Battlefield 1
The past remains the future
PC, PS4, Xbox One
Can Battlefield 1 do WWI justice? Going by DICE’s previous efforts, probably not. Existing Battlefield campaigns are, after all, little more than giddy package tours of environments plucked from history books or news reels, and the new game’s bizarrely brostep-driven reveal footage is cut from much the same cloth.
DICE claims that the game will explore aspects of the war beyond the butchered landscape of the Western Front, since the multiple-protagonist plot will take players to the Arabian desert and the Italian Alps. But the point of all this is simply to unlock eye-catching weapons and vehicles – including spiked maces, Bedouin cavalry sabres, and primitive flamethrowers alongside British Mark tanks with their rhomboid caterpillar tracks, and brightly painted Bristol biplanes – for the multiplayer core.
There are, at least, signs that all this new hardware will change Battlefield’s multiplayer for the better. Of particular note is the aerial combat, which is necessarily driven more by dexterity than firepower. There are no lockons or heat-seeking missiles, and the propeller-powered planes of the day are considerably slower than the jets of Battlefield
4, which should make for longer dogfights and more involved air-to-ground combat. Aircraft classes will run the gamut from brittle interceptors to more adaptable vehicles with a gunner seat, to looming German zeppelins that conjure up memories of the flying fortresses in Battlefield 2142’ s Titan mode. Whether the latter are pilotable remains to be seen, but they’re an obvious staging ground for a climatic campaign chapter.
The British and German tanks are at the heavier end of the spectrum, able to overwhelm but not outrun smaller French vehicles equipped with swivelling topmounted turrets. Needless to say, they won’t be as unreliable or uncomfortable as the earliest Allied models in northern France – sluggish deathtraps that were deployed as much to bulldoze a path through No Man’s Land as to take out opposing forces.
DICE’s long love affair with terrain deformation is a good match for records of battle on the Western Front, but we won’t, it seems, be able to actually dig our own trench networks. The developer has, however, seized the chance to better distinguish the player’s means of deforming said terrain. You’ll need certain melee weapons to clear obstacles – a bayonet is the showier option, but you might prefer a trench shovel if you’re looking to smash down a dugout door. At the other end of the spectrum, there’s a battleship that can be commandeered to bombard coastal fortifications, rending soil and masonry apart till silenced by vengeful pilots.
The familiar and celebrated class structure returns, albeit with a few adjustments. As always, the Scout dominates at range, but snipers must do without FPS gizmos such as infrared scopes and motion detectors. In place of Battlefield 4’ s fearsomely adaptable Engineer, the Assault carries high explosives to deal with mobile armour while the Support’s light machine-gun packs a punch against infantry. It’s a sensible enough feature set, though hardly earth-shattering.
You might ask why Battlefield 1 needs to justify its choice of setting, when so many other games based on real-life conflicts are granted a pass. There’s definitely an element of hypocrisy to complaints that the developer is glamorising bloodshed, but as the first major studio to tackle the period in years, DICE has an opportunity, perhaps even a duty, to set an intelligent example for peers.
The Great War was unprecedented in terms of more than sheer bodycount or destruction. The emerging technologies of cinema and war photography exposed civilians to scenes of carnage hitherto cloaked in propaganda (which Battlefield’s ‘Early Enlister’ preorder DLC ironically evokes). The phenomenon of shellshock, meanwhile, forced an important re-examination of attitudes to psychological wellbeing. We’ll find out in October if it’s all being reduced to a matter of vehicle classes and capture points amid brain-liquifying dubstep remixes.
DICE has an opportunity, perhaps even a duty, to set an intelligent example for peers