Significant Changes

Players familiar with Battlefield 1942 and Battlefield: Vietnam will likely be daunted by the new additions and tweaks to the gameplay formula that made the series so popular. DiCE definitely didn't rehash the same old game mechanics for their third exploration into the Battlefield universe, and actually introduced some pretty drastic new changes to what's come before. This checklist is just an introduction to these changes; you can expect more details on them in the different chapters of the guide.

No More Spawn Waves

One of the annoying aspects of the last two Battlefield games was the inclusion of the notorious "spawn wave" mechanic, where all dead players on a side would pop back into play simultaneously. If you died, you could be five seconds from respawning, or you could be 30 seconds or a minute away, depending on how long the server respawn time was. If you happened to run into a base and killed a bunch of people with a hand grenade before hunkering down beside a flag to capture it, then you would sometimes be surprised by the reappearance of all of your victims just seconds later. These spawn waves were an inconsistent force in the game and made for some unpredictable flag assaults.

Even after the worst of accidents, you can rest assured that you'll be back in the fight 15 seconds later.

Luckily, the spawn system in Battlefield 2 is much more simple: when you die, you'll respawn 15 seconds later, every time. This affects everyone on the battlefield, making spawn waves essentially a thing of the past. (If you kill six people in an APC with a single tank shell, though, then of course they'll all spawn at the same time, fifteen seconds later.) This helps make flag capturing a bit more manageable.

No More Health or Ammo Boxes

There aren't any health boxes or ammo cabinets in Battlefield 2. In previous Battlefield games, players could return to a health box to patch themselves up when wounded, or grab more ammo from an ammo box when they were running low, which was especially helpful when you consider that reloading will essentially discard any ammo left in your clip. It also gave rise to some cheese tactics, such as lying beside an ammo box and chucking out an infinite number of grenades all over the place.

Anyway, Battlefield 2 contains neither ammo nor medical boxes, unless you count the Commander's supply drop. Instead of grabbing supplies from boxes, then, you'll need to rely on medic characters to restore your health and support characters to resupply your ammo. These characters are noted by icons when you spot them in the game, so if you need a certain item, head towards a relevant character and use the Q text menu to let them know of your need.

Squad-Based Tactics

A good squad greatly eases the process of capturing flags.

If you want to run off as a lone wolf, then of course you'll still be able to do so in Battlefield 2, but gamers looking to get organized will find the squad system helpful in staying organized. Squads can be formed of up to six players, with an assigned leader, who can communicate with a team's commander (see below), and organize his squad's movements by commanding them around the battlefield. The most important part of a squad leader, though, is his ability to act as a mobile spawn point for his soldiers. Even if five members of the squad die, they can all still pop back to life on top of the squad leader if he manages to stay in a safe spot. There's a special Squad chapter elsewhere in the guide that will have more information on this feature.

Commander Mode

In addition to the new squad abilities, each team in Battlefield 2 will be able to elect a single commander to lead their efforts. This commander mode will give this player the ability to call down artillery, point out enemy locations to their teammates, and send down supply drops to replenish friendly players in tight spots. We have an entire section dedicated to the Commander Mode, so check it out for more information on this unique new addition to the game.