I know the Battlefield series is not exactly a torch bearer for historical accuracy but I have some serious questions about a WWI Battlefield game that doesn't feature France or Russia. Not just because both Russia and France were major participants in the war but also for other reasons like nearly all the major battles on the Western front being fought in France etc.

Personally I would trade out Italians and Americans for French and Russians. No offense to those countries, but America you had like fuck all to do with that war, and Italy you were there, but Hassun's reasons for the inclusion of France and Russia kinda trump Italy's involvement in the war, IMO.

Jeez, if they don't include America how are they going to introduce the M1 Abrams prototype? Pretty bullshit France and Russia aren't in there though.

Very weird for them not to include either of those nations. I wonder what the reason for the exclusion would be other than they will add them later as DLC.

A WW1 game without the French is possibly the most ridiculous thing I've ever heard.

Gotta have something for the DLC!

That's the different take on WW1 they promised - removing the French.

that's pretty fucking dumb. but from what i saw with the gameplay, it looks pretty fucking inaccurate.

Going into E3 I was super excited for this but everything they have shown has turned me completely away. Like when you pick countries to represent WWI, the first two you grab are France and Germany. France "carried" the allied side in that war but instead we get two allied powers that didn't even join until a couple years in!?

It's just a skin.

The French took more casualties in WW1 than the US has taken in all its wars put together.

I applaud Dice for trying some "lesser known" theatres like Italy and the middle east, but this is a bit of a slap in the face to the French.

I'm a pretty big apologist for this game, at least conceptually, but not including France is a major misstep

It's almost assuredly going to be part of a major DLC pack down the line but it really should be there from the start

While French and Russian factions won't be in MP, they were featured in a trailer for the game when it was announced. I think it will be very likely that you see both factions playable in single player.

Well, EA was concerned kids didn't know WWI even happened . . .

. . . and as we all know, the Western Front was completely ancillary to the rest of the war. Yep. Absolutely not important at all.

Russia I can expect to be absent but no France is pretty crazy.

The French and Russian, aka the only two countries Germany actually gave a damn about beating.

Well Americans are in it because they're Americans. Tanks are British so there's that. Unfortunately they had to pick 3 nations from both sides and the reason for Italy and the Ottomans is to have maps in different areas.

In the end people just want to British and American weapons. There were a lot more allied nations in the war so they don't really have a central power counter part to pit them against. Bulgaria is the only one left out and I don't think anyone is really clamoring for that. They picked the two that English speakers want to play as and then one for the middle east.

Astro-Hungarians?! That sounds crazy! I guess they really are going hard against Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare by taking World War 1 into space.

Remember, no Russians.

So the country that the entirety of the war in a state of invasion, lost more soldiers that any other side and had whole swathes of its territories decimated for decades by the conflict doesn't get a chance to participate in that war?

I just keep thinking "what if the developers of Stalker did a WW1 game instead?"

@musclerider said:

Tanks were also French; due to the secrecy involved in such programs (including the name "tank"), both countries developed proto-tanks separately and in parallel. The French also deployed more tanks in WW1 than all other countries combined. Granted, only four countries besides France actually produced them, and the Germans only had about 20, but it still counts.

Do you get to indiscriminately smash some Serbs in the aftermath of Franz Ferdinand's assassination?

Seriously, no Australia either? What's the point of making a WWI game if most of the nations aren't going to be in it?

Are we getting angry? Do I need to get my pitchfork out?

Are people not seeing that the tweet says both "Playable" and "In MP"? Yea it's weird that major countries from WWI are excluded as playable in MP when other countries like America are in but you could've complained about the numerous excluded countries in BF1942 and other WWII games all the same. This to me doesn't imply total exclusion either as they may show up as a part of the single player in either playable or unplayable form. If that doesn't happen however then yea, it's pretty stupid.

If they are only going to have 3 factions on each side I can understand the exclusion of Russia, but having America instead of France is fucking insane and also kind of insulting. I realize they will probably appear in the single player, but that is still insane.

Love people implying that no-one at Dice questioned this.

No playable French? Oh dear oh dear.

@megabattimus: What fucks me off, is just leave diggers out all together. If they're just going to bastardize slouch hats and put them on generic British troops (unless it's from the Macedonian campaign, but even then they weren't bashed right and mostly flat), just leave Australia out all together.

@odinsmana: Do we even know if it's going to have SP?

Battlefront didn't and that sold super well, so I wouldn't be surprised if this was MP only.

@megabattimus: I am pretty sure that it`s been confirmed. Don`t think we know anything about it yet though.

@megabattimus: It will have SP. Battlefront didn't have SP because they had to get the game out of the door in time for the movie.

@odinsmana: That's good to know at least.

@jesus_phish: I thought Battlefront didn't have SP because DICE is lazy, which is also why it barely had any planets, was only Galactic Civil War era, etc.

Of course America is playable while France and Russia are not. Of course.

And here I thought this game was gonna be different...

I think its kind of insulting to include America but not France.

so no Petrograd level in the single player, also this means no Verdun or Somme ?! whaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaaat ?!?!?!?!?!!?

did they read history?!

Well... that sucks. This news and the demo they showed almost deflated most of my good will in the game. Never mind the setting or the interest of the designers, at the end of the day it is still another Battlefield founded by EA.

I don't buy the idea that those were picked to have the same numbers on each side. It is multiplayer, they are mostly skins and flags, this is not Assassins Creed Unity having to create new skeletons, models and animations in a single player game for the sake of "representation" in a story based game, and I don't think they will balance them out to make some weapons exclusive to some factions. I could see some countries being left out under the "colonies" label, but Russia and France? They weren't only major players, the war was fought in their home turf !

Leaving out two of the largest Allied powers on two of the largest fronts; but making a special note to include the Harlem Hellfighters DLC tells you everything you need to know about this game.

My issue is with the fact that it's looking like they're attempting to paint the conflict as a two-side 'good vs bad' one, like WWII was to an extent. WWI is a particularly tricky subject because of how unambiguous ambiguous (bad English)it is in who the good and bad guys are, because it was largely an effect of territorial and cultural grudges and disputes that went back centuries. It's sad to see that my worries seem to be confirmed and that instead of treating this extremely complex conflict with the proper respect and maybe even introduce new audiences to the extremely rich history of European cultures they're just looking for another background for their 'team red shoots team blue' formula.

@musclerider: DICE are Swedish not American.

Totally crazy that the French aren't in the mp at launch but they claim they are getting special treatment for DLC. http://mobile.lemonde.fr/pixels/article/2016/06/13/dans-battlefield-1-le-jeu-sur-1914-1918-l-armee-francaise-ne-sera-pas-jouable-au-lancement_4949618_4408996.html

Also to the people talking about ANZACs they appear to be part of the British Empire faction along with British Indians so squeeze the anger breaks on that one a little maybe.

French have every right to be mad though.

Dice, I'd like to pitch you on my idea for a civil war game. Set in an alternate version of the greatest conflict in american history, the brave Canadians face off against the sinister Spaniards in iconic civil war locations such as New York City, Winnipeg, and Hawaii. Use every weapon at your disposal to secure freedom, jet planes, Thompson machine guns, even the mighty submarine. Pre order today to receive the Frontier Fur Trappers pack for the Canadian forces.

Putting aside the countries and biases and what not like 95% of the war wouldn't happen if France and Russia weren't there.

Did you guys really expect EA to make a AAA game that leans heavily on multiplayer to somehow capture the complexity and many ambiguous factions of WWI in its shooter franchise? It is a disappointment not to see some sort of nod to the absent parties in a single player campaign setting but EA probably ran the numbers and figured that history buffs are going to crucify them either way for not being accurate instead of buying their game so fuck it let's throw in some relatable American fighters so our largest market has someone to play as.

I think the Harlem Hellfighters make up for France and Russia.

Is there a significant difference between countries/teams? Not to trivialize the work involved, but could they just... throw a couple more nations in there if it's mostly cosmetic differences?

Mine's out by default. Better to have it and not need it, etc.

As an American, I totally agree.