Battlefield 1 - Xbox One Review
Posted on: 2016-11-02
Our rating:
Battlefield 1 is a fantastic game. Yes it’s not historically accurate as there are too many automatic weapons for the period but it is an entertaining product with an emotional campaign and fun multiplayer which will keep you entertained for months.
The Great War is a setting that is not often explored in video games. Maybe it’s due to trench warfare and that wouldn’t be engaging as a video game as it would get repetitive. However, there was more than just trench warfare; there were tank battles with the early and unreliable tanks which would break down every five minutes to the first dogfights in biplanes.
Battlefield 1 handles the subject matter perfectly with an engaging and emotional game in places; is it historically accurate? No, as there are too many sub machine guns for the era but you have to look at it and realise they have to make an entertaining product at the end of the day.
Battlefield 1 doesn’t have a traditional campaign where it follows one protagonist level by level, it’s split up into “War Stories” where you play in different fronts of the war and each character has a specialised role. The campaign throws you into battle immediately in prologue where you’re not expected to survive and you don’t as you die where it then displays the date of birth of the soldier, then you switch to another soldier and the same thing happens again. It’s a very powerful opening and shows the intense and brutal nature of The Great War where the fights were still up close and personal with bayonets and clubs as they beat each other to death.
You take control of five different characters such as a tanker in the British Army, a support specialist in the Italian Army, a rogue pilot in the RAF and finally a resistance fighter in Arabia where you fight alongside T.E. Laurence. They are retold in narration from the characters decades later or a few years after the war and it is acted well and can get genuinely emotional with some of scenes as they suffer lost etc.
Unlike usual Battlefield campaigns this one is surprisingly open with massive outdoor areas you’re never dragged down a linear corridor as you’re able to take on the objective at your own pace as you’re given multiple routes and approaches to get to your destination. Each chapter is varied as you take on multiple roles and it’s great because it keeps you engaged as you’re not just playing as a standard grunt on the ground because you’ll take control of tanks, planes and even horses as you charge with a sword or a Winchester rifle with one hand.
The gameplay is what you would expect from a Battlefield game you point and shoot but it does have more depth compared to other shooters where it takes team work and co-operation to win a fight. New and interesting features have been added to make the game feel fresh and to fit the World War 1 setting as there is a high emphasis on close quarters combat with shovels, batons, axes and of course bayonet charges. You feel ever crunch, every blow and every stab as you run your blade through your enemy’s chest.
There is the signature massive scale multiplayer of 64 players with familiar modes which haven’t changed from Battlefield 4, but there are couple of new modes such as War Pigeon which is a different twist on capture the flag where you have to hold a pigeon for a certain amount of time and then set it free. Operations is a new mode where two teams are either pushing forward or they are defending and pushing the enemy team back, think of it as a version of tug of war. The multiplayer is good but there is a sense of familiarity from Battlefield 4 but with a World War 1 skin instead I wish they used the setting to their advantage as there is no real trench warfare in the multiplayer.
The presentation is great! It’s a game made by DICE so the graphics are bound to be beautiful, this is the best looking Battlefield to date there is so much attention to detail from weapon models, characters models and vehicle detail. The environments are beautiful from small French villages to the hot and sweltering deserts of Arabia. The sound design is great with fantastic gun noises and crackles of distant gun fire, but they have recycled sound bites from Battlefield 4 such as the death screams from enemies and team mates.
Battlefield 1 is a fantastic game. Yes, it’s not historically accurate as there are too many automatic weapons for the period but it is an entertaining product with an emotional campaign and fun multiplayer which will keep you entertained for months. Go out and get this game!
4.5/5
Article by:
Sam has lived in Bristol all his life. A keen cyclist he speeds around the city but video games are his bread and butter. Whether the old Nes and Snes games or the XBox One and Playstation releases he loves them all. Sam runs his own gaming blog called Bristolian Gamer where he had been reviewing indie games, doing retro reviews and venting his anger at the industry when it does wrong since 2010. Sam joined the 365Bristol team in December 2014.
