Latest game in acclaimed Battlefield franchise taking players to WWI

WWI was known as “the war to end all wars” and despite being a pivotal event, it’s rarely featured in computer games. Until now.

WWI is the focus for the latest game in the Battlefield franchise.

WORLD War I was known as “the war to end all wars” and despite being a pivotal event which profoundly changed the world, it’s rarely featured in computer games. Until now.

The latest game in the popular and acclaimed Battlefield multiplayer combat game series is winding back the clock to the Great War with it latest instalment, Battlefield 1, being published by Electronic Arts on PC, Xbox One and PlayStation 4 on October 21.

The series, developed by Stockholm-based studio Dice, is famous for letting players assume roles in teams as soldiers of different classes (assault, engineer, sniper, medic etc) and fight each other across large maps on foot, in aircraft, or aboard ships.

Previous settings have included World War II, Vietnam, the modern era and the future, so design director Lars Gustavsson said the change to a World War I setting was long-time dream for the team at Dice.

“We’ve had the idea that has been circling around since way, way back in the hallways — it’s been something we wanted to do,” he told news.com.au.

“As Battlefield became bigger, we raised our eyes and started to look into the future and see the opportunities and what came back and resonated was WWI.

“It was the dawn of all-out war, the dawn of what Battlefield is. It provides a global conflict instead of small skirmishes.

“In the beginning there were people marching in colourful uniforms like from the days of Napoleon, at the end it was full-on mechanised warfare.

“There’s a full story to be told around the known battles and locations but also the lesser known ones; we realised it fit Battlefield like a glove.”

World War I setting was long-time dream for the team at Dice.

He said from a creative viewpoint, it was important to hit on the global nature of the conflict.

“We wanted to take you around the world, from the streets of France to the trenches to the unknown places where were people may not even know war took place, such as the Italian Alps and the sands of Arabia,” he said.

“It’s the old world meets the new, where a cavalry charge gets met by an armada of tanks.”

Australian and New Zealand gamers may well be wondering if they’ll have the chance to wade ashore at Anzac Cove or lead a cavalry charge at Beersheba as part of the game, but Mr Gustavsson said the development team was keeping the playable nationalities and characters close to their chest for the time being.

“We’re not touching on the specific participants (at present), but it is a global war,” he said.

“That is the important thing.”

Although declining to go into specifics at this stage, Mr Gustavsson also confirmed there would be a campaign element to the game alongside its 64-player multiplayer experience, and that there would be more vehicles, more variety and more environments.

“We opened up to allow you to follow a number of people during the campaign and how the war changed their experience of the world,” he said.

The different nature of World War I weapons and vehicles also posed a challenge for the developers — bolt-action rifles with bayonets, biplanes and early tanks being a marked change from modern FPS staples — but Mr Gustavsson said they had also seen it as an opportunity to do something different.

“We chose to see it as an opportunity in the way that we’ve been doing modern warfare since Battlefield: Bad Company; we’ve taken that high tech warfare to great places and I’m super proud of it,” Mr Gustavsson said.

He said the development team had taken the WWI era weapons, found their strengths and weaknesses and built them into the game with a “rock-paper-scissors balance”.

“I’m super happy how the team has balanced it and provided choice to players,” he said.

Players would not be short of equipment to use in the game, Mr Gustavsson said, and the core “run-and-gun” mechanics and experience people expected from Battlefield games was still there.

“We were like kids on Christmas Eve when we started to dig deeper and found weapons we didn’t even know existed — and I’ve been building Battlefield for 17 years,” he said.

“We feel confident providing an experience based on the advancements and technology that people expect in a Battlefield game.

“At the heart of it, the experience remains unchanged.

“We’re still tweaking and tuning, working on the (gameplay) speed that best fits the era but still fits what people like.”

He said he believed players would particularly enjoy being able to experience the dawn of all-out war in the game.

“We’re pushing the boundary of dynamic battlefield — no match is ever the same,” he said.

“It provides an enormous amount of gameplay and immersion.”

He said Battlefield 1 was an apt name for the title, representing the era’s place as the beginning of modern combat — not to mention the World War I setting.

“As the dawn of all out war, all the (Battlefield) games afterwards originated from here,” he said.

Mr Gustavsson said making the game, which runs on the Frostbite engine, had been a “wonderful journey” for the team, and he was looking forward to seeing the expressions on players’ faces when they got to play it later this year.