Battlefield has a big community no doubt, but as an esport it's not got the same appeal as other, smaller-scale shooters like CS:GO or Rainbow Six: Siege, something that DICE and EA are looking to change with their new Incursions mode in Battlefield 1 (our impressions of which you can see here). When we talked to producer David Sirland at Gamescom about the future plans for competitive play, he indicated that these plans may well produce more in the way of esports.
"Yeah, I mean, that is obviously a product of that, and esports is a product of a healthy competitive ecosystem, regardless of skill level," he explained. "We are starting at the bottom, I believe the right direction to start this, and then of course, if we have enough players, and players come, and this works out all fine and we release this - we can spawn esports."
We followed on by asking how it feels for the team to be delivering something that fans have been asking for for a while, to which he said: "Yeah, it feels awesome. I've been sort of dreaming about something similar since Battlefield 2 actually."
Do you think Incursions can kickstart a healthy esports life for Battlefield 1?