teams respawns. The
Conquest game mode returned to
Bad Company due to overwhelming requests from players during the beta testing. Conquest was the prevalent game-mode in many of the preceding Battlefield games, and involves reducing the opponents' "ticket" meter by scoring kills and capturing strategically placed flags. This mode was available as a free download post-launch, the release date was 7 August 2008. The Conquest pack included modified versions of the Ascension, End of the Line, Oasis and Harvest Day maps. A new map pack featuring more conquest maps, and trophies for both offline and online play on the PlayStation 3 version, was released on 30 October 2008, and the Xbox 360 version releasing on 31 October 2008. The maps included 4 modified singleplayer maps such as Acta non Verba, Ghost Town, Par for the Course, and Crossing Over. The game has 25 ranks, each from the
U.S. Army (
corporal,
sergeant,
colonel etc.). Unlock credits may be obtained by ranking up and then the aforementioned credits may be used to unlock weapons. However, the weapons included with the Find All Five program may not be unlocked using these credits. Unlock credits are not granted with every rank. A particular selection of five weapons may be unlocked only by ranking up to Rank 25 or by purchasing the Gold Edition. Players can earn different types of awards.
Trophies are awarded for multiple kills in a certain class, kills to defend an objective and for other team-related actions. These can be awarded to the player multiple times during the game.
Patches can be earned for gaining certain trophies and then completing certain criteria in an online match. Patches can only be awarded once to a player.
Wildcards are awarded once to a player for a combination of many different criteria. These are harder than trophies and patches to unlock. In addition to these in-game awards, the game is compatible with
achievements for the Xbox 360 and
trophies for the PlayStation 3. In a move similar to
Battlefield 2142, the number of soldier classes is small compared to previous games in the series, resulting in a combination of the classic soldier classes. The classes in this game are: •
Assault, an all-around good soldier class, armed with an
assault rifle, a 40 mm
grenade launcher and the ability to heal himself •
Demolition, an anti-vehicle soldier equipped with a shotgun, a
rocket launcher, and anti-vehicle
land mines •
Recon, a long range class with a
sniper rifle, a handgun, a throwable motion sensor and guided
smart bomb •
Specialist, a close-range class with a suppressed
submachine gun and
C4 for destroying objects and environments that can be destroyed, or vehicles such as tanks and armored cars. •
Support, an anti-personnel class with a
light machine gun, large ammo capacity, healing equipment for soldiers and vehicles, and an unlockable mortar strike device to call in a bombardment on a particular area. Each class wields a main weapon of choice (maximum of five optional guns per class), three secondary weapons/gadgets, and a knife for quick kills. With a knife one can rank up faster than with any other weapon, since one receives both the standard points for a kill as well as the slain player's dog tags (which grant a hefty point bonus, depending on their level). ==Plot==