Warfare and gaming have gone hand-in-hand since toy soldiers were invented and DICE will be giving us another big hit of high action combat in its next installment of mayhem, Battlefield I. This time around it will be taking us back to the grim reality of the First World War, which will make a pretty significant departure from the more recent modern day warfare in Battlefield 4 and the Force-infused Star Wars Battlefront.
Hopefully, the new game will see it picking up where it left off in 2002 with the impressive breakout success of its historical war first person shooter debut, Battlefield 1942. It’s taken 14-years for the series to backtrack and cover WWI, but with the advancements in the technology behind it, we should be in for one of the most visceral and atmospheric warfare gaming experiences in the last decade.
Release date
Battlefield I has been confirmed for a UK release date of Friday the 21st October 2016, tying in with the worldwide launch of the game ahead of the Christmas gaming rush. It’ll be available on Microsoft Windows PC, Xbox ONE and PlayStation 4, bringing yet more first person firefighting to the most advanced systems in modern gaming.
As the game has only just been announced, there’s no word as of yet in terms of whether it’ll be given a virtual reality experience on either the PlayStation VR or the Oculus Rift. With the recent announcement that DICE will be releasing Star Wars Battlefront exclusively on the PlayStation VR, it certainly looks like it might be a possibility, but we’ll wait to find out more information about the game at E3 2016 next month.
For anyone frothing at the mouth in anticipation of getting their hands on the game, an open beta will be available in the coming months, which you can get to play a little earlier if you sign up with Battlefield Insider. EA Access members will also be able to play for a limited time before the release date, and if you pre-order the Early Enlister Deluxe Edition, you’ll be able to start playing on the 18th October 2016, a few days earlier than the official release date.
Single player campaign
Battlefield 1 creative director, Lars Gustavsson, has made it clear that the game will have one of the most significant single-player campaign storylines in the series’ history. The intent behind the campaign is to present a war stories concept that encapsulates the sheer variety of the first truly global war.
Unlike the majority of single player campaign stories, here the adventure will see you taking control of several different characters, so we’re expecting it to jump around quite a lot in terms of location as you transition from one character to another. If the reveal trailer below is anything to go by, we’re expecting story arcs in the mud and grit of the French trenches, the heat of the Arabian desert, the jagged beauty of the Italian Alps, along with the possibility of fighter pilot and naval missions.
Gameplay
This will be another very “Battlefield” game with a focus on all-out warfare once again, taking in land, sea and air conflict with first person shooter action combining up with vehicle combat. Large-scale multi-player action will be a big part of Battlefield 1, immersing you in in yet more grand sandbox environments in which you can wreak havoc with upto 64-players all vying for glory.
Locations that have been announced to-date include battle-torn French cities, a heavily fortified mountain base in the Italian Alps, and Arabian desert scapes. The trailer below would indicate that there will also be jungle warfare maps, along with the ferocious intensity and thick mud of the trenches at the front line.
However, the big development to the gaming environments featured in the game is that they’ll be much more interactive than has ever been the case before. Shoot a wooden hut in Battlefield 1 and it won’t just pick up short-lived bullet holes, it can be mown down completely in a rain of gunfire.
The environmental damage system will open up all sorts of gameplay possibilities, including blowing up a building to take out multiple enemy clusters, but perhaps the most important is that campers will no longer be able to rely on shelter for absolute protection. In fact, even the ground you’ll walk, run, kill and die on will be fair game for destruction, which should result in a lot of fun different gaming options.
Vehicles that have been confirmed for the game include tanks that were pioneered during the course of the war, along with motorbikes on the ground. You’ll also get to pilot biplanes and some of the early bombers that began to surface as the war raged on, along with boats and massive battleships to command.
In addition to the authentic vehicles, the game will also be built around the guns and firepower that was used during WW1. However, this won’t stop at guns and explosives though, as it will also include some of the more brutal melee weapons that were used, ranging from a trench spade to the more grim spiked cudgel that you can see in the trailer below.
Graphics
It’s difficult to call in terms of what to expect from the graphics in Battlefield 1 with the cinematic focus of the trailer below. With little in the way of gameplay footage to go on it’s still a little up in the air, but if we were to go on the graphics of DICE’s last two releases, Battlefield 4 and Star Wars: Battlefront, we’d have to say we’re hoping for a big step up in terms of the physics dynamic, detail and finish in the game, especially when it comes to multiplayer.
Both games are decent looking enough, but neither of them have blown us away in the same way their reveal trailer implied they should. For us, it’ll come down to granular detail, fine rendering touches and animation polish, and if the next game in the series is to stack up with the likes of Titanfall 2 and Gears Of War 4 it’s going to need to be as impressive visually as it should be to play.
First impressions
It’s early days as of yet, and we’ll know more following E3 2016, but Battlefield 1 is already shaping up to be a possible fan-favourite. It’ll all come down to how much effort DICE put into developing the game. If it can deliver both an epic series of single-player campaign stories and a solid evolution of its multi-player format all within the historical context of World War 1 then it could be an early shout for game of the year.
