BATTLEFIELD 1
They’ve broken Battlefield again, and this time it’s for the better
We’re lying face-down in the dirt in No Man’s Land, our nose pressed against glass, barbed wire and other remnants of what was once probably a very pleasant French cathedral town. Weary arms inch our tired body through the debris. As gunfire crackles in the distance, a thought rings through our head: how nice it is to once again play a shooter that lets us get some dirt under our fingernails. As you’ll be aware (unless you get your gaming news by carrier pigeon), Battlefield 1 stops the clock on the shooter genre’s incessant march into the future, winding time back to a conflict rarely visited in videogames: World War I. More than just a skin change, the vintage setting alters the flow of the series’ combat in ways that are subtle but wide-reaching. Take the geography as a case in point; shorn of urban sprawl, Battlefield 1’s maps take on a more rural tint, which affects how you approach each engagement. With cover at a premium, natural features in the landscape become more important than ever. A mountain ridge in the Alps, a dip in the Sinai sand dunes… being able to spot peaks and troughs in the terrain, and then using them to your advantage, is crucial in the middle of war zones with more open space – and therefore more sniper lines of sight – than in any shooter in recent years.
BAYONET-A
But more than level design, it’s the return to primitive weaponry that’s the game-changer. For a generation weaned on the high-tech toys that futuristic shooters place in your hands, taming these belligerent and brutish guns will be a formidable challenge. It’s not simply a matter of skill (although it requires a steadier hand to pull off a headshot when red-dot sights are replaced with medieval reticules) but also in adjusting your timing and your flow. Grenades take ages to cook, reloading a bolt-action rifle lasts longer
than the Austro-Hungarian Empire did, and if you’re not in sync with the limitations of your loadout, you’ll be home before the postcards.
Battlefield 1’s old-school guns might not be as polished as those drafted in from the year 32016 (or whenever it is Infinite Warfare is set), but they’re no less satisfying to handle. Indeed, they have a snarl that is often lacking in other shooters. They’re complemented by a spread of inventive vehicles and extras that make full use of the unique time period World War I occupied – it was the historical meeting point between horseback infantry and the roll-out of the very first tanks and planes, and you can expect to see both these worlds clashing in your crosshairs.
Battlefield 1 doesn’t go as heavy on infantry melée combat as perhaps it could, but there’s immense satisfaction to be derived from nailing the perfect bayonet charge, be it from calculation or desperation. And in any case, close-quarters combat, when it arises, is sufficiently spiced up with two low-tech but high-impact pieces of kit: flamethrowers, which induce panic and flush out even the most patient of campers; and mustard gas, which has players scrambling for their gas masks, disorientating soldiers and neutralising snipers.
WORLD WAR NEW
Then there are the vehicles, underpowered by previous Battlefield standards, and all the more intriguing for it. Bizarre prototypes, designed by people who didn’t yet know what a tank was supposed to look like, are sluggish, get bogged down in ditches, and are as combustible as Gordon Ramsay. Instead of rotating turrets, soldiers take pot-shots through tiny, claustrophobic gaps in the armour.
Aerial combat, meanwhile, is superb; short on firepower but high on charisma, deceptively agile fighter planes allow for breathtaking dogfighting displays. While they’re tricky to master, there’s a real sense of accomplishment when you swoop behind your rival and lock them in your sights.
Perhaps because of the time period – WWI was a senseless war which lacked a central ‘demon’ figure like Hitler or Saddam – DICE has elected to resculpt its single-player campaign into a series of mini ‘war stories’ from around the globe, which focus on the goals of the individual – returning to family, friends, just staying alive – rather than the wider conflict. It makes for a warmer, more cohesive story mode than we’re used to, with one protagonist recalling the story as an old man to his daughter, while another – a brash flying ace – is the quintessential unreliable narrator.
While it’s keen to be more respectful of the dead than other shooters, the second coming of Wilfred Owen it is not; for every scene where a young recruit vomits over a mountain of rotting bodies, there’s another where you’re
“PLACES THE BALANCE OF POWER RIGHT BACK IN YOUR HANDS, WHERE IT BELONGS.”