Battlefield 1 Revealed in Launch Trailer

[TotalerKrieger]

I just don't want your soldier to be given an "advanced lightweight prototype machine gun" and then be told to just go apeshit in the trenches.

It will happen, no question...I can just see exceptionally rare or prototype weaponry like the Fedorov Avtomat, Mle.1917 & MP18 becoming standard weapons just to keep the core Battlefield demographic sufficiently entertained. It will be far too jarring for BF players to go from modern automatic weapons equipped with half a dozen attachments to primarily using bolt action rifles, low capacity handguns and stationary (or crew-served) MGs. What about the unlock systems that mainstream FPS players have come to expect? You got bayonets...and what else? No reflex sights or IR scopes, just iron-sights.

 

[OneCatch]

Nice to see some of the more dynamic parts of the war getting coverage. Arabia, the Eastern Front, maybe Turkey. Not everything was trench warfare and stalemates, and those trench battles were often a lot more dynamic than is commonly depicted in media.

Unfortunately, we have ingrained in our collective mind that every battle of WW1 was a bunch of people charging over a trench, getting immediately killed, and then the other side repeating it until tanks were invented. There was a lot more to the war, in urban warfare and cavalry charges and beach assaults and fairly fluid modern warfare in some areas. Those Trench battles weren't always immediately slaughter either. Often, they penetrated the first few trenches and entered hand to hand combat before a counterattack pushed the assault back. It's the Lions led by Donkeys thing. Not true, but it makes a good story.

Now, obviously it's fucking Battlefield and everything will become a Hollywood movie in game form, but this may do a lot to combat a lot of misconceptions that many people have if only by exposing people to the other parts of the war.

I think that arguing that this will combat misconceptions is kind of like arguing that Glen Beck good for combatting misconceptions on the hard left. You don't challenge existing misconceptions by making up even more extreme bullshit on the other side of the spectrum.

The 'fluidity' experienced in the early stages of the Western Front was basically a result of everyone using the 1812 playbook with modern weapons and massive armies. It resulted in far more obscene casualty figures than the trenches. It wasn't heroic and exciting modern warfare, it was complete blundering incompetence - all these old generals trying to Austerlitz their way around seeking decisive battle which couldn't exist on a front which featured proper logistics and defence in depth. The trenches were intended to preserve life, and outside of the very largest offensives they did.
That said, the mythology of the trenches is broadly speaking correct - if anything it tends to spare the truly grim details - and I'd be very cautious about claiming that a mass-appeal first person shooter is going to be anywhere near capable of seriously challenging misconceptions in an honest manner.

I mean are we going to have entire missions which simply involve being shelled and gassed? How about battles wherein the only equipment available is a bolt action rifle (as bnout 98% of front line troops were equipped)? Are 90% of fatalities to be inflicted by anonymous artillery fire or indirect machine gun fire? I know that much of this is also true to WW2 (where shooters are accepted) but there is a difference. In WW2 platoon and squad actions are far more common and combat is far less static - at a squad, platoon, company, or regimental level. Small unit tactics exist Simply put, FPS is all about mobility, novelty, and heroic achievement. You can shoehorn that into WW2, but you just can't for the First World War, except in a very small number of specific cases.

Portraying it as some kind of globetrotting special forces vacation with gas grenades and light machine guns and machine pistols and trench club QTEs is just bullshit of the highest order.

 

[OneCatch]

I just don't want your soldier to be given an "advanced lightweight prototype machine gun" and then be told to just go apeshit in the trenches.

It will happen, no question...I can just see exceptionally rare or prototype weaponry like the Fedorov Avtomat, Mle.1917 & MP18 becoming standard weapons just to keep the core Battlefield demographic sufficiently entertained. It will be far too jarring for BF players to go from modern automatic weapons equipped with half a dozen attachments to primarily using bolt action rifles, low capacity handguns and stationary (or crew-served) MGs. What about the unlock systems that mainstream FPS players have come to expect? You got bayonets...and what else? No reflex sights or IR scopes, just iron-sights.

The BAR will probably be the standard assault weapon, probably see a plethora of magical machine pistols as well.
Oh, and you've not even got to the good bits yet. What about the vehicles? Tanks with one crew and implausible visibility. Maps which allow them to drive around freely. Absurdly agile and tough aircraft. Ridiculous accuracy and rate of fire for both. Oh, death-defying horses. Looks like they're even working on some kind of killstreak bollocks - that machine gunner at 0:30 looks like a fucking Juggernaut, and I'm calling the use of gas-related perks now.

Maybe it'll be ok.. Actually that would be fantastic - if they were to do a Spec Ops: The Line and market it as the usual COD crap but make the game utterly brutal, with near instakill for leaving cover, random artillery scatter, no equipment, poor aiming, no fast movement. I'd pay for that.

 

[Arnoxthe1]

I am not a fan. I know it's only fiction, but The Great War is a sticking point for me, and the trailer's glorification of "epic" battles makes me really uncomfortable on a moral standpoint. By all means, make your game, but I really don't feel comfortable with any of this.

Should we really be feeling comfortable with war in general, no matter what the time period is? Just something to think about it.

Men have this idea that we can fight with dignity. That there's a proper way to kill someone. It's absurd, it's unaesthetic. We need it to endure the bloody horror of murder.

 

[Grouchy Imp_v1legacy]

Urgh, I really don't want to have to buy back into the Battlefield series. Last Battlefield I played was 3, and I was far from impressed. The campaign AI was bugged as all hell, it was riddled with QTEs, the plot was horrible, and the multiplayer (which I bought the game for) crashed my 360 every time I tried to load it up.

This does look good, though.

 

[Grayjack]

Having looked at the trailer a few times now I really appreciate the diversity of terrain. Sure there's the Western front with its horrible trenches, but I also see snowy mountains and men in khaki wearing brazier helmets, so that means its probably the Italian front. I can't remember a single game that has ever shown the Italian front of WW1 in the alps before. The Western Front, The Alps, Tannenburg, Arabia... That's already some pretty nice variety.

Also about the African(-american?) man statuette and cover art. I'm not entirely sure what nation he's supposed to represent. Sure almost every European power had men from across their empires come over to fight their battles for them. Heck, even Belgium did. He seems to be wearing American puttees though. So he might be a bit like Freddy from "Valiant Hearts: The Great War"; just some random american volunteer in some army way before the US entered the war, months before it ends.

Probably a Harlem Hellfighter, an American unit that spent more time in combat than any other American squad.

 

[darkrage6]

Blech! This looks awful, I wanted Bad Company 3, not whatever the fuck this bullshit is.

 

[darkrage6]

My son showed me this on the weekend and I have to say I'm pleasantly surprised. I'm much more excited about this WWI scenario for this than I am the space setting of the new COD.

Infinite Warfare won't take place entirely in space, there will still be plenty of ground combat.

 

[Scow2]

If he's meant to be a Harlem Hellfighter, they have screwed up pretty badly - as a WWI re-enactor, I can categorically state that is most definitely a British uniform he is wearing, along with British equipment (ignoring the presumably captured German Mauser).

His whole squadron died, he was the only survivor, and the British took him in on a globe trotting adventure which enables him to visit all the theaters of war along the way. That's usually how these things play out.

A Harlem Hellfighter-turned-Globetrotter?

 

[OneCatch]

I am not a fan. I know it's only fiction, but The Great War is a sticking point for me, and the trailer's glorification of "epic" battles makes me really uncomfortable on a moral standpoint. By all means, make your game, but I really don't feel comfortable with any of this.

Should we really be feeling comfortable with war in general, no matter what the time period is? Just something to think about it.

Men have this idea that we can fight with dignity. That there's a proper way to kill someone. It's absurd, it's unaesthetic. We need it to endure the bloody horror of murder.

Exactly, but that's the problem with this game. It's taking a mechanical, attritive, unaesthetic war, and trying to stylise it into an empowering, heroic FPS.
First thing I thought of when I saw this trailer was BioShock Infinite. That's not 'enduring the bloody horror of murder', it's making a tunnel of epic setpieces which resemble the First World War in the most superficial way possible. They've given the guy a
cape for christ's sake, it's ridiculous.

 

[JohnSmirnov]

Personally, I really hope they will add as much variety as possible and that it would be pretty interesting things and units indeed. I mean, there is actually indeed shitton of countries that took part in WW1, some of which are not known at all or known only a little (like Portugal, Romania, Siam and many others) when it comes to WW1, not to mention various special units, forces etc like Russian and Siamese expeditionary forces and so on. Or things like siege of Osoweic Fortress also known as Attack Of The Dead, with Russian Imperial Troops charging at Germans while coughing blood and chunks of their own lungs out, Eastern Rising (though yes, I know it's not a part of WW1 itself), East African campaigns, and a lot of other stuff. Well, not gonna write a whole novel, I guess you know what I mean. However, knowing EA and DICE these days, I wouldn't be so excited, cause they are known to give beautiful trailers and shitload of promises, while final result are not so awesome and oftenly are even disappointing, I mean it is kinda strange that for example there is no sign of France in the trailer, even though France played one of the huge roles in WW1, but well... I think they will introduce them later... maybe. But anyway, I REALLY HOPE they won't screw this one up, plus it would be extremely disappointing if all their talks about "more diversity" will just end at or even turn out to be just excuses to push a black guy (Harlem Hellfighter, if he is one of playable SP characters of course) and female (Bedouin Warrior seen in the trailer, they confirmed she is playable in SP) as playable characters (not that I got anything against that though) just for the sake of it (like in terms of political correctness), while game itself will actually have not so much to offer in terms of variety.

P.S. Sorry for my bad English and a lot of text...

 

[JohnSmirnov]

Having looked at the trailer a few times now I really appreciate the diversity of terrain. Sure there's the Western front with its horrible trenches, but I also see snowy mountains and men in khaki wearing brazier helmets, so that means its probably the Italian front. I can't remember a single game that has ever shown the Italian front of WW1 in the alps before. The Western Front, The Alps, Tannenburg, Arabia... That's already some pretty nice variety.

Also about the African(-american?) man statuette and cover art. I'm not entirely sure what nation he's supposed to represent. Sure almost every European power had men from across their empires come over to fight their battles for them. Heck, even Belgium did. He seems to be wearing American puttees though. So he might be a bit like Freddy from "Valiant Hearts: The Great War"; just some random american volunteer in some army way before the US entered the war, months before it ends.

Probably a Harlem Hellfighter, an American unit that spent more time in combat than any other American squad.

Mhm.

And thats why according to Wikipedia (yeah yeah, I know it's not a really trustful source though, but anyway) they engaged only in 2 places durning WW1: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/369th_Infantry_Regiment_%28United_States%29 (see Engagements)

While American Expeditionary Forces in general took part in (again, according to Wikipedia) the following: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/American_Expeditionary_Forces (see Engagements)

 

[KingsGambit_v1legacy]

How can it be "Battlefield 1"? There must have been more than a handful of Battlefield games already. Do the developers know how to count?

 

[Samtemdo8_v1legacy]

Consider me well and truly aboard the hype train.

THAT'S the hype train?

...bloody hell, I should get hyped more often. 0_0

The most fitting music to that Hype Train

 

[Aesir23]

Well, I'll be damned. It's the first time I've felt any real interest in an FPS game since World At War was released. Granted, I only play the single player campaigns which generally isn't something FPS games specialize in.

I have no doubt that they'll probably turn it into some Hollywood-esque version of WWI but it will hopefully be a stepping stone at the very least if DICE doesn't manage to hit the mark with this. I would love to see a return to past wars on occasion instead of constantly jumping forward like most franchises seem to have been doing.

I only have a few main hopes for this game and if they can achieve that then I will hopefully be satisfied if I end up purchasing this game.

First off, I'm very pleased with the idea that there are several characters but I'm hoping these are several characters from a variety of different countries instead of those characters primarily getting split up between the United States and the United Kingdom.

Second, even if this does end up being heavily fictionalized I do hope that they'll visit or get inspiration from some of the battles that actually took place. As much as I would love to see the Battle of Vimy Ridge/Battle of Arras or the Battle of the Somme in the game, I would be just as happy with any real-life battle.

Finally, even if it does end up being Hollywood-esque what I really want to see is some good atmosphere. I get that there will likely be the sort of action we've seen in more recent Battlefied and CoD games but I still want to feel an element of fear or at least get that sense of "This is intense". The last time that happened was when I played though D-Day in one of the older CoD games.

 

[Rangaman]

Alright, colour me intrigued. It certainly looks better than whatever the hell Infinite Warfare is. And they didn't murder a classic song in this trailer.

 

[The Material Sheep]

I really look forward to having to press "A" to put a gas mask on so my lungs don't melt moment. I seem to be somewhat in the minority by the thinking setting stuff in World War 1 is almost contrary to the fast paced first person gameplay of battlefield. The kind of tactics that are displayed in first person shooters, just didn't really develop till later on. This was the war where humanity finally started moving into modern infantry tactics but it was nearly as developed or structured as it would come to be by world war 2.

I mean you functionally can't touch the western front till around the time the American's show up and thats not because the Americans did much different. Its just that most everyone was dead at that point.

 

[Faaip]

I've been clamoring for a WW1 game for long enough to be interested in this.. but I still feel kind of uneasy about this both from an authenticity and moral standpoint. I hope they just don't make Battlefield with a WW1 skin and keep the same run and gun gameplay. I'm not expecting Verdun-style gameplay but it'd be nice to see them take a bit of a risk and change things up some.

I agree with what some are saying about the morality of the setting. For some reason certain game settings bother me more than others. For example, I never had any issues with CoD games.. but World at War really rubbed me the wrong way. I think they went too macho and gritty for their own good and I hope that doesn't happen with this one.

 

[Addendum_Forthcoming]

I really look forward to having to press "A" to put a gas mask on so my lungs don't melt moment. I seem to be somewhat in the minority by the thinking setting stuff in World War 1 is almost contrary to the fast paced first person gameplay of battlefield. The kind of tactics that are displayed in first person shooters, just didn't really develop till later on. This was the war where humanity finally started moving into modern infantry tactics but it was nearly as developed or structured as it would come to be by world war 2.

I mean you functionally can't touch the western front till around the time the American's show up and thats not because the Americans did much different. Its just that most everyone was dead at that point.

The Australian divisions under Monash, in only 6 months in 1918, liberated 116 towns, engaged 39 German divisions, and captured 22% of all strategic positions on the Western front. The total armed forces under his command measured roughly 200,000, a mere 10% of the far greater British forces still deployed on the Western Front. Further more, the tactic of combined arms, peaceful penetration, advancing bombardment techniques had well and truly been honed by 1918.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Hundred_Days_Offensive

The idea that; 'everyone was dead' is blatantly false. The Great War would have had another year or two in her if you didn't have Armistice. The very idea of armistice actually took many frontline combat detachments by surprise. As the German Empire had still, at least on the surface, a formidable fighting force with a far shorter supply line, with all the best ground to take advantage of. By the end of the Offensive, you would still have had 3 million Austro-Hungarian/German frontline soldiers, not to mention a large number of reserves behind the line.

The immensity of the German Empire's possible resistance was so apparent that numerous Allied forces continued to fire their artillery shells for days at German positions because everybody thought; "it can't last."