Battlefield 1

Note: I haven't really played any other Battlefield, so this won't be a comparison type review to other Battlefield games.

Battlefield 1 is an fps action game set in World War 1. In the campaign, you play as different soldiers going through their histories. In some stories, you play as characters who specialize in different vehicles, and some are purely on foot. But all of that is combined into an action-packed multiplayer with large scale destructible maps, large servers, and all sorts of ways to play; whether on foot, in a plane, in a tank, or in other vehicles. So let's get right into the review.

Let's start with campaign. The campaign of Battlefield 1 doesn't follow one set character; but rather,follows the story of multiple different characters. As soon as you load the game, you get thrown right into the first campaign mission, which involves you changing from one random soldier to the next, doing a multitude of different things. Then after that, you are free to follow short campaigns of 5 different people. I won't go over every campaign, but their are some I do want to talk about. I felt that having the multi-campaign system was a great choice, as for it allowed freedom to go where you wanted to in the campaign(as for the different missions were in different parts of the world.) The campaign missions were fun and engaging, and even though I hate it when games force onto you vehicle-based missions, I still had fun with them, as for the vehicles were easy to control, fun to use, and were allowed a freedom to go on their own path. Sadly, that is all I can really think of saying good of single player.

Now I get that single player in a game like Battlefield isn't the strong point of the game, but EA Dice has come out and say that their will be a greater emphasis on campaign(which I do believe their is). But anyways, let's get into the bad. Where I felt the campaign was strongest was in the very first mission. The first mission I felt really showed how World War 1 was a living hell, with murky environments and constant death around you. The game even makes it so that you cannot proceed to the next part of the mission without dying first. And after every death, you see the name of the soldier you just played and his birth year and death year. Even the first cutscene started with you watching all of these soldiers fighting each other brutally with rocks and even their fists. I felt that the first mission really showed the horrors of World War 1, showing that it wasn't just lollipops and rainbows like other war games, but a war of nonstop death. Sadly, the game after that goes soft, showing the lollipops and rainbows side of war games, with these 'war stories.' I almost expect one of those movie trailer voices to say "five men and their will to survive with love and friendship" at the end. But I do admit that having a mini campaign set on one person was good for Lawrence of Arabia missions, as for that was real, and that was something to play as for it actually happened. But what utterly blew my mind was that in the entire Lawrence campaign, you never played as him. You barely even see him in cutscenes. That really pissed me off, as for I actually knew about T.E.Lawrence before this game, and I thought playing as him would be super cool. Speaking of campaign mission parts I hate, I can't not talk about the tank mission 'ending.' At the end of mission one, I felt that the ending was perfect for the end of the whole tank campaign. It ends with you getting surrounded, losing hope, sending a messenger pigeon, even playing as the messenger pigeon(which I thought was really cool as for showing harmony in chaos),then doing one of those cliche but emotional sacrifices for the greater good. It was a perfect ending, until you realize that was mission 1 of 4. It made me surprisingly mad to see that cutscene in the beginning of the campaign, when it should have belonged to the end. In my opinion, I felt that that the campaign was good, but with flaws and had the potential to be so much better. I felt that if the multi campaign system was in place, but instead of having scripted characters, you make it so that every death, you play as a new soldier would have been way better. Also, keep and definitely refine Lawrence campaign.

Now let's talk about the big doozy, multiplayer.Ironically, I do not have as much to say about it as campaign, but there are still words to be said. Let's start with the modes. Their are a total of 6 different game modes in the game. It may not seem like much, but it is actually a perfect amount of modes, as games with a crazy amount modes generally only see people in one or two. I will only talk about two of their modes, and that is operations and war pigeons. Operations mode is a mixture of attack/defend and capture the flag, in which the server can house up to 64 people, and war pigeons, which is about one person running around with a pigeon trying to write a message and send it while the other team is trying to capture the same pigeon. I felt that both modes were incredibly fun and had their own little high points, like being able to shoot down the pigeon, or seeing the actual battle tactic and intro cutscene in operations. The other modes are really fun too. Now about everything else. The weapons are fun to use, the maps, although few, are still really fun, large, and destructible, the gameplay is to your liking;whether you want it up close and fast,far away and slow,or in vehicles. Speaking of which,vehicles are fun and easy to use,especially some of the specialty vehicles like the train. The battle packs, which are loot drops of skins in game, are fun to open and is a solid addition to the game, as for everything you get is purely aesthetic and no actual money can be put down onto the packs.

But not all of the multiplayer was good though. A lot of stuff that should be easily accessible wasn't. Your load out can only be changed during the game or in the Battlefield companion app. Now the matches do go on for a long time, so I don't feel I'm missing anything by spending time customizing, but I still find it an annoyance not being able to access that stuff in the main menu. Also, it's very hard to leave the server in between rounds. You get about 5 seconds to quit after the round, then you are stuck in the intermission and the loading of the next mission. To me, that is just a really dumb way the game forces you to play 'one more match.'

Some last things I wanted to say were about the overall experience. I try not to talk about graphics in a game, but I must say those graphics were stellar. Sadly, you do need a very powerful pc to see the beautiful textures and environments, but even running at low resolutions I was just amazed at how good everything looked. One last thing I wanted to talk about was the accuracy of this game to WW1. I really love World War 1, so when hearing this game is World War 1 themed, I was very excited. But I also knew it would be tough for the developers, as for Battlefield and WW1 play as almost exact opposites. Battlefield is fast paced and involves a lot of running around while World War 1 was about hunkering down in the trenches.I get needing to change the accuracy of actual events for the sake of the game, but I felt that the game strayed too far from accuracy, even for Battlefield. I see why choosing World War 1 was a good idea, as for there are very little games that are World War 1 based, but with how opposite Battlefield and World War 1 is, I feel that people are not really getting the true World War 1 experience. I really want to emphasize how much I love playing with those weapons and environments, but I also want to emphasize that Battlefield 1 is much more of a World War 2 game than World War 1. To anyone who doesn't know, World War 1 didn't have that many automatic weapons, most of the fighting was based in trenches, slow and gaining and losing land in small increments, and many other things. Essentially, the game is just a World War 1 skin, as for anything actually precise to World War 1, other than a few weapons, locations, and T.E.Lawrence, is gone. If you want to really see what the war was like, the closest you are going to get to playing it the game Verdun.

Here is my verdict:Out of all the things I said, I feel that Battlefield 1 is a great game in its core, with fun gameplay, a better campaign, fast multiplayer with fun new modes, and beautiful graphics. But I felt that there were a lot of flaws to the game too, as single player could've been better in multiple ways, some of the multiplayer components should be easier to access, and the game strayed too far from what the war was like, even for what Battlefield is like. With all that I said and the things I couldn't think of, I want to say that this game is definitely a great multiplayer game to play.