Battlefield 1 is a First Person Shooter (FPS) set during the First World War. As with previous games in the series the focus of the game is mostly on the multiplayer side of things. That said, there is a great single player campaign that’s worth a look if you are that way inclined, I just wouldn’t advise that you buy this game if you ONLY want to play single player, not unless it had been heavily discounted.
Released: October 2016
Yay!: Beautiful, Accessible, Enjoyable WW1 FPS,
Nay: Once again content from EA will be drip-fed via DLC.
Overall: 8/10
Who should buy it?
If you like a good shooter then it’s a no brainer, you should definitely buy this game. It looks great, its easy to pick up and it makes a nice change from the more modern based shooters we’ve been bombarded with for the last decade. You should also buy this game if you are a casual gamer and like the idea of being able to switch on your console and get stuck in for half an hour and actually feel like you’ve had a decent game of something – as opposed to faffing about with your load-out for 2 hours. If you enjoy this game I also highly recommend checking out some of the titles in the Battlefield series like Battlefield 3 or 4.
Who should NOT buy it?
Don’t buy this game if you prefer a shooter with a 3rd person perspective, or the “Tomb Raider” view as George and I referred to it growing up. Also don’t buy this game expecting it to be like anything from the Call of Duty series. The single player has got better but is not as well produced as the Call of Duty (COD) episodes. That said, I do find the multiplayer more balanced and mature looking than many of the COD games. This is reflected in the audience playing it, well mostly.
What works?
The game is gorgeous, playable, fun, satisfying more than it is annoying and most importantly for a Massive Multiplayer Online (MMO) title its really accessible so there are tonnes of people playing and you never know what type of game you’re going to get. Like the battles themselves you get to take part in many different types of battles from being deep in the trenches to the sands of Saudia Arabia to being deep in the woods.
Unlike playing Call of Duty, the larger multiplayer games like Conquest, Rush and the new Operations setting really feel like all out warfare. Your in a plane, you get shot down, so you parachute and land on a rooftop, the building you landed on is then levelled by a tank, which is then blown up and suddenly it’s all gone team deathmatch! You get the idea…
What doesn’t work?
Too many automatic weapons for the purists I would say. I’m sure its entirely accurate and all these weapons were in existence back in the early 20th century but I’ve had many battles that seem a little out of place. On many an occasion battles have descended into the type of skirmish you’d expect to encounter in the Second World War not the First World War. Another thing that annoys me a lot, even though I normally like the sniper load-out is that being a sniper is way too easy, which means too many, many people play as snipers.
The problem with this is that its only a matter of time before those of us run n’ gunning it get sick of being picked off and become snipers ourselves…you dig? Battlefield has 4 different load out types for a reason (Assualt, Medic, Support & Scout) choose wisely my friend and you’ll have a ball. Just don’t pick sniper every frickin time!
Conclusion
Whilst its nemesis Call of Duty blasted off into a rather bleak future of space-based battle, EA decided with Battlefield it was time to roll things back and remind us just how savage, sluggish and brutal the Great War must have been. Given that its been around 100 years since it ended it seems a rather fitting time to do this and given the end result no-one can accuse EA DICE of not handling this part of history with the uttermost respect on the part of those that fought in it.
Battlefield 1 is a gorgeous, glossy fun game to play. However, given the response its received from hardcore fans of the series, has EA DICE made an mistake by focusing too much on making the game attractive to casual gamers and taking away the key features that made it stand apart from other FPS games?
Then there’s the DLC, only 1 has arrived so far, its nice, but its a map that’s clearly been adapted from the Single Player game so it feels like a staggered release rather than a valuable extra.
As mentioned in our article about Star Wars Battlefront, also developed by EA and built using the same tools, by making these games both content-lite and noob-friendly is EA DICE losing the identity and fandom that made them so great in the first place?
Let us know what you think in the comments below.