Battlefield 6 dev says we "wouldn't believe" how hard it is to remaster old maps

Remastering an old game is simple, right? You just pop the files into your new engine, click the big red button labeled 'remaster,' et voila. Remastering a map must be even easier, seeing as it's smaller than a full game, right? Wrong. Even if I'm taking a simplistic approach to criticisms of remasters, a lot more work goes into them than you'd expect. Battlefield 6 is no different, and we sat down with the devs after going hands-on with Operation Flashpoint to find out exactly what goes into remastering classic maps, and how they have to live up to player expectations.

"You wouldn't believe how difficult it is," explains Shashank Uchil, product owner and design director at DICE. "Because [of players'] expectations. People know the map and people have certain expectations. But also there's rose-tinted glasses, like, this is how it used to be."

He's discussing Operation Firestorm, a fan-favorite Battlefield 3 map returning in Battlefield 6. The map needed to be updated to suit modern sensibilities and the new game's tech while retaining that nostalgic factor. To nail it all is difficult, and would be a marker of one the best FPS games if perfected.

"That's where challenge comes in," Uchil says. "How do we make it as destructible as every map in the package? How do we make sure the map work with the weapons, which are different from the weapons in Battlefield 3? It's much more complicated than people think."

However, Jeremy Chubb, producer at DICE, believes that previous BF games built strong foundations for the current team to expand on with their "future-proofed" concepts of high player counts, full physics, destruction, vehicle play, and more.

"When we bring back a map like Firestorm, it still works," he says. "It's still fun to play."

However, that doesn't guarantee that players will like the new version. If anything, it raises the stakes higher than ever before. "It's a fine line," Chubb explains, "because people have really particular views about what that map was. They want that experience realized. But I think that we would disappoint people little if we weren't able to evolve it and embrace the new ideas and features that we have in this game."

Battlefield 6 is set to bring the explosive destruction of modern Battlefield to a classic map, but the devs aren't stopping there. There's bigger (much bigger) and better to come, so stay tuned for more interviews on PCGamesN over the coming week.

If you can't wait for the Battlefield 6 release date, check out our new Battlefield 6 preview to whet your appetite for what's to come. Spoiler: the open beta was just the start.

Are you excited to see Operation Firestorm return in Battlefield 6? Let us know in our community Discord server, where readers and staff discuss all the latest gaming news.

Additional reporting by Paul Kelly.