Battlefield 1 - DICE, gas attacks, biplanes, cavalry, bayonet charges

Trailer:

https://www.battlefield.com/news/article/battlefield-1-apocalypse-coming-february

Battlefield 1 Apocalypse adds five multiplayer maps to the mix. The bloody, muddy hell of Passchendaele and the Austro-Italian clash of Caporetto portray two of the most infamous battles of World War 1, where you’ll go over the top to conquer bitterly-contested ground. The scenic wheat fields by River Somme transform into a nightmare after devastating artillery barrages.

On London Calling and Razor’s Edge – two maps created exclusively for aerial combat – you’ll be able to live out your dogfight fantasies. Master the skies in the new Air Assault game mode and expand the horizon of your Battlefield 1 experiences.

Oh god we’ve reached the “add even more bullshit totally random extra multiplayer modes that will be immediately discarded” phase of the release. I hate this part.

So this is weird.

Battlefield Bad Company 2 might be the game I have the most hours in by a long shot of my entire gaming history. I played tons of Battlefied 3, 4, and a decent amount of Hardline.

While I purchased Battlefield 1 a while back I didn’t get around to firing it up until tonight. I played the opening Campaign prologue that it throws you into. That was quite a well scripted cinematic experience full of spectacle. The visual and sound design would’ve been what the teenage me would have salivated over.

I finished the prologue and was dumped into the menu. I looked at the bewildering number of weapons, maps, modes, classes, and vehicles. Then the motivation to play any further just sort of drained out of me. I’m not sure I have it in me anymore to play something with such a large time commitment, as amazing as it looks. Battlefield 1 seems like such an amazing creative endeavor that just doesn’t fit into my lifestyle and time constraints anymore. Quite a bittersweet experience and reaction.

I’m strongly leaning towards just deleting it off my PC and realizing this type of game has passed me by. Sorry for the selfish and somewhat scattered reaction. It was quite a jarring experience from a longtime lover of the series.

Bad Company 2 was my favorite too coming into it. Just load up the Operation multiplayer option and ignore everything else to start. It’s fantastic.

BF1 was in general a good evolution for the series and DICE’s heart was truly in this setting, as a callback to their very first breakthrough multiplayer game. Hell Old Man Murray even reviewed it.

However, DICE has a propensity for adding a shit ton of complexity and options and multiplayer modes to their games. BF:BC2 bucked this trend by being… simple. Simple classes, simple weapons, simple gameplay modes. They didn’t add random multiplayer modes after the fact like they did to every single game since, BF3, BF4, BF1.

I don’t know if DICE is capable of embracing simplicity again, but I wish they would. They’re very good at what they do, but they stuff their games so full of junk (even at launch, but particularly with expansions) that it gets confusing.

BF1 doesn’t have any more complexity than previous ones IMO, arguably less in some ways. I actually miss the variety in vehicles that the modern based ones have. The big bulky WWI tanks just aren’t the same.

I hope the next one is Bad Company 2.

That would be nice, if they can master simplicity again… plus BF:BC2 did not take itself seriously and the characters were really quite funny. Versus grumble, growl, scowl, SERIOUS SOLDIER WARTIMES!

Yeah, the same thing happened to me. Meanwhile, I played 100s of hours of BC2 back in the day.

This isn’t just about modern BF games though. I really hate the “spend thousands of hours to unlock everything” multiplayer games these days.

I’m guessing I have hundres of hours in Battlefield 2 - now THAT was a great game, lots of tactics, lots of downtime as well, and that is the part every single modern DICE shooter has done away with. ANY kind of downtime. I understand the reasoning, but then again, it removes a lot of tactical elements of games like these, and they could really use that, if they don’t want to be just “shooters”.

Ehhh I think that’s rose colored glasses. BF2 was kinda quirky and clunky in the actual moment to moment combat. Not bad per se for its era, but nowhere near smooth. BF3 was a HUGE step forward.

As someone recommended upthread I did spend a few hours in Operations mode. That is a great mode and the overall technical accomplishment and excellent combat mechanics of BF1 really do shine.

However, I got that feeling I have been getting with traditional shooters lately. I just don’t have the time to sink into something that is repetitive without meaningful progression. I used to want to sink hour after hour into multiplayer matches but now my limited gaming time thrives on singleplayer or PVE…especially if there is a logical end point to a game.

The same thing happened with Call of Duty WWII last year. I was really excited for a Call of Duty that was returning to the days of COD 2 and revitalizing the boots on the ground gameplay. I played for a little bit and just lost interest. The whole idea of grinding away at traditional MP matches with no end in sight. Also tried Battalion 1944 and actually asked Steam for a refund before my 2 hours were up. I am starting to think that I have mostly moved past traditional MP shooter models. They just don’t fit my life and tastes anymore.

So much this!!! I saw the final DLC is out of Battlefield 1 and its not interesting enough to get me to even install it anymore. And if you can believe it , DICE made progression even worse with Battlefront 2. ;)

Finally grabbed BF1 for the PC. It’s on sale on Origin so I paid $11 for the full Premium thingy (I already had the base game since I bought the EA subscription thingy a while back but if you don’t have that it’s $17 for everything).

I’ve played it a little on my Xbox but that has been taken over by the kids so I’ll huddle around my PC in the bedroom and hope to return to some of the great fun I had back in earlier BFs with large battlefields and lots of targets. I will be destroyed, I’m sure.

Anyway, for the price it seems like a good place to jump in if you don’t have it even if you tire of it in a month or so.

Yeah. The full edition with all the DLC is $20 on PSN right now, which seems like a great deal. The season pass in on sale for $15, which seems steep considering how deep the discount on the GotY version is. It’d be nice if they dropped the Season Pass to like $5 for people who bought the base game earlier for more money. I suppose I just don’t care enough about BF1 a this point to want to bother spending even 15 bucks on it though.

They Shall Not Pass map pack is slowly going to be made free for all Battlefield 1 owners.

https://www.battlefield.com/news/article/road-ahead-for-battlefield-1-quick-ops-map-giveaways

Battlefield 1 They Shall Not Pass Maps Coming for All Players – Play on Rupture Today

We’re glad to announce that we’re making more maps from Battlefield 1 They Shall Not Pass available for all owners of Battlefield 1*. Today, you can tackle Rupture – a map taking place during the Second Battle of the Marne, characterized by its poppies growing over rusty wrecks. Coming in May, you’ll get to play on more maps with the hardened veterans of the French army making in a stand in a brutal defense of their homeland.

A few days i noticed I had a ‘trial’ for BF1, where I could play for 8 hours, so I’m playing it right now.

Man, this is the anti-Turin Battlefield. Part of it is justified I guess because the WW1 theme, but it goes in a direction opposite to my tastes of what’s fun in BF:

-I don’t know what changes they did in the server hiring schemes and custom servers settings, but I always had a healthy amount of 40-48 players Conquest servers in both BF3 and BF4, but they disappeared in BF1. This little thing already made the game much worse, for me Battlefield with 64 players doesn’t really work in 2/3 of the maps.
-Less vehicles per map, and slower vehicles in general. No vehicle spawn in-map, it was super fun to capture a vehicle in the middle of a firefight and beat the enemy by surprise with it.
-Less AT weapons to use on the move (rpgs). You would think that if they nerfed a bit the vehicles, it’s normal to nerf also their counters, but in the end both vehicles and anti-vehicle roles are less fun.
-Less emphasis on ‘cqb’ weapons, more on one shot kills bolt rifles & snipers.
-Maps that are too small for 64 players, or are too open with little cover, favoring again long range weapons.
-Slower player progression.
-I didn’t expect that but… I miss Battlelog. The ingame functionality isn’t as full featured as it was in the browser version.
-Some more annoyances, like super soldiers with armor and grenade spam.

For anyone that hasn’t picked up all of the expansions they are giving away the premium pass for free the week after the BF5 open beta: