Thank you everyone for the continued support, I really enjoyed tackling the Battlefield franchise even in a small way with Battlefield Heroes. Hard not to see the inspiration for Fortnite too after watching some of the gameplay! Huge thanks to Ridge for sending me the wallet and supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you want to check them out and show support! www.ridge.com/NERDSLAYER (Code:NERDSLAYER)
I wonder if you'll bring back "Life of a Game" series because there are a lot of games of the genres you put in this series that are doing very well, some that were good from the very start, while others struggled at first then made back to the top.
I still hear the launcher music in my head to this day... This will be a painful watch, but it might be what I need to say goodbye to this game. Thank You for this
The same here, tons of playtime and money spent, even got scolded when my parents found out how much i spent on the game . It had so much going for it. I can't agree more with your statement "lovely mess" it was and god how much i miss it.
I used my mom's credit card and drained most of the money lol. Also, I skipped school so many times just to play this game I ended up having to go to court for being absent too much. That's how much I loved this game.
I really really loved this game, but the way they gradually ruined it with more and more pay-2-win micros was just heartbreaking. There were healing items, the better ones of which got locked behind a paywall, then came the weapons with increased crit chance and mag size. Then weapon addons further boosting stats. And one major point was left out that contributed massively. The game, as most free to play titles do, had a massive cheater problem, which EA just stopped adressing altogher, to the point where cheaters were also buying cosmetics, as they were not at risk losing their accounts. I'm still mad about this game dying :(
Same, my friend from elementary school got me into the game, he was super into military stuff and just joined the Marines a few years ago, so I guess it did something for him.
If you are on a nostalgia trip, download rising hub (the private server). The most overpowered weapons and microtransactions are left out. I started a few weeks ago, and it is as fun as back then.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss I loved the direction they went with Bad Company 1, a far more laid-back arcadey FPS. shame they never went to a third game. Well there was that Vietnam DLC one, but that just jumped the shark with the original premise.
I was working for an EA Studio during the pro beta. They gave us keys and requested we give the game a try. I remember numerous lunch and down time breaks filled by quickly logging into BFH and having some fun. The whistling theme is addictive and you would catch folks whistling in the break rooms.
@@htjohn8202 It was till it wasn't. I snuck in as a playtester. I was massively over qualified but told them I was looking to have the experience as a bucket list item. They gave me a chance and I quickly realized how out of place I was as the rest of the testers were college kids with little real world experience. Most of them were doing as a summer job. After a few weeks I got approached by QA. Apparently my multi page summaries of my experiences while testing got noticed and they offered me a contract position. my contract terms were 1 year evaluation with 6 months renewal option. If I passed evaluation I would be full time and get a decent pay bump, benefits, and have avenues to grow into other departments. It was a dream job at that point because I wanted to show them what I was worth. I love gaming and games and lived and breathed that job. Like I said when I got into the company beta for BF:Heroes I took it seriously. I played it and did write ups like I did as a playtester. I got noticed and shifted around to cover multiple games. Then when my evaluation hit I passed with flying colors.....but EA had locked the studio into a hiring freeze. They couldn't give me full time. They extended me 6 months and as that was closing EA gave them little breathing room. They were able to offer a handful of full time positions to backfill but sadly the one in my department was taken by a neopotism hire (A producers fresh highschool grad son). So they couldn't renew my contract or take me fulltime. Sucks but honestly the studio got put through the ringer a few months later and they laid off 80% of the staff and the other 20% were forced to relocate to another EA studio. I would of never relocated so maybe in the end it was for the best.
I remember playing it religiously for a while, moving on because of other games and coming back to find massively hiked up prices. What a slap in the face that was.
@@angamaitesangahyando685 the difference is: There are dozens of Mmos so you can hop into another if it that p2w but you can’t play bf heroes 2 instead of 1
I used to play the hell out of Battlefield Heroes in high school when it came out because it was free and easy to play. I wasn't the best at it, and not being able to afford better weapons and armor didn't help that, but I always enjoyed the art style, the maps and the crazy stuff that could happen - people surfing on planes, shootouts and punch-ons in the streets and farms. I miss it terribly.
Yuuuup, you unlocked some serious core memories with this. I immediately started singing the tunes when I heard them lmao My younger brother and I played the hell out of this when we were kids cause it was one of the only games our parents PC could run and we loved every second of it
The exact same story for me as well. I have a lot good memories playing with my little brother when we were younger and the music is super nostalgic. It barely ran on our walmart computers but it was a great time.
One of my favorite games. It could have been the “Fortnite” if EA went about it well. The updates is what killed the game. It became pay to win and stopped innovating by constantly putting out reskins so they could make more money. They also did not do enough against hackers making this game a pain at the end of its life
those last 6 months with that "Thanks for playing!" sign on the website was the most fun I had out of all the years 2009-2014 playing. I didn't understand how much I would miss it
Overall, just thinking about it now, I guess the best part about this game is the bad feeling some EA execs hopefully got after noticing that with BF Heroes they could have had their own Fortnite long before Fortnite. Add BFV style fortifications, make a BR play mode and you'd basically had it. I don't even feel bad about this lost possibility…
It is Just a slight bit of karma to throw at their faces for focusing on grinding as much money as possible rather than trying to offer creative ways to make playing the game feel worthwhile.
We used to play this game for hours with friends from the office every day. We enjoyed its goofy animations and inside jokes whether we were losing or winning. Until one day, we launched it and found that we won't afford our favorite guns in a few days. We stopped playing it then and there. Thank you for your excellent video. It brought back fond memories of the time long past. Please keep them coming!
Sounds to me like EA/DICE made 5 key grave mistakes with BFH: 1) should've never switched the monetization from passive (skins) to aggressive (weapon purchases). Understandable why they did that as companies aren't charities and exist to make profit, but man it pretty much spelt doom for BFH 2) should've added a fourth class to spice up team compositions. They already simplified the game considerably by mixing the original 6 into just 3, could probably come up with another combination or something brand new to set Heroes apart from the rest of the series 3) should've expanded the team sizes to 12v12 rather than 8v8. 16-players in a Battlefield title is just not enough, and it's not like the game had revolutionary graphics. I understand they limited it to 8v8 due to (most likely) perfomance concerns, but maybe an optional non-browser client would help there 4) should've released this on consoles as neither PS3 nor X360 had a lot of titles in similar style and gameplay, especially F2P ones. F2P titles were a rarity in 2009 and the closest to BFH game there was TF2 as a part of Orange Box and 5) maybe not have two different F2P titles of the same genre in the same series launching mere months away from each other. I sincerely doubt it helped either BFH or P4F that both titles were completely free, even despite having artstyle differences Also it really makes you wonder - would Heroes have taken off today? Console multiplayer is at peak popularity, people in general are okay with cosmetics as seen by the likes of Fortnite and League of Legends, Battlefield isn't quite going through its best times after the flop of BFV and a certain unknowness in regards to BF6, F2P titles are massive, plus EA probably could've marketed Heroes in China to rack mad cash from local whales (or, hell, release Heroes on mobile as well and do cross-platform play between consoles and phones) Perhaps BFH was just ahead of its time huh?
What was worse was that P4F took away lots of devs from BFH, the success from BFH allowed them to create P4F, but realistically speaking BFH became lackluster because they slowly stopped releasing substantial content for BFH.
This brings back fond memories some of my oldest friends. The tune, the maps, the emotes, etc. Hard to not whistle the tune and not be sad. This got me into BF3 yrs later so on that note thank you BH. You were loved.
@@olivierluisin1790 Bad gameplay, terribly clunky combat, simplistically boring controls, boring protagonist, awful level design, inconsistent hit detection, shitty soundtrack and bad voice acting. The last one isn't necessarily always a bad thing, but in this case it is. Basically, every way that a game can be bad, Shaq Fu nails it!
I think the worst part of this series is I’ll see a game and I’m like “oh that looks kind of cool, maybe I’ll give it a try sometime.” Then I’ll have the immediate, “oh, right...”
Well, EA old F2P games are still playable, like NFS World through Soapbox or Battlefield Heroes through RisingHub. Shame that Battlefield Play 4 Free is kinda dead, nobody plays in those private servers (Phoenix Network to be more precise), but you can walk around empty maps I suppose.. or just play Battlefield 2.
You're bringing back memories of my BFH character falling to the ground and scowling like being shot in the head wasn't a big deal. While some commando dips a bag of tea into a mug and smirks at me. Fuck, I miss this game.
Loved this game, remember watching a guy on UA-cam back in the day who only played this and pokemon but he deleted his channel eventually. Played this game do much back in the day, only Battlefield game I've ever played lol
I know who you mean, he also played Monster Hunter, god damn what was his name, his Montages where super fun, in general Battlefield Heroes Community Videos and even the Community held NationsCup were fking amazing. God, even though there were some super toxic people playing this game, the community was always what made this game amazing to play. Everyone just understood you have to group and get along with each other, everyone spammed the Wave emote and I couldn't stop laughing.
I remember! He was the same reason I got into BFH and competitive pokemon! For the life of me I cant remember his channels name, knowing damn well I used to watch him for hours when I was younger
Miss this game so bad... so meny good times playing this game? Even telling my son , who Plays fortnite, about this game and how it was the fortnite of my youth. Just hearing the music make me smile for the good times and yet sad for the loss of it.
This music... Pure goosebumps omg. What a fun game was this, used to play this a lot with some friends! Thank you for this, you gave me some flashbacks to some of the most fun times while gaming
All of Play 4 free games by Ea failed of exact same reasons. It was microtransaction hell. Nfs world was hella grindy and if you wanted get a good car with money you would have pay ridiculous money to obtain it. It's not underrated it was shit. And content besides new cars were added slowly. In 5 years of this game's lifetime there was few game modes: circut, sprint, team escape, outlaw mode(tipycal nfs cop run mode) and treasure hunt which was just a daily rewards scattered around map to pick up. It wasn't suprising that Ea closed this game.
I used to play a lot of Battlefield Heroes, Play4Free and Need for Speed World, but at the time I had no context whatsoever about micro transactions. They were fun, lightweight and with a huge community. I'd just ignore everything about money and continue to have fun. I had to wait more than 10 years to have money to enjoy the main titles. Now I'm playing Cod MW for almost 2 years and waiting for the Battlefield 6 reveal next week!
This game has always been a fever dream for me. I remember being on the family computer playing this while the 2010 Olympics were playing on the TV throughout the day.
i used to play this game soooo much, I was 9 when this game shut down, saddest day of my life, i came home from school and wanted to play only to realize the game was shut down... it was quite literally my childhood... sucha good game, played it with my brother, memories man...
It feels like, with a lot of these games that have shops for purchasable items, that the publishers always seem focused on the short term profits and and are well aware that it'll kill the games longevity. Gotta move that needle and move to the next project. A real shame for the people who liked the game.
Very nice video. BFH was an amazing game and it really saddens me that its potential was ignored as it was basically intended to be a cash grab game. I feel like BFH actually had very much potential in competetive scene but most of the player base were casual players, so the competetive potential was totally ignored. Obviously, this was also how it was intended to be. Most of the new maps were always vehicle maps, which were basically only played by the casual players. The hardcore players were only playing on infantry maps and "VV only" servers. The difference in competitiveness between vehicle and infantry map servers was so crazy it was like another game. I really feel like if the competetive potential was realized, the game could have been way more popular like TF2. But the development strategy was always to push away the competetive elements and appeal to casual players, the devs didnt even support any community tournaments at all, despite those being quite popular.
As someone who spent months in VV only servers as a kid I totally agree-the strategies and metas were actually really fun and unique, and honestly this video didn't really touch on just how nutty some of these abilities could be.
Not only that. devs did far too little. For instance, they rarely carried out updates aimed towards maintenance, to fix necessary things to maintain a good relationship with the community or to keep them content. People made many needful suggestions, but they were generally ignored for no good reasons. When the weight scale tipped in favor of money all the time, it got out of balance as for the players. Of course the fans were upset and annoyed. No matter how many times people demanded things to be looked on, they didn't give in because they only wanted to make profit. For example, buffing less good weapons was not priority at all. You know when even the smallest trivial thing is a chore for them to correct. It just doesn't add up.
Oh boi, such a good video. I used to play it when i was 11 untill i was 14 I am 21 now It's the first online game i ever played and that's where i met my best friends that we are with till today 10 years of friendship
"Some rich kid can't kill you with a nuke that you can't afford" Except maybe a sniper rifle that kills in 1 shot to ANY part of the body at all no matter what. But that's not a nuke, so we didn't lie.
The Hogan's Heroes esqe aesthetic and simple, but fun, third person shooters. It was so fun for just a casual, not super intense, but competitive game. Great for after school.
I remember I was about 9 when I first downloaded this game and had soo much fun with it. Felt true nostalgia when I saw the thumbnail; thanks for outstanding detective work once again, NerdSlayer
thank you so much for reminding me of this. Good times, man, i used to have a minecraft youtube channel and had friends who played a lot with me, back when we had time and the world hadn`t gone to absolute shit.
This is wonderful, thanks for this video. So much memories and nostalgia with the music and old trailers. I genuinely believe if the devs kept the mtx as in the first few years, the game wouldn't have died. This game could have been the Fortnite we now know, but years earlier. Shame to see this game killed itself. One can dream of a bfh2 one day
I remember pouring days and weeks into this game back in high school, getting better at one shotting from stealth and maaan flying was just the best! Wing clipping people while flying sideways between the buildings where two players couldn't go side-by-side (9:16)... Thank you for making me remember! [:
*Kicks back a long drink* Been a while since I've heard of them. It was fun, but I still feel extremely salty from the memories. As a kid, I played it way back in 2009, starting since at least before the September update, and got sick of the P2W nature of the premium weapons about a month or two they were released. That, and with how each faction and class have separated progress and queuing, it felt awful to queue as a high-leveled National Commando only to find that your team was horribly balanced with classes (read: everyone else was a Commando) and were getting bowled over by nigh-invincible gangs of Royal Gunners and Soldiers speed boosting and healing each other.
Their were a few things that could have been done to make the game good. Sadly they were never implemented or too late. The worst thing was a lot of fan servers came up within months that implemented the changes, removed p2w, had patreon type support and were highly profitable only to have EA send cease and desist to all of them. People tried to buy the rights to the game for 2 million and EA turned them down. It was not until 2019 when Risinghub came around and EA never tried to take the game down.
Thank you for your this wonderful eulogy of a game which was very dear to me. I used to be a really poor kid and playing Battlefield Heroes was one of the greatest times I had in F2P titles (ironic I know). But still, game's humour, art, action, and gameplay fit very well with what I considered fun back then. It might have only 3 maps when I started playing, but the gameplay loop felt way less repetitive compared to some of the modern paid titles. Anyhow, this was a wonderful trip down the memory lane. I cannot state how much I respect and love your work and your videos. Just like with the DoG: Aion, I know this video will be one to which I will be returning every so often. Thank you.
I played this alongside Quake Live when that was a browser game running ads on billboards in the game. It was a weird time for free to play games but this was very much under-rated design wise and completely ruined with pay to win. I remember the trailer saying something along the lines of "A game where you're not shot in the face by an ultra skilled 15 yr old who plays the game for 8 hours" and it became exactly that + buyable OP weapons. Still though it's good to hear that a community has formed around it with a private server, will definitely have to check that out now that it isn't hindered with "rent a weapon"
I'm so glad you made a video about this game, this game was my childhood and I spent so many hours playing it. This needs to get the attention back it deserves...
As a kid who played basically all of the F2P games, I remember, even back then, Battlefield Heroes having worse rental weapon thing than some of the Korean shooters like Combat Arms or A.V.A.
I remember this, and i remember the "renting guns" Get out of here with that crap! It is funny Bad Company 2 which came out at the same time (with no micro transactions) is probably the best Battlefield game they ever made.
I still play it since the release of risinghub. I think its a legendary game and definitly has my childhood in it. This game will always have a special place in my heart
the game wasnt ruined b y any of what you said, it was ruined by hackers wich was a real problem and widespread common, players stopped playing because of them and in turn stopped money flow noticably
I got into the battlefield series after playing this, but damn did they screwed this one up. Another point worth mentioning regarding the game economy is that health restoratives were bought with the same in-game currency used to rent weapons, meaning when you were in-game you would often have to consider limiting your bandage use so you could still upkeep your weapon rentals, which made a pretty huge difference in your damage output. I remember at one point when I played, the base level sniper took about 2 headshots to kill, whereas the rental sniper took only one headshot to kill.
I loved this game at launch. Still whistle the music, now and then. It was infinitely funny to me that the broken cash shops skins like the halloween one which made you headless, was balanced out unintentionally by the sheer volume of cheaters using auto-aim and wall-hacks. Shame what happened to this.
I played the heck out of this. It was, i guess 3rd most played "free to play" game, right after Team Fortress 2. That game popped today in my head and thought, "Huh, what happened to it?" I was shocked, surprised and then happ, when I discovered that game has shut down and someone decided to revive it. I'm so glad I can play it again and I'm looking towards on what the new devs will add to it.
I recently got nostalgia hitting my head and i joined rising hub.I used to play the game for a couple of years maybe not more than one,but it was super fun. My experience from rising hub is mixed though.Keep in mind that when we're talking for a small and dedicated private servers people playing there will be elitists. So is the rising hub in some cases they will kick you off the game if you are low level but even if they don't you will get demolished.The game is fairly balanced in a lot of ways classes are balanced even though commando is the glasscanon of the three that you dont see too much of.The microtransaction even are ripped off the server,are easily felt. Anyone thinking about trying it out,I would suggest it only if you are willing to give time in it,you wont be able to jump in a server and start having fun.The ceiling isn't too high after a couple of days i managed getting to the point that i was useful,but still far from decent. The community on first sight looks toxic,but once you spent time you realise that they are neutral to everything.They dont kick you because they gatekeep,they kick you because you can join a different room and get more from it.They don't taunt you to tilt you,they taunt anything for nostalgia.I have no much issues with the community either way.
I loved this game for a few months when it was new, I even wrote short stories on the forums. I gave it a try a couple years later and the P2P weapons were completely crazy, it was barely a contest
I was a EA Community Moderator aka "BoyOfTheEnders" for this game almost the whole time it was running and also a Closed Beta tester in 2009. I played until the year it was shut down. It was a very "ahead of its time" game that, it it was to release today, could still make millions. I loved being a major player in the community, working with EA staff on tons of aspects of the maps, development and more... It was a once in a lifetime experience for me and I appreciate everyone who talks about it, like they are talking about my family. Thanks for glazing over this. The past 3 years have made everything before it seem 100 years older.
Man, I absolutely adored this game. It totally was Pay2Win and some strategies could just absolutely shut down anything else, but I still loved it. Soldier stacking was so damn broken. Put together a team with one or two Gunners so they can apply the defense buff AoE (it didn't stack, so you'd only want two tops to alternate using it on CD) and then the entire rest of your team is Soldiers who coordinate rotating out their heals. If you make sure to always move as a unit and communicate, you become pretty much unkillable. Granted, that was impossible in PUGs and literally any even semi-coordinated team could smash PUGs, but hey. Good times.
God I miss this game, I had just found myself whistling that menu song and looked it up on UA-cam I also had no idea this was a battlefield series game.
If EA doesn't make ALL the money, the title gets the axe and buried. It gets buried so it doesn't compete with their next failed attempt at making ALL the money.
So glad you covered this! BFH was my number one game for a long time (my alias was Mystical13, in case anyone remembers me), but I got an early beta invite, so I got to enjoy the perfect free-to-play model for years: Free gameplay, no pay-to-win. Many of the maps you talked about I never played. By that time, I had already stopped playing and my clan had disbanded. I don't even remember the rental system! They already started adding items with slightly boosted stats for real money before that. We endured for a while, but it became too much too quickly. I think my experience also shows why these games can never stay up forever: The main customer base plays for free. Over the course of the three years I played, I spent a total of 80€. Which is great value for the amount of fun hours I got, but even releasing a new 50€ game every year would make more sense for the company. BFH in particular was also relatively simple, but that was great for me as a 13-year-old teen. There was enough in the game to keep me entertained, but not so much that I was constantly steamrolled by people with a degree in its mechanics. Another factor was probably the level cap and missing end game; once your character reached level 30, there was nothing left to improve and no other objectives. You could level all three classes in both factions to 30, but then that was it. XP-Boosts didn't matter, you couldn't unlock any special items by progressing further, there was just a ceiling to how much you could achieve in this game. Okay I'll stop talking now.
@@Rabbitlord108 I’m like 1000% sure it’s the next one The clue at the end is the trailers opening I remember bc I was so hyped....but it fizzled real quick
It had an awesome feel to it, with the music, customisation, vague WWII vibe that reminded me of my favourite war hero movies like A bridge too far... it was a gem and I have lots of great memories with it.
I think you may have missed a step. Because the weapons were always rentals. It's just that you could AFFORD the rentals. A couple rounds would get you a week of grenades, or the sniper rifle you preferred using. It was barely an obstacle at all. The change to 3-day rentals and MUCH higher rental costs was what set a lot of people off. This also included making it impossible to afford consumable items like bandages or wrenches for healing in-between skirmishes. I personally had bought a cosmetic version of an existing, rentable gun, with real money. So when the change happened, I went from "having a fancy looking gun" to "having a more powerful gun." And that really rubbed me the wrong way. I quit playing shortly after. Also in part due to the loss of wrenches, which made plane to plane combat, a favorite for me, completely infeasible.
Thank you everyone for the continued support, I really enjoyed tackling the Battlefield franchise even in a small way with Battlefield Heroes. Hard not to see the inspiration for Fortnite too after watching some of the gameplay! Huge thanks to Ridge for sending me the wallet and supporting the channel! Here’s the site if you
want to check them out and show support! www.ridge.com/NERDSLAYER (Code:NERDSLAYER)
Never heard of it! I'm surprised 😮
I wonder if you'll bring back "Life of a Game" series because there are a lot of games of the genres you put in this series that are doing very well, some that were good from the very start, while others struggled at first then made back to the top.
I would love to see you cover monster hunter frontier Z
Do battlefield five guy, trust me it'll be an excellent video
EA: Well since you didn't pay us enough for our F2P cosmetics we are just going to make it Pay2Win.
I remember playing this because it was one of the only games that would run on my parents computer
Same!
Yeeeep
And it was even advertised that way!
That's how I started playong runescape in late 2001
Saaaaame
I still hear the launcher music in my head to this day...
This will be a painful watch, but it might be what I need to say goodbye to this game. Thank You for this
if you want to say hello to it again, download risinghub.
You don't need to say goodbye, there's an online community that still plays ! Rising hub, look it up :D up to 100k players
@@Mylifestoriesmaybe 100k? Maybe that is the capacity of the servers but is far away from 100k player.
It's a physical pain actually. Those good old times.
Risinghub mostly has 60-100 players online at a time. But enough to have some fun games
First game in Death of a game series, which i played, now i understand nostalgia and sadness people feel watching your other videos
This game was my childhood in a nutshell... spent so many hours... (and $$$) on this lovely mess :3
The same here, tons of playtime and money spent, even got scolded when my parents found out how much i spent on the game . It had so much going for it. I can't agree more with your statement "lovely mess" it was and god how much i miss it.
@@savagehungarian5467 Yes sirrr!!!
@@savagehungarian5467 you can still play it :)
I used my mom's credit card and drained most of the money lol. Also, I skipped school so many times just to play this game I ended up having to go to court for being absent too much. That's how much I loved this game.
I can relate :D
Man i used to love that game so much, just the intro sound makes me nostalgic
There is a game called rising hub its the same game only not supported by ea and everything is free i should check it ou
You can still PLAY battlefield heroes TODAY on community project. Search up RISING HUB in google
@@nucley5161 i just said that bruh
Oh gosh the music was an absolute blast! As well as the effects and everything. The whistle emote I just cannot forget.
@@dupel_granger9908 the wave emote bro, almost made me tear up hearing after all those years
I really really loved this game, but the way they gradually ruined it with more and more pay-2-win micros was just heartbreaking. There were healing items, the better ones of which got locked behind a paywall, then came the weapons with increased crit chance and mag size. Then weapon addons further boosting stats. And one major point was left out that contributed massively. The game, as most free to play titles do, had a massive cheater problem, which EA just stopped adressing altogher, to the point where cheaters were also buying cosmetics, as they were not at risk losing their accounts. I'm still mad about this game dying :(
Every time I performed slightly above par in this game, people would yell "cheater" at me. It was tiring.
Ah yes, speakinf of cheaters, one of the most notorious ones being literally the 11th place in the score leaderboard.. The memories..
Man, i forgot all about that game. I played that a lot back then
@Knight Now that you say it, that was the exact same reason i played it. It was fun for a few hours.
Same, my friend from elementary school got me into the game, he was super into military stuff and just joined the Marines a few years ago, so I guess it did something for him.
yeah same everyone at my school played it
If you are on a nostalgia trip, download rising hub (the private server). The most overpowered weapons and microtransactions are left out. I started a few weeks ago, and it is as fun as back then.
Restored on RisingHub, restored man... it's not dead
It really should have been released on consoles too, but I suppose EA released 1943 for them instead.
Were f2p games a thing during the ps3/360 era?
They also did Bad Company 2
@@0uttaS1TE Now that you mention it, I kind of want a DOAG about Dust 514 :p
Another game that I figured out as disappointing. The Battlefield Console ports in mid 00's were not that impressive.
@@nerdSlayerstudioss I loved the direction they went with Bad Company 1, a far more laid-back arcadey FPS. shame they never went to a third game.
Well there was that Vietnam DLC one, but that just jumped the shark with the original premise.
This was such a great game that no one ever talked about.
and it is still great, as you can still play it :) on the revive project risinghub
better than bf1?
@@sleeper5905 No, but it was never made to compete with the mainline BF games. It was a light hearted free version of the franchise
@@SpartanOfLuxon oooh
I was working for an EA Studio during the pro beta. They gave us keys and requested we give the game a try. I remember numerous lunch and down time breaks filled by quickly logging into BFH and having some fun. The whistling theme is addictive and you would catch folks whistling in the break rooms.
Played it 13 years ago for a few months, still whistling the tune...
sounds like a dream come true
@@htjohn8202 It was till it wasn't. I snuck in as a playtester. I was massively over qualified but told them I was looking to have the experience as a bucket list item. They gave me a chance and I quickly realized how out of place I was as the rest of the testers were college kids with little real world experience. Most of them were doing as a summer job. After a few weeks I got approached by QA. Apparently my multi page summaries of my experiences while testing got noticed and they offered me a contract position. my contract terms were 1 year evaluation with 6 months renewal option. If I passed evaluation I would be full time and get a decent pay bump, benefits, and have avenues to grow into other departments. It was a dream job at that point because I wanted to show them what I was worth. I love gaming and games and lived and breathed that job. Like I said when I got into the company beta for BF:Heroes I took it seriously. I played it and did write ups like I did as a playtester. I got noticed and shifted around to cover multiple games. Then when my evaluation hit I passed with flying colors.....but EA had locked the studio into a hiring freeze. They couldn't give me full time. They extended me 6 months and as that was closing EA gave them little breathing room. They were able to offer a handful of full time positions to backfill but sadly the one in my department was taken by a neopotism hire (A producers fresh highschool grad son). So they couldn't renew my contract or take me fulltime. Sucks but honestly the studio got put through the ringer a few months later and they laid off 80% of the staff and the other 20% were forced to relocate to another EA studio. I would of never relocated so maybe in the end it was for the best.
P2W destroyed this game so hard. I loved it way back when, played for months on end.
And gunners were toi OP
I remember that there were servers that banned the use of those laser weapons
Came here to say exactly this. Just like every other free-to-play game of that era, it was ruined by pay-to-win schemes.
I remember playing it religiously for a while, moving on because of other games and coming back to find massively hiked up prices. What a slap in the face that was.
@@angamaitesangahyando685 the difference is: There are dozens of Mmos so you can hop into another if it that p2w but you can’t play bf heroes 2 instead of 1
I used to play the hell out of Battlefield Heroes in high school when it came out because it was free and easy to play. I wasn't the best at it, and not being able to afford better weapons and armor didn't help that, but I always enjoyed the art style, the maps and the crazy stuff that could happen - people surfing on planes, shootouts and punch-ons in the streets and farms. I miss it terribly.
Yuuuup, you unlocked some serious core memories with this. I immediately started singing the tunes when I heard them lmao
My younger brother and I played the hell out of this when we were kids cause it was one of the only games our parents PC could run and we loved every second of it
The exact same story for me as well. I have a lot good memories playing with my little brother when we were younger and the music is super nostalgic. It barely ran on our walmart computers but it was a great time.
@@ExyGamingman me and my lil brother would often take turn to play this game on our family potatoes PC......good ole time.
haha same boat. me and my big brother would always play this on our old Toshiba laptop with the trackpad
One of my favorite games. It could have been the “Fortnite” if EA went about it well. The updates is what killed the game. It became pay to win and stopped innovating by constantly putting out reskins so they could make more money. They also did not do enough against hackers making this game a pain at the end of its life
those last 6 months with that "Thanks for playing!" sign on the website was the most fun I had out of all the years 2009-2014 playing. I didn't understand how much I would miss it
I’ll never get tired of that Detective Conan theme baybee
same, I am at episode 888
@@Moostar95 Same!
Overall, just thinking about it now, I guess the best part about this game is the bad feeling some EA execs hopefully got after noticing that with BF Heroes they could have had their own Fortnite long before Fortnite. Add BFV style fortifications, make a BR play mode and you'd basically had it. I don't even feel bad about this lost possibility…
It is Just a slight bit of karma to throw at their faces for focusing on grinding as much money as possible rather than trying to offer creative ways to make playing the game feel worthwhile.
Bruh. this channel is like trip down memory lane. I totally forgot about so many games that ended up on this series that i played
We used to play this game for hours with friends from the office every day. We enjoyed its goofy animations and inside jokes whether we were losing or winning. Until one day, we launched it and found that we won't afford our favorite guns in a few days. We stopped playing it then and there.
Thank you for your excellent video. It brought back fond memories of the time long past. Please keep them coming!
Sounds to me like EA/DICE made 5 key grave mistakes with BFH:
1) should've never switched the monetization from passive (skins) to aggressive (weapon purchases). Understandable why they did that as companies aren't charities and exist to make profit, but man it pretty much spelt doom for BFH
2) should've added a fourth class to spice up team compositions. They already simplified the game considerably by mixing the original 6 into just 3, could probably come up with another combination or something brand new to set Heroes apart from the rest of the series
3) should've expanded the team sizes to 12v12 rather than 8v8. 16-players in a Battlefield title is just not enough, and it's not like the game had revolutionary graphics. I understand they limited it to 8v8 due to (most likely) perfomance concerns, but maybe an optional non-browser client would help there
4) should've released this on consoles as neither PS3 nor X360 had a lot of titles in similar style and gameplay, especially F2P ones. F2P titles were a rarity in 2009 and the closest to BFH game there was TF2 as a part of Orange Box
and 5) maybe not have two different F2P titles of the same genre in the same series launching mere months away from each other. I sincerely doubt it helped either BFH or P4F that both titles were completely free, even despite having artstyle differences
Also it really makes you wonder - would Heroes have taken off today? Console multiplayer is at peak popularity, people in general are okay with cosmetics as seen by the likes of Fortnite and League of Legends, Battlefield isn't quite going through its best times after the flop of BFV and a certain unknowness in regards to BF6, F2P titles are massive, plus EA probably could've marketed Heroes in China to rack mad cash from local whales (or, hell, release Heroes on mobile as well and do cross-platform play between consoles and phones)
Perhaps BFH was just ahead of its time huh?
What was worse was that P4F took away lots of devs from BFH, the success from BFH allowed them to create P4F, but realistically speaking BFH became lackluster because they slowly stopped releasing substantial content for BFH.
Whats pf4
@@shrekworshiper4965 play for free
This brings back fond memories some of my oldest friends. The tune, the maps, the emotes, etc. Hard to not whistle the tune and not be sad. This got me into BF3 yrs later so on that note thank you BH. You were loved.
This one hurts me like paragon :(
There's a few Paragon revival projects out there like Fault/Predecessor/Paragon 2.
@@Nersius yeah, I've tried some , they are still bad tho, hope any of them can deliver
“Communities don’t try to resurrect bad games” tell that to Shaq-Fu.
shaq-fu is a bad game?
since i do not know the game, despite having heard of it, Can someone explain why it is a bad game?
@@olivierluisin1790 Bad gameplay, terribly clunky combat, simplistically boring controls, boring protagonist, awful level design, inconsistent hit detection, shitty soundtrack and bad voice acting. The last one isn't necessarily always a bad thing, but in this case it is. Basically, every way that a game can be bad, Shaq Fu nails it!
There is always the exception to the rule.
That game is mostly because of the utter meme nature of it.
Still one of the very best Battlefield themes overall. Whistle with me!🎶
"By letting some rich kid kill you with some nuclear weapon he bought that you can't afford"
Did EA just predicted ho gta5 online mode would be?
😂
A legendary free to play game that was way ahead of its time.
I think the worst part of this series is I’ll see a game and I’m like “oh that looks kind of cool, maybe I’ll give it a try sometime.” Then I’ll have the immediate, “oh, right...”
Trying this one is still possible though
Well, EA old F2P games are still playable, like NFS World through Soapbox or Battlefield Heroes through RisingHub. Shame that Battlefield Play 4 Free is kinda dead, nobody plays in those private servers (Phoenix Network to be more precise), but you can walk around empty maps I suppose.. or just play Battlefield 2.
@@thegodzhilla not having speed abilities in this game sure sucks, especially in big maps.
Never heard of this before now. Still it's nice to see this piece of history.
You're bringing back memories of my BFH character falling to the ground and scowling like being shot in the head wasn't a big deal. While some commando dips a bag of tea into a mug and smirks at me.
Fuck, I miss this game.
Loved this game, remember watching a guy on UA-cam back in the day who only played this and pokemon but he deleted his channel eventually. Played this game do much back in the day, only Battlefield game I've ever played lol
I know who you mean, he also played Monster Hunter, god damn what was his name, his Montages where super fun, in general Battlefield Heroes Community Videos and even the Community held NationsCup were fking amazing.
God, even though there were some super toxic people playing this game, the community was always what made this game amazing to play. Everyone just understood you have to group and get along with each other, everyone spammed the Wave emote and I couldn't stop laughing.
I remember! He was the same reason I got into BFH and competitive pokemon! For the life of me I cant remember his channels name, knowing damn well I used to watch him for hours when I was younger
was it NeonTube? ua-cam.com/channels/Zg9Frc7sBZbmGkB67zDFGQ.html?app=desktop&feature=applinks
Bro thank you. I used to love this game and to this day will randomly have the theme song stuck in my head.
Man I used to play this through a Google Chrome extension all the time
Miss this game so bad... so meny good times playing this game? Even telling my son , who Plays fortnite, about this game and how it was the fortnite of my youth. Just hearing the music make me smile for the good times and yet sad for the loss of it.
Why don't you play every once in a while when you can. It is not as before completely agree there, it is what it is.
This music... Pure goosebumps omg. What a fun game was this, used to play this a lot with some friends! Thank you for this, you gave me some flashbacks to some of the most fun times while gaming
Can you do another EA's online multiplayer game called Need For Speed World? It's a really underrated game and I want to see why it is failed
worst microtransactions ever in the history o video games
plus the studio was being destroyed by EA.
That reminds me of like a motorsports online, something I played when I was younger
All of Play 4 free games by Ea failed of exact same reasons. It was microtransaction hell. Nfs world was hella grindy and if you wanted get a good car with money you would have pay ridiculous money to obtain it. It's not underrated it was shit. And content besides new cars were added slowly. In 5 years of this game's lifetime there was few game modes: circut, sprint, team escape, outlaw mode(tipycal nfs cop run mode) and treasure hunt which was just a daily rewards scattered around map to pick up. It wasn't suprising that Ea closed this game.
@@decoy033x Exactly this.
I used to play a lot of Battlefield Heroes, Play4Free and Need for Speed World, but at the time I had no context whatsoever about micro transactions. They were fun, lightweight and with a huge community. I'd just ignore everything about money and continue to have fun. I had to wait more than 10 years to have money to enjoy the main titles. Now I'm playing Cod MW for almost 2 years and waiting for the Battlefield 6 reveal next week!
Fun fact is I'm still playing Battlefield heroes in this day and age, it's not over just yet.
+1 dude, +1
The BFH theme always slaps 🔥
Miss this game 😢
Hearing this theme is enough to make me cry
Yeah.... you can still play this
@@avivk1005 Yeah but there aren't really any Asian server from the last I checked :(
@@Kee9264 What are you mean? I can help you
This game has always been a fever dream for me. I remember being on the family computer playing this while the 2010 Olympics were playing on the TV throughout the day.
Man Pandemic really made some fun games back in the day, Mercenaries was dope.
man, i remember logging in every day to spin the daily claw, i’d still play this game over most current day games
I remember playing this as a kid at the after school club. The theme alone gets me nostalgic tbh. Might check out Rising later today
i used to play this game soooo much, I was 9 when this game shut down, saddest day of my life, i came home from school and wanted to play only to realize the game was shut down... it was quite literally my childhood... sucha good game, played it with my brother, memories man...
This was like my favorite game to play as a teen...sadge.
Thanks for this. Miss this like hell. My favorite game.
It feels like, with a lot of these games that have shops for purchasable items, that the publishers always seem focused on the short term profits and and are well aware that it'll kill the games longevity. Gotta move that needle and move to the next project. A real shame for the people who liked the game.
And then when the game fails they just blame the studio and fire them.
Not only i 100% agree with what you said, but also like the style of the editing alot! great video dude. man this was one of my best childhood games.
Very nice video. BFH was an amazing game and it really saddens me that its potential was ignored as it was basically intended to be a cash grab game.
I feel like BFH actually had very much potential in competetive scene but most of the player base were casual players, so the competetive potential was totally ignored. Obviously, this was also how it was intended to be. Most of the new maps were always vehicle maps, which were basically only played by the casual players. The hardcore players were only playing on infantry maps and "VV only" servers.
The difference in competitiveness between vehicle and infantry map servers was so crazy it was like another game. I really feel like if the competetive potential was realized, the game could have been way more popular like TF2. But the development strategy was always to push away the competetive elements and appeal to casual players, the devs didnt even support any community tournaments at all, despite those being quite popular.
As someone who spent months in VV only servers as a kid I totally agree-the strategies and metas were actually really fun and unique, and honestly this video didn't really touch on just how nutty some of these abilities could be.
Not only that. devs did far too little. For instance, they rarely carried out updates aimed towards maintenance, to fix necessary things to maintain a good relationship with the community or to keep them content. People made many needful suggestions, but they were generally ignored for no good reasons. When the weight scale tipped in favor of money all the time, it got out of balance as for the players. Of course the fans were upset and annoyed. No matter how many times people demanded things to be looked on, they didn't give in because they only wanted to make profit. For example, buffing less good weapons was not priority at all. You know when even the smallest trivial thing is a chore for them to correct. It just doesn't add up.
Oh boi, such a good video.
I used to play it when i was 11 untill i was 14
I am 21 now
It's the first online game i ever played and that's where i met my best friends that we are with till today
10 years of friendship
Goodness, I even sometimes whistle that little tune they had. Great summer memories ~
"Some rich kid can't kill you with a nuke that you can't afford"
Except maybe a sniper rifle that kills in 1 shot to ANY part of the body at all no matter what.
But that's not a nuke, so we didn't lie.
please don't let this game die 😞
It pains me that my childhood game went downhill like this, i'ma miss you BFH, thank you.
The Hogan's Heroes esqe aesthetic and simple, but fun, third person shooters.
It was so fun for just a casual, not super intense, but competitive game. Great for after school.
12 years later, I still have the whistling song stuck in my head and yet I don't remember playing the game that much.
I used to play this when i was a teen, definition of a pay to win game.
I remember I was about 9 when I first downloaded this game and had soo much fun with it.
Felt true nostalgia when I saw the thumbnail; thanks for outstanding detective work once again, NerdSlayer
thank you so much for reminding me of this. Good times, man, i used to have a minecraft youtube channel and had friends who played a lot with me, back when we had time and the world hadn`t gone to absolute shit.
This is wonderful, thanks for this video. So much memories and nostalgia with the music and old trailers.
I genuinely believe if the devs kept the mtx as in the first few years, the game wouldn't have died. This game could have been the Fortnite we now know, but years earlier. Shame to see this game killed itself.
One can dream of a bfh2 one day
I still sometimes randomly get that theme song stuck in my head😅
You can still play this with all the shit unlocked there was a private revival of this. It works
Oh that music is nostalgic. Thanks for covering this game!
Man, I love learning about failed games I had no idea existed until now.
I remember pouring days and weeks into this game back in high school, getting better at one shotting from stealth and maaan flying was just the best! Wing clipping people while flying sideways between the buildings where two players couldn't go side-by-side (9:16)... Thank you for making me remember! [:
*Kicks back a long drink* Been a while since I've heard of them. It was fun, but I still feel extremely salty from the memories.
As a kid, I played it way back in 2009, starting since at least before the September update, and got sick of the P2W nature of the premium weapons about a month or two they were released.
That, and with how each faction and class have separated progress and queuing, it felt awful to queue as a high-leveled National Commando only to find that your team was horribly balanced with classes (read: everyone else was a Commando) and were getting bowled over by nigh-invincible gangs of Royal Gunners and Soldiers speed boosting and healing each other.
Their were a few things that could have been done to make the game good. Sadly they were never implemented or too late.
The worst thing was a lot of fan servers came up within months that implemented the changes, removed p2w, had patreon type support and were highly profitable only to have EA send cease and desist to all of them.
People tried to buy the rights to the game for 2 million and EA turned them down.
It was not until 2019 when Risinghub came around and EA never tried to take the game down.
Thank you for your this wonderful eulogy of a game which was very dear to me. I used to be a really poor kid and playing Battlefield Heroes was one of the greatest times I had in F2P titles (ironic I know). But still, game's humour, art, action, and gameplay fit very well with what I considered fun back then.
It might have only 3 maps when I started playing, but the gameplay loop felt way less repetitive compared to some of the modern paid titles.
Anyhow, this was a wonderful trip down the memory lane.
I cannot state how much I respect and love your work and your videos. Just like with the DoG: Aion, I know this video will be one to which I will be returning every so often.
Thank you.
This game was fortnite before fortnite. EA could have made billions, but they blew it.
Let’s hope they revive it someday
Me and the boys played this game SOOOO much. Still comes up regularly in conversation along with Exteel.
I played this alongside Quake Live when that was a browser game running ads on billboards in the game. It was a weird time for free to play games but this was very much under-rated design wise and completely ruined with pay to win. I remember the trailer saying something along the lines of "A game where you're not shot in the face by an ultra skilled 15 yr old who plays the game for 8 hours" and it became exactly that + buyable OP weapons.
Still though it's good to hear that a community has formed around it with a private server, will definitely have to check that out now that it isn't hindered with "rent a weapon"
I'm so glad you made a video about this game, this game was my childhood and I spent so many hours playing it. This needs to get the attention back it deserves...
Dead of a Game on Block N Load? Very interesting team shooter that went from 8k to now around a peak of 60 players
As a kid who played basically all of the F2P games, I remember, even back then, Battlefield Heroes having worse rental weapon thing than some of the Korean shooters like Combat Arms or A.V.A.
I remember this, and i remember the "renting guns" Get out of here with that crap! It is funny Bad Company 2 which came out at the same time (with no micro transactions) is probably the best Battlefield game they ever made.
I still play it since the release of risinghub. I think its a legendary game and definitly has my childhood in it. This game will always have a special place in my heart
the game wasnt ruined b y any of what you said, it was ruined by hackers wich was a real problem and widespread common, players stopped playing because of them and in turn stopped money flow noticably
I got into the battlefield series after playing this, but damn did they screwed this one up. Another point worth mentioning regarding the game economy is that health restoratives were bought with the same in-game currency used to rent weapons, meaning when you were in-game you would often have to consider limiting your bandage use so you could still upkeep your weapon rentals, which made a pretty huge difference in your damage output. I remember at one point when I played, the base level sniper took about 2 headshots to kill, whereas the rental sniper took only one headshot to kill.
I loved this game at launch. Still whistle the music, now and then. It was infinitely funny to me that the broken cash shops skins like the halloween one which made you headless, was balanced out unintentionally by the sheer volume of cheaters using auto-aim and wall-hacks. Shame what happened to this.
Granted, I didn't care about Battlefield since 1942, but still surprised I had never even heard about this. Odd.
Its a shame these companies just keep pushing it, another great video.
I played the heck out of this. It was, i guess 3rd most played "free to play" game, right after Team Fortress 2. That game popped today in my head and thought, "Huh, what happened to it?" I was shocked, surprised and then happ, when I discovered that game has shut down and someone decided to revive it. I'm so glad I can play it again and I'm looking towards on what the new devs will add to it.
I recently got nostalgia hitting my head and i joined rising hub.I used to play the game for a couple of years maybe not more than one,but it was super fun.
My experience from rising hub is mixed though.Keep in mind that when we're talking for a small and dedicated private servers people playing there will be elitists.
So is the rising hub in some cases they will kick you off the game if you are low level but even if they don't you will get demolished.The game is fairly balanced in a lot of ways classes are balanced even though commando is the glasscanon of the three that you dont see too much of.The microtransaction even are ripped off the server,are easily felt.
Anyone thinking about trying it out,I would suggest it only if you are willing to give time in it,you wont be able to jump in a server and start having fun.The ceiling isn't too high after a couple of days i managed getting to the point that i was useful,but still far from decent.
The community on first sight looks toxic,but once you spent time you realise that they are neutral to everything.They dont kick you because they gatekeep,they kick you because you can join a different room and get more from it.They don't taunt you to tilt you,they taunt anything for nostalgia.I have no much issues with the community either way.
I loved this game for a few months when it was new, I even wrote short stories on the forums. I gave it a try a couple years later and the P2P weapons were completely crazy, it was barely a contest
i fondly remember playing this game on my parents' old desktop
New Death of a Game?!?!
LET'S GO!!
I was a EA Community Moderator aka "BoyOfTheEnders" for this game almost the whole time it was running and also a Closed Beta tester in 2009.
I played until the year it was shut down. It was a very "ahead of its time" game that, it it was to release today, could still make millions.
I loved being a major player in the community, working with EA staff on tons of aspects of the maps, development and more... It was a once in a lifetime experience for me and I appreciate everyone who talks about it, like they are talking about my family.
Thanks for glazing over this. The past 3 years have made everything before it seem 100 years older.
Battlefield heroes is one of my most played games ever. I loved this game, but it got destroyed by all the pay2win in the end
I have had a faint memory of this game for years and i finally found it. Thank you
Man, I absolutely adored this game. It totally was Pay2Win and some strategies could just absolutely shut down anything else, but I still loved it.
Soldier stacking was so damn broken. Put together a team with one or two Gunners so they can apply the defense buff AoE (it didn't stack, so you'd only want two tops to alternate using it on CD) and then the entire rest of your team is Soldiers who coordinate rotating out their heals. If you make sure to always move as a unit and communicate, you become pretty much unkillable.
Granted, that was impossible in PUGs and literally any even semi-coordinated team could smash PUGs, but hey. Good times.
this game still alive. If you want. lets play.
Put so many hours into this game, I remember the music and the iconic billowing clouds. Hope it makes a come back some day.
it is incredibly weird that people say it wasn’t popular. EVERYONE i knew was playing it in 2012
Better than 2042 by far
Thanks to Rising Hub i can still play this nowadays... I used to play this all day long...
"Through a web portal..."
Even if I had heard of the game, just for that I wouldn't've touched it.
God I miss this game, I had just found myself whistling that menu song and looked it up on UA-cam
I also had no idea this was a battlefield series game.
If EA doesn't make ALL the money, the title gets the axe and buried. It gets buried so it doesn't compete with their next failed attempt at making ALL the money.
So glad you covered this! BFH was my number one game for a long time (my alias was Mystical13, in case anyone remembers me), but I got an early beta invite, so I got to enjoy the perfect free-to-play model for years: Free gameplay, no pay-to-win. Many of the maps you talked about I never played. By that time, I had already stopped playing and my clan had disbanded. I don't even remember the rental system! They already started adding items with slightly boosted stats for real money before that. We endured for a while, but it became too much too quickly.
I think my experience also shows why these games can never stay up forever: The main customer base plays for free. Over the course of the three years I played, I spent a total of 80€. Which is great value for the amount of fun hours I got, but even releasing a new 50€ game every year would make more sense for the company.
BFH in particular was also relatively simple, but that was great for me as a 13-year-old teen. There was enough in the game to keep me entertained, but not so much that I was constantly steamrolled by people with a degree in its mechanics.
Another factor was probably the level cap and missing end game; once your character reached level 30, there was nothing left to improve and no other objectives. You could level all three classes in both factions to 30, but then that was it. XP-Boosts didn't matter, you couldn't unlock any special items by progressing further, there was just a ceiling to how much you could achieve in this game.
Okay I'll stop talking now.
It’s almost like BFH had found itself in an “Infinite Crisis”
See what I did there?
@@Rabbitlord108 I’m like 1000% sure it’s the next one
The clue at the end is the trailers opening
I remember bc I was so hyped....but it fizzled real quick
@@Rabbitlord108 I remember that lol
Give me ultimate alliance, with Avengers level visuals, and Spider-Man’s open world.
I’d be set tbh
I only gave this game a cursory look when it was brand new, but its theme song is permanently etched into my brain and will never leave.
I seen so many copycats of this game yo know in a diferent reality it could have been more than a footnote in batlefield history
It had an awesome feel to it, with the music, customisation, vague WWII vibe that reminded me of my favourite war hero movies like A bridge too far... it was a gem and I have lots of great memories with it.
It reminded me of Worms Armaggedon and Worms 3D as well.
I think you may have missed a step.
Because the weapons were always rentals. It's just that you could AFFORD the rentals. A couple rounds would get you a week of grenades, or the sniper rifle you preferred using. It was barely an obstacle at all. The change to 3-day rentals and MUCH higher rental costs was what set a lot of people off. This also included making it impossible to afford consumable items like bandages or wrenches for healing in-between skirmishes.
I personally had bought a cosmetic version of an existing, rentable gun, with real money. So when the change happened, I went from "having a fancy looking gun" to "having a more powerful gun." And that really rubbed me the wrong way. I quit playing shortly after. Also in part due to the loss of wrenches, which made plane to plane combat, a favorite for me, completely infeasible.