Battlefield Heroes Basic Guide

Written by: Simon Hill • Edited by: J. F. Amprimoz
Updated May 24, 2011 • Related Guides: EA

This is a basic guide for people who want to try out Battlefield Heroes. Find out how to register and get started and learn the basic gameplay concepts here.

What Is Battlefield Heroes?

click to enlarge

Battlefield Heroes is a free multiplayer first and third-person shooter with a cute art style. It is aimed at casual gamers and is intended to be easily accessible. It has been released by EA for free and their plan is to earn money through advertising and micro-payments. There are two opposing forces in Battlefield Heroes obviously modelled on the British army and the Nazis during World War II (they are called the Royals and the Nationals, and the latter are thankfully a heavily sanitized version of their historical predecessors, in keeping with the cartoonish environment -Ed). The game has a standard array of weaponry, a range of maps and there are vehicles too.

Register for Battlefield Heroes

To get started with Battlefield Heroes you need to register for an account. Just select the Register option at the top of the page here. You will need to enter an email address and create a unique name. Once the confirmation email arrives you can confirm the account and get started. In their efforts to make Battlefield Heroes as simple as possible the game is launched via the browser so you’ll always need to log into your browser account to play.

Installation

Once you have clicked the link in your confirmation email you can sign in and hit the big Play Now button. This should trigger the download and installation process. If you keep getting a message about having to log in it is because your account is not yet registered, it can take a few seconds. The game should install automatically and it is a fairly quick process. It will also install PunkBuster and you’ll need to ensure your firewall doesn’t block either the game exe or the PunkBuster exe.

Create Heroes

You can create up to four separate heroes with each account. When creating a new hero you’ll be asked to choose from the Royal Army or the National Army. Both factions are well balanced and have a similar class structure. You can find out about the individual classes in more detail in our Battlefield Heroes Class Guide. You can’t delete heroes at the moment and you can’t create more than four unless you buy some Battlefunds.

Basic Gameplay

click to enlarge

The game was released with four maps and the gameplay is essentially a team based domination mode. There are various flags in each map. You capture flags by standing in close proximity to them for a few seconds. Once the flag is captured you will see your team’s banner flying at the top. The battle is naturally focussed around the various flags. There is a point system whereby you and the enemy have a number of points each. Killing an enemy soldier reduces their points and if your team holds more flags they’ll lose even more points for each death.

Character Development in Battlefield Heroes

click to enlarge

Your characters are persistent and you can develop them over time. As you play you’ll build up Hero Points which allow you to unlock new abilities and upgrade your existing abilities. There are also Valor Points which allow you to purchase weapons and some clothing, emotes and widgets too. Completing missions and just playing the game will earn you points. You can have three active missions at a time and they effectively just allow you to build Valor Points faster and unlock new missions.

Respawning

When you get killed you will re-spawn at a flag controlled by your team. Your ability cool downs will be reset. If the enemy overruns your spawn point then you might find you spawn by parachuting in, this apparently offers protection against spawn campers. When you first re-spawn you always have a brief period of invulnerability.

Vehicles and Weapons

There are three vehicle types in the game. Jeeps which are great for getting around in a hurry, Tanks which offer destructive power and Planes which are tricky to pilot but great fun. There are also nine weapon types in the game including the Knife, the Pistol, the Shotgun, the Sub Machine Gun, the Heavy Machine Gun, the Sniper Rifle, the Rocket Launcher, the Grenade and TNT. They are all easy to use, some are limited to specific classes and they all have unlimited ammunition.

Numbers and Colours Explained

click to enlarge

When you are fighting and you shoot an enemy you’ll see numbers floating up. You’ll also see them when you capture a flag. These numbers indicate the damage done and the experience you gained. They are also colour coded.

White – normal hit, flag capture
Yellow – critical hit
Red – enemy close to death
Green – experience boost

Battlefunds

You can sometimes buy new outfits and emotes with Valor Points you have earned, but much of this content can only be had if you are willing to buy Battlefunds. You can use PayPal or a credit or debit card to buy Battlefunds. There is no way to earn them in the game. If you have Battlefunds you can spend them in the Store in order to get limited edition items, clothes and emotes for taunting. Thankfully you cannot buy anything with Battlefunds which gives you a gameplay advantage. Personally I don’t think they are worth bothering with at all.

Beware the Bugs

It is worth mentioning that there are several bugs which prevent the game from running sometimes and it is far from stable. Unfortunately I have experienced an intermittent connection failure bug and despite several attempts to fix it have not found a reliable method. It seems to just come and go randomly. I would expect the dev team to get it sorted as soon as they possibly can and the game is being constantly patched, an automatic process which updates every time you load it through your browser. That’s it for the Basic Guide: we’ll deal with classes, abilities and widgets in greater detail in the Battlefield Heroes Class Guide.