Battlefield V gets system to mark enemies and longer ‘time to kill’

Battlefield V will receive an update in December with a number of relatively large changes. Most notable are the addition of a variation on the ‘spot system’ found in previous Battefield games, and the longer ‘time to kill’ of many weapons.

Developer Dice announced in an extensive post on Reddit that update 5.2 introduces a system that causes a red icon to appear above an enemy player when a player looks at him and the enemy is within 28 meters. If that distance between the player and an enemy player comes within 15 meters, a red icon will only appear if the enemy is in the player’s field of view.

This system is somewhat similar to the systems from previous Battlefield titles, where players could actively mark an enemy player with an icon at the push of a button. Teammates could see such a marker and it also became visible on the minimap. With the system in Battlefield V, it remains visible only to the player and not to his teammates. In addition, no active action is required. Dice says that with the introduction of this new system, it wants to help reduce the time it takes for players to distinguish between friend and foe.

In addition, there will be a change in the time to kill, or the time it takes before an opponent is felled. The change concerns the number of bullets needed to take out an enemy, especially at longer distances. That number of bullets required increases for a number of types of weapons such as submachine guns or rifles. The difference compared to the old ttk can differ per weapon. The infamous German MG42 machine gun seems to be an outlier, with the number of bullets needed at a distance of one hundred meters increasing from six to thirteen. The ttk remains unchanged for sniper rifles and bolt action rifles; a ttk change has already been made for that class of weapons.

The addition of Wake Island does not follow immediately with the introduction of the 5.2 update. Dice reports that that playing field, which was also already in the original Battlefield 1942, will be available a few weeks after the update’s release. Wake Island is part of War in the Pacific, a free update released October 31 that adds Pacific combat to Battlefield V.