EA: Battlefield 3 more authentic than Modern Warfare 3

Boom! Bang! It’s time to grab your helmet and dive for cover, because EA has just fired off another salvo in the ongoing battle between Battlefield 3 and Modern Warfare 3 – claiming that its game is “more authentic” than the competition.

The latest comments were made by EA CEO John Riccitiello in an interview with Industry Gamers. His initial remarks were quite complimentary, but it wasn’t long before the unflattering comparisons were wheeled out:

“The honest truth is I think Modern Warfare is going to be a really good game. I think that in a weird way it’s starting to feel a little to me like the Disneyland abstraction of a war game – a little bit jump the shark. So it feels a little bit like that to me. And I think there’s a market for that.

“I think our game is more authentic. It’s definitely going to do a lot of things better. Lighting’s better, physics is better, animations are better, particle effects are better, vehicles are better. I think there’s a lot of things to like about our product and I think it’s going to be a great battle.”

Later on in the conversation, Riccitiello took a pop at Activision’s new Call of Duty: Elite service:

“I don’t know what’s in Elite right now, but based on what I’ve seen, I think they might’ve been better off holding the Elite thing and been a little more careful and show up a month after they’ve launched Modern Warfare 3. ‘Hey, we’ve got an expansion pack. It’s going to be x amount of money, but if you give us y amount of money, you get extra stuff.’ As opposed to leading with their chin. But maybe there’s a reason they led with their chin.”

A reason they led with their chin, Mr Riccitiello? What might that be?

“I think the reason they led with their chin is that they needed to say something against what was clearly a more powerful presentation of Battlefield 3 over Modern Warfare. So they needed something to say. I think they picked the wrong thing, but there’s a lot of months between now and November so they’ve got plenty of time to recover.”

Elsewhere, the EA chief asserted that many people bought Modern Warfare “more for the coffee table,” and that they then “didn’t play it for two months”.

To be fair, while Riccitiello spent a fair amount of time attacking his rivals, he did also state that the Battlefield 3 vs Modern Warfare 3 clash was good for the industry, and this is probably true.

It certainly gives us something to write about, at any rate.