Battlefield V, Darksiders 3 & more games reviewed!
NOT THE STRONGEST ENTRY IN THE SERIES.
$69 | PC, PS4, Xbox One | www.ea.com
WHILE CALL OF Duty has abandoned singleplayer, it’s good to see DICE still making the effort. War Stories is a series of solo missions with lavish production values and melodramatic cutscenes, set in lesser-known corners of World War II. The missions have an open structure, with multiple objectives that can be completed in any order, but there are still a lot of moments where it’s clear you’re playing something quite heavily scripted.
Nordlys, set during the German occupation of Norway, is the best, following a resistance fighter as she fights behind enemy lines. The environment design is stunning (that snow, so powdery) and skiing between locations is fun. Overall, War Stories is more interesting than CoD’s shallow, linear meat grinder campaigns and boasts some genuine spectacle, but it’s not worth buying the game for. Online is still the reason Battlefield exists, but these missions are well made and a worthwhile addition to the game.
When it comes to multiplayer, it’s a mixed bag, but some of the new maps are among Battlefield’s best. Twisted Steel is the clear highlight: a vast, swampy map set in France and dominated by an enormous bridge, part of which has dramatically collapsed. Below the structure is a marshy forest for skirmishing in, but it’s on the bridge itself where the most exciting firefights inevitably take place around the two capture points placed strategically at either end of it.
Squads are more important than ever in Battlefield 5. Not only can you spawn on an ally if they aren’t engaged in combat, but now non-medic characters can perform a ‘buddy revive’ on a fallen comrade. This is a lot slower than when a medic does it, but still fairly invaluable in the final stages of a match. It also encourages squads to stay close together, as tempting as it might be to run off and test out your new sniper rifle. You can still leave your assigned squad and play as a lone wolf, but the game actively discourages it.
Here’s the thing, though: Battlefield 5 is gonna change, a lot. DICE is already addressing community complaints such as bombers being overpowered, as well as planning new modes including its inevitable take on the battle royale genre, Firestorm. There’s also a new tank-focused singleplayer mission, The Last Tiger, on the way in this month. In a year this could be a much better, deeper, richer experience, but for now it’s just a very good Battlefield game with a few great maps and plenty of those moments of beautiful chaos that have come to define the series.