With a few years having passed since the 2021 launch of Battlefield 2042, fans are starting to wonder what experience will come next for the franchise. Even though 2042 has made some excellent changes in recent months to reinvigorate its playerbase, it seems that many fans are hopeful for a change of scenery in the near future.

Given how Battlefield 2042 garnered a lot of controversy due to the sweeping changes it made to the core formula of the IP, it only seems right that the next Battlefield game should pay extra attention to beloved mechanics that made past entries to the franchise so popular. The dog tag mechanic has appeared in many past Battlefield installments but has seen little variation in recent years, and the next Battlefield has a lot of ways that it can revamp the system to once again become a staple of the franchise.

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The Next Battlefield's Dog Tags Should Focus on Rivalries and Personalization

Dog tags were first introduced to the Battlefield franchise with 2007's Battlefield 2142 as a fun way to reward players who successfully melee killed enemies. When knife-killing an enemy, the player would collect the victim's dog tags, which simply had the username of the killed player embossed on them, allowing players to amass a collection of dog tags from every enemy they have ever melee killed.

Battlefield is defined by its large-scale warfare and open maps, making melee kills a more difficult prospect when compared to the likes of Call of Duty, and the dog tag system was seen as an excellent way to incentivize close-quarter engagements in 2142. The dog tag mechanic would go on to appear in the following games, becoming a defining gameplay element of Battlefield as a whole:

• Battlefield: Bad Company
• Battlefield: Bad Company 2
• Battlefield 3
• Battlefield 4
• Battlefield 1
• Battlefield 5
• Battlefield 2042

Despite dog tags appearing in so many entries to the IP, there is still so much that can be done with the system to make it more impactful. It is true that the personalization of tags has increased since their first appearance in 2142, with 2042's system now featuring the victim's choice of Player Card on their tags.

An Overhaul to Dog Tags Could Revolutionize Player Engagement in the Next Battlefield

The next Battlefield game should take this a step further, however, giving more power to the player in customizing their tags to make them feel even more valuable. This kind of change could lean into the now-defunct but iconic emblem editing system from past Call of Duty games, being another example of how Battlefield can adopt lost fan-favorite elements of its biggest rival to increase the competition between both franchises. While this would of course require moderation, letting players etch things onto their dog tags would make each melee kill infinitely more unique, and would make amassing a collection of enemy dog tags a much more engaging process.

Melee kills are also perfect for stoking rivalries in a given match, and the next Battlefield release should have a kind of nemesis system to address this. For example, after being melee killed, a player should be able to take their dog tags back from their attacker by knife-killing them, avoiding having their dog tags added to the enemy's collection in the process. There is clearly a lot that DICE can do with the dog tag system, and the future of the franchise should make some big changes to finally build on the longstanding game mechanic.

Battlefield

EA's Battlefield franchise is a series of first-person shooter games. The games have predominantly been set in the modern day, though there have also been titles set in World War 1, World War 2, and in the near future.

The Battlefield franchise is often compared to Call of Duty, with both franchises offering single-player campaigns and online multiplayer.