Battlefield has an identity crisis. I don’t know the answer to how they make it relevant again, but the game is not engaging as is and it needs a revamp. This detour into WW1 and WW2 has been poison for the franchise IMO and the game needs A serious rethink to turn it around.
I disagree. I think the concept of BF is still very much intact and I once felt the same way when BF3 added team death match, but looking at it in hindsight, it still had the classic BF concept, simply needed to have such a game mode to stay relevant. Its why I didn't care that they added single player to the series with Bad Company 1 or Battle Royal with BFV etc. Those are needed to stay relevant, so long as they have the classic BF concept, I'm completely ok with those additions even if I don't play those modes myself. Like the co-op stuff, I don't play it (might have played it once in one of em), but I understand WHY its added and needed in this day and age.
Even with WWI and WWII, I love the modern setting of BF, but I don't feel the setting is "poison for the franchsie" as even if I don't care for those settings as I like the modern or futurist setting (Vietnam if we are even talking about an older war), but I don't view WWI or WWII versions of BF as poisoning the series.
BF1 is literally the best selling Battlefield game of all time right now...
So I feel the setting is subjective for many as we all have our favs, but not poison based on the reception BF1 actually got.
I think going modern shouldn't be seen as some "rethink" or turnaround as changing settings, time frames is all normal in the BF series. Its never been known to be about 1 war or 1 time etc.
I think the direction conceptually anyway is very solid and I'd be ok with them going down the same path in terms of free maps, weapons, no season pass, no MT (but if it must be, simply cosmetics like in BFV and completely optional), keep the fast TTK, more destruction, more things to build by different classes like a base and of course 128 player battles. If they are about to do more of the same in a different setting, I'll be ok with it.
I do believe they can make some old concepts return like Titan mode from 2142.