Eurogamer has an explanation from Karl Magnus Troedsson, general manager of DICE, on why there will be no commander in Battlefield 3, the next installment in DICE's military shooter series. "That's why the idea that we've had, the team-play elements of the Commander mode that we really like, we have tried to push down to the squads and the squad leaders," he explains. "We've tried to push this down into the squads so they can both fill the roles that the Commander had, but then also be an active soldier on the battlefield." Here's why:

"I don't know how many people have tried to play as a Commander in Battlefield 2, but it's kind of a strange experience. Everyone agrees that that actual role of the Commander is very, very cool. But the problem is that only one person per team could play it, and it was always the highest ranking one.

"But even for the people that played as a Commander, the first thing they did was what? They ran off to a corner somewhere and lay down there and tried to hide so the Spec Ops guy wouldn't find them when he was going to blow up the installations.

"They basically spent the whole match lying on the ground on some obscure corner of the map, hoping not to get knifed in the back and trying to support people."

Troedsson concluded: "There was something very cool about the Commander role and there was also something a bit flawed, we have to say."