BattleBit was released in early access on June 15, 2023 to considerable financial success and popularity, with over 1.8 million copies sold within its first two weeks of release. It was also critically acclaimed for its teamwork-oriented gameplay, low poly visuals, user-friendly game design, and overall simplicity and uniqueness.
Gameplay
BattleBit Remastered is a team-based multiplayer first-person shooter where players, divided into two opposing teams representing the United States Armed Forces and the Russian Armed Forces, battle each other to complete objectives on a large map. Players can choose to join 64-player (32 vs. 32), 128-player (64 vs. 64), and 254-player (127 vs. 127) servers, depending on the matchmaking option chosen in the main menu.[2]
Players are divided into various squads in their team and can choose from one of six classes that have unique loadouts to fulfill certain roles: Squad Leader, tasked with commanding their squad, with the ability to place rally points for their squad to spawn at and are planned to be able to use their binoculars to order airstrikes; Assault, a basic and all-rounded fighter; Medic, tasked with healing and quickly reviving injured teammates; Support, centered around suppressive fire, with the ability to deploy ammunition boxes for teammates to resupply from; Engineer, centered around military engineering and sapping, with access to explosive weapons to destroy enemy structures and vehicles; and Recon, centered around overwatch, reconnaissance, and hit-and-run attacks.[3]
Gameplay centers around teamwork, and game mechanics and classes are accordingly designed to encourage this; for instance, while time-to-kill is short, players whose health has depleted enter a time-sensitive downed state instead of being outright killed, and any of their teammates can drag them to safety and revive them provided they have at least one bandage in their inventory, though Medics carry more bandages and can revive quicker. Players can also use explosives and vehicles to destroy certain structures in each map, creating access points to buildings while reducing overall cover and concealment.
Use of voice chat is optional but encouraged by the game itself; in-game, all voice chat is in "proximity" (can only be heard within a certain distance) and can be heard by players on both teams. Content moderation is highlighted by the game through an automatic warning when joining a server, and players reported for cheating or hate speech have been noted to be swiftly banned.[7]
Game modes
BattleBit has multiple game modes that vary based on the server size selected in matchmaking. Each mode has different types of maps and varying accessibility to vehicles. Players vote in a blind poll at the end of each match to decide upon the next map and game mode accordingly.
Though a total of at least eighteen game modes are planned, only six have been implemented as of Update 1.9.3:[8]
Conquest: A large-scale mode where both teams fight to capture control points and whittle the enemy team's respawn tickets. As the maps used in Conquest are large, both teams have access to vehicles to help transport and support advances.
Infantry Conquest: Conquest but only featuring transport-oriented vehicles, so as to focus on infantry combat.
Domination: Essentially a smaller-scale version of Conquest with fewer control points, no vehicles, and a smaller map.
Capture the Flag: A capture the flag mode where both teams fight to steal the enemy team's flag while protecting their own.
Frontlines: A tug of war-esque mode where both teams advance through the map by capturing pairs of control points at a time (called "sectors"), while preventing the enemy team from advancing on them.
Rush: An attack-versus-defend mode where one team must attack and destroy various military communications stations, while the other team must defend them. It is not available in 254-player servers.
Invasion: Defenders are tasked with holding specific points on a map while attackers capture them. There is a time limit for both sides to achieve their goals.
Other modes that are present as filters in the server browser but are not yet implemented in the game itself are Team Deathmatch, Free For All, Elimination, Gun Game (Free for All), Gun Game (Team), Advance and Secure, Suicide Rush, Catch Game, Cash Run, Infected, Voxel Fortify, and Voxel Trench.
Development
BattleBit Remastered was first announced on Steam Greenlight as BattleBit in December 2016 as the first project for SgtOkiDoki, Vilaskis, and TheLiquidHorse. The three indie developers are the game's only creators and their previous experiences were in creating mods.[9][10] They cited games such as Battlefield, Squad, Insurgency: Sandstorm, Ace of Spades, and Hell Let Loose as inspiration for BattleBit.[11]
The original intent of BattleBit was to provide a milsim experience that would be accessible to players with less-powerful hardware, with their own experiences playing on laptop and older desktop computers shaping their concerns. However, as development continued and beta testing took place, the decision was made to shift towards a more casual but realism-themed experience.[12] Despite the addition of "Remastered" in the game's name, BattleBit Remastered is not actually a remaster or remake of any existing game; rather, its name is an in-joke referencing how frequently development had to restart.[5]
In the year prior to its release, the game's popularity saw exponential increase with over 800,000 Steam users adding the game to their wishlist since January 2022, which was attributed to word-of-mouth marketing as well as streamer exposure to pre-release copies of the game.[13]
According to gaming website PC Gamer, BattleBit remains one of the most popular games on Steam in mid-2023, with 1.8 million copies sold within two weeks of its initial release.[9]
The game's overall simplicity was widely singled out for praise, and it was frequently compared to earlier Battlefield entries. Morgan Park of PC Gamer positively described BattleBit as "An indie FPS that moves like Battlefield, behaves like hardcore milsim Squad, and looks like Roblox", highlighting the game's popularity, low price, lack of microtransactions or battle pass, and earnest simplicity in the face of other established shooter franchises and popular indie game trends, and recommended it to "[m]ultiplayer FPS fans with the same service-game malaise".[10] Patrick Gill of Polygon made similar comparisons and described it as a revival of the "nerdy mechanical depth and absolutely unhinged slapstick sandbox action" seen in shooters from the early 2010s such as Battlefield: Bad Company 2 and Battlefield 3.[16] Eric Van Allen of Destructoid agreed, comparing it to his memories of Battlefield 2 as "a piece of the FPS landscape I'd thought lost".[7] Comparing BattleBit to the Battlefield series in general, Gabriel Moss of IGN praised the gameplay, game design, and customization, describing it as having "most of the trappings of a proper Battlefield game", but criticized the longer revive system and the unusual mechanics of the game's vehicles, though he conceded that these may have simply been unfinished at the time.[5] Chris Allnutt of the Financial Times noted the game lacked many elements common in other shooters such as a detailed plot or a flashy interface, in favor of an open-ended premise and utilitarian menus.[17] Ben Sledge of TheGamer summed it up as "a good, old-fashioned team shooter like your mama used to make."[18]
The game's low poly graphics and optimization were greatly highlighted by reviewers. Rosalie Newcomb of PCGamesN noted the game's minimum system requirements were barely demanding, and suggested "it could probably run on a toaster".[19] Allnutt agreed with the idea that the game's low poly graphics made it considerably more accessible for players with lower hardware specifications, adding that its optimization gave it a relatively small size of 2 gigabytes, which he compared to the far more demanding sizes of contemporary shooters such as the 125 gigabyte size of Call of Duty: Modern Warfare II.[17] Many reviewers compared BattleBit's visual style to that of Roblox,[10][16][18] to the point that the developers clarified a lack of relation in the official website's FAQ section.[20]
Map design and the destructible environment mechanic were fairly well-received. Van Allen described the destructible environments as his "biggest draw" and an element that could affect an ongoing skirmish, but noted the design of some maps could result in battles becoming deadlocked as players often resorted to simply throwing grenades and launching sporadic charges from secure positions instead of strategizing and coordinating.[7]
The teamwork-oriented gameplay, as well as the emphasis on voice chat, were noted in various reviews to have improved player relations. Van Allen stated that though he often found himself fighting alone, a coordinated squad could have a noticeable effect on an ongoing battle; he also commended how players could remain with their squadmates throughout different matches.[7] Park recounted that many players would have "impromptu roleplay" such as calling for medics or leading their squad into battle.[10] Sledge noted upon release that "The community seems wholesome so far, and strangers even go out of their way to revive you when you’re downed, which is a bona fide miracle in a shooter."[18]
^"How to market a multiplayer, the Battlebit Remastered story – How To Market A Game". July 3, 2023. Retrieved July 17, 2023. If you look up the Battlebit follower chart there is just this amazing inflection point in January 2022. Huge streamers famous for playing Battlefield really started playing it for long periods of time. There isn't any single campaign activity they did in 2022, I think this is just the network effect. Essentially 6 years of slow and steady game development and community building reached a tipping point and the game grew at an amazing rate. There is no one thing. It is just 100s of people recommending it to 100s of other people. This is a story about how 3 developers managed to make a massively multiplayer online shooter that gained over 800,000 wishlists before launch resulting in over 87,323 simultaneous players.
