Dragon’s Teeth DLC: Breathing Fire Back Into Battlefield

In the month leading up to the Dragon’s Teeth DLC, a lot of pressure built up on D.I.C.E. to save Battlefield 4 from sinking into obscurity. The awful launch and first two mediocre DLC’s drove a lot of fans away and gave the game a bad reputation. To keep Battlefield 4 alive for the traditional two year cycle instead of being forgotten as soon as Battlefield: Hardline is released in a similar fashion to Call of Duty, the developers knew the community needed something special. For the most part, Dragon’s Teeth fits the bill.

The four new maps, Progaganda, Lumphini Gardens, Sunken Dragon, and Pearl Market are all the most gorgeous available in the game.  The architecture, color, and destruction is awe inspiring. The traditional game modes like conquest and team deathmatch play very well on these maps and each has a slightly different experience to offer. Pearl Market brings a chaotic urban battleground with lots of vertical gameplay to the table. Lumphini Gardens gives an urban feel but encourages long range combat. Sunken Dragon has urban, close quarters, and wide open spaces in different parts of the map. Propaganda mixes open spaces with flat urban developments. Every map but Pearl Market has some sort of Levolution, but all maps feature mini-destruction that alter flanking routes, etc. Each of the Levolution moments have some affect to gameplay unlike many featured in the vanilla maps. These maps also feature limited vehicles. So if vehicle play is your thing, you will feel left out on this DLC. The great part about this though is a return to infantry focused combat. It is a shooter after all. Overall the maps are solid. Perhaps the best feature of the DLC.

The new weapons are fun, diverse, and differ largely from their fellow weapon classmates. Perhaps the best thing about the weapons is that the unlock assignments for them aren’t ridiculous like those of the first two DLC’s. No challenge will ask you to get a grenade kill while parachuting, 10 kills while swimming, a grenade launcher headshot, and six sniper rifle ribbons all in one game.

The big flaw in Dragon’s Teeth is Chainlink. The description makes it sound promising. Both teams engage in front-line fighting and flanking maneuvers to create chains of objective points. If the line is cut your team’s tickets begin to bleed. Most would guess this would create a nice, competitive variant to conquest. The reality, however, is that the mode always ends with one side crushing the other. This also shortens the match lengths. So if you are into quick, brutal stompings or blindingly fast losses then Chainlink is for you.

Dragon’s Teeth is not quite as fun as the Naval Strike DLC, which was characterized by the Carrier Assault game mode, but the developers’ hard work definitely shines through. Dragon’s Teeth was certainly not phoned in like Second Assault. Despite Naval Strike being more fun at its core, Dragon’s Teeth has more variety to offer. Naval Strike mainly floated on carrier assault for its success. While the new game mode in DT is nothing to write home about, the rest of the DLC is solid.

The addition of many long-awaited patches and Battlefest into the game simultaneously doesn’t hurt either. If things keep going the way they are, we can expect great things from the Final Stand DLC due late this summer.