Battlefield 1

Introduction

Battlefield 1 resembles battlefield on its surface. But, once one can peel back that thin facade, he will see that it is simply a grimier worldlier rendition of Nu-Battlefront. Vehicles are no longer a streamlined part of the world, the weapons are so inaccurate as to make aiming a hindrance, the classes have yet again become condensed, and class interdependence has hit rock bottom. Past the dazzling coats of camouflage and the not-so-oft seen setting, Battlefield 1 is unworthy of the legacy it inherits.

Performance

After very spotty beginnings, Battlefield 1 does run reasonably well now. Frame rates will hover at around 60 - 75 for an mediocre gaming PC (i5, GTX970) on roughly medium settings. Mouse sensitivity can also be tweaked to one's preference including universal soldier aim, FOV scaling, and separate sensitivities for both scoped and unscoped aim. Keyboard controls are fully customizable, and the UI can be edited very extensively (color, opacity) a la Battlefield 4's later patches.

The worst part of Battlefield 1's UI is probably both its aesthetics and its menu layouts. Everything is displayed in an ultra-modern flat-shaded manner with giant rectangles and borderless squares dominating the screen real estate. The UI almost looks like it was a placeholder the developers accidentally left in. Frankly, it reminds me of DayZ Standalone's menus (that's definitely not a good thing.) In order to purchase new weapons with the game's in-game currency, one must click a button that takes him to a second menu which will load your class's current model as well as a background. This process can take some time, and is very frustrating when one simply wants to buy or change a weapon. The main menu is also a bit crowded with unnecessary features and is clad in that same anachronistic ultra-modern appearance.

In-game, the HUD obscures much of the battlefield by displaying constantly moving objective markers, vehicle icons, player names, squad markers, etc. These can be tweaked by reducing their size and opacity (they can even be removed), but it is still a shame to see this problem return.

Gameplay

Battlefield 1 plays a lot like the Star Wars: Battlefront reboot if it had a large 64 player conquest mode. Weapons are so inaccurate that any player who isn't a sniper must move within at least 60 meters to begin scoring reliable hits. Submachine guns specifically have very poor accuracy. There is almost no difference between aiming down sights and hipfiring with almost every SMG. The Medic class has access to self-loading rifles. Normally, one would expect a full-sized rifle to be accurate. Battlefield 1 doesn't think so. All of the Medic's rifles, save for the Selbstlader, are grossly inaccurate past 100-150 meters. Even within that range, hits can be unreliable. Support's weaponry has been the most heavily crushed in efficacy. Machineguns all have inaccurate fire in bursts. Accuracy increases the longer one fires. So, in essence, every machine gun will lose an aim duel with any other weapon in almost every scenario. The only exception being the BAR which functions more like an assault rifle than a machine gun. Are you beginning to see the problem here? Every class has one "Best" gun. The assault's best gun is the Automatico which fires at a blazing fast speed. So fast, in fact, that death from this gun can sometimes only feel like the enemy fired only one shot. Unsurprisingly, everybody sprints around corners with this thing, killing anyone in front of them instantly with massive peeker's advantage. The medic's best gun is the Selbstlader Marksman variant. It fires reasonably quickly, is the most reliably accurate of all his guns, and has a 20 (20) (20!) round detachable box magazine. You might as well just trash the rest of his arsenal. Support's best gun is the BAR because it, at a bare minimum, will not instantly lose an aim duel against a pistol at 100 meters. It has a 20 round magazine and an insane rate of fire (not a good combination). It is kind of accurate, but will be unreliable past 100 meters. It might as well just be a submachine gun. Sniper rifles are all more or less the same ballistically. The Enfield is probably the best because it bolts very quickly, has consistent damage, and has a 10 round magazine which can be quickly reloaded. Again, you might as well not use any other rifles.

There is really a kind of cruel irony here. The game's maps are quite large, but the claustrophobic effective ranges of the inaccurate weapons forces engagements to never occur beyond 100 meters with the exception of sniping or vehicles.

Speaking of vehicles, Battlefield 1 has made tanks invincible (practically). The only effective anti-tank weapon is another tank. The assault class has been tasked with anti-vehicle duties, but his tools are very poor. He has a rocket gun which deals a measly 21 damage to a tank with a good hit (15 or less for a weak hit). You only get 4 rockets. In other words, you can't kill a tank by yourself with the rocket gun (excluding light tanks which few people drive anyway). Your only other alternative is to use dynamite which does not stick and comes in very limited capacity. Even then, you will not be able to kill a heavy tank by your self (even if you can manage to somehow hit it with all charges before it decides to move a couple of feet). Fixed AT gun emplacements do exist in the maps, but in typical DICE fashion, they are all placed in locations that are exceedingly vulnerable to enemy fire and oriented away from the common threat directions.

Also, artillery trucks exist which are worse than Battlefield 2 style grenade spam. If you remember that, then this will be like a PTSD style flashback of instant death from absolutely nowhere.

And one last note, this game has powerups you can pick up on the battlefield (this is how you know this is absolutely NOT a battlefield game). You can become a big 1000 HP bullet sponge with a garbage machine gun, a 1000 HP bullet sponge with an overpowered double-barreled SMG, or a 1000 HP bullet sponge with a... ...sawed off shotgun. This is probably the most obvious holdover from Battlefront's game design philosophy.

Campaign

It's short. Lots of explosions. Cool Australian guy. Gets kind of trite after you've shot the 60,000th' enemy mook. I wouldn't buy this game exclusively for the campaign. It has almost no replayability and is very linear.

Conclusion

Most of this game's issues revolve around simple design decisions. The weapons are largely underpowered and inaccurate, the vehicles are far too strong (or the anti-vehicle options too weak), and the maps are not conducive to the kind of brutal close range gameplay DICE originally wanted to engender. You can't really club someone in the face if you're getting shot at 1km away by an artillery truck which you're unable to fight against since it's in the uncap. If you enjoyed Nu-Battlefront, there is a very high (99.9999%) likelihood that you will enjoy Battlefield 1. But, if you prefer Battlefield 2, 3, or 4, then you should give Battlefield 1 a wide berth. Both you and your wallet will thank you.

+ Very beautiful environments.
+ An incredible sense of violence and chaos, especially in multiplayer. Unmatched in that.
- Campaign is quite lackluster.
- Really sad that all DLCs are multiplayer-only, as it seems like there could be a lot of interesting stories told there.

Completed.

I didnt care much about its frenic multiplayer, but i enjoyed the campaign much more than i would have thought. Dividing it into different war stories was a great idea when it comes to insert variety into the story, even if quite a few stories didnt work out so well.

The game does its best to try to complimize realism with fantasy and player satisfaction, obviously favouring the later. There are a lot of tales that are clearly way too ficticious, but at the same time it makes for a more enjoyable gameplay. The shooting is very solid, and you are given freedom in how to approach your objectives. There are quite a lot of optional stealth sequences, so you can see the Far Cry influences in this game.

The best thing the game does however is the visuals and sound design, which are just suberb. There were a lot of times when i was playing that i was simply in awe that the game looked better than real life. Little things from your weapon getting muddied after you crawl and destructibility of objects make this without a doubt the best game i have ever played in this department. DICE are damn genious when it comes to this, i just wished that they would invest into making their gameplay a bit more substancial.

All in all its actually a solid campaign, my favourite out of all Battlefield games and only beaten by Call of Duty 4 when it comes to military shooters.