Battlefield: Bad Company

Battlefield: Bad Company brought a lighter, more humorous tone to the series through a squad of soldiers from B Company, who, instead of heroic gestures, mainly try to survive and, along the way, get their hands on money hidden somewhere in the conflict zone. The fictional conflict and the dry humor of its characters — the quarrelsome Haggard, the paranoid Sweetwater, and the calm Sarge — contrasted with the more serious tone of rival military shooters and gave the story a distinctive identity that the series retained in later entries. The gameplay built on destructible environments — most cover could be shot to pieces, opening up tactical options for both advancing and defending, and forcing the player to constantly reassess where safe cover still remained.

On the Xbox 360, the game showed off the power of the Frostbite engine, which at the time ranked among the generation's most impressive technology thanks to destructible buildings, effects, and sprawling open levels that could be traversed via many different routes. The campaign combined on-foot combat with driving vehicles, tanks, and helicopters, while the multiplayer offered large maps with an emphasis on teamwork and the same environmental destruction as the singleplayer, which was one of the series' main draws over the competition at the time. The sound design and music completed the impression of genuine wartime chaos, amplified by dust from crumbling walls and falling debris.

At the time, the game was received as a refreshing alternative to the then-dominant Call of Duty and built a loyal fanbase thanks to both its humor and its technical achievements, even though the multiplayer initially didn't match the scale of the big battles from the main Battlefield series. Today, Bad Company is interesting mainly as a first step toward the modern Battlefield, and as a reminder of a time when destructible environments still felt like a striking novelty and a technical marvel of the generation.

Why play: For fans of the humor and the destructible environments that felt like a technical marvel on release, this was the first step toward the modern Battlefield.