The gaming world came to a halt earlier this year when “Battlefield One” was announced at E3. Dice took a surprising turn announcing that “Battlefield One” would break the current trend of advancing further and further into Science Fiction gaming and traveled back to the trenches of World War One.

When you first load up the game, you are greeted with a strong, orchestral performance that has not been seen in the past few Battlefield games. Immediately the player is thrust into a story mission, fighting as the Harlem Hellfighters, a mostly African-American regiment. Often in a campaign, you are this invincible killer who dies and comes back with a fiery vengeance but not this time. Every time you die, you are shown that characters name, year of birth and year of death, and then are immediately thrust into a new character. The goal is not to beat the level, it’s not to survive until reinforcements come, there is no goal; there is no winning. The level ends with a cut scene of an American soldier and a German solider squaring off among their fallen comrades. A voice starts speaking informing the player that behind each line, holding every rifle and firing every shot is another human with his own family.

The rest of the campaign is told in short story style, of between two to five missions from different perspectives of the Allied powers. Game play is interlaced with beautifully animated cut-scenes that show strong character development in such short time. The shorter campaigns are told as narratives of the main character, such as the Italian campaign, which is recounted by the fictional character Luca Cocchiola, a Royal Italian Army Arditi soldier fighting Austro-Hungarian forces in the Italian Alps. Compared to the other Battlefield games, the story is actually a strong selling point of the game. The only real complaint of the campaign is there is not a story from the Axis power perspective and only campaigns in the European theatre and the Middle East with the story of Lawrence of Arabia. It would’ve been nice to see something from the Axis perspective and possibly in Africa in the colonies.

The online version features a brand new game mode called Operations, which in itself is a small campaign that can be either 40 or 64 player games. It boils down to a ‘capture the point’ system, where one team pushes to capture the points and the other team has to defend them. The attacking team has a limited number of re-spawns that are counted as their ‘reinforcements’ that the defending team must deplete in order to win. At the end of the round, the defending team receives a rating based on how many points they lost during the attack wave and whether or not they depleted the enemy forces troops. Attacking teams get three chances to push and take all the points; if they are successful they win the match. Operation maps are massive in scale and differ depending on location they took place in. The Suez Canal map has a train line running along the canal with a small depot station and trenches dug into the sand allowing for defending teams to make a strong opposition as the attackers cross through No Man’s Land.

A huge feature in multiplayer this time is the addition of a new vehicle type called Behemoths. Behemoths are granted to teams that are heavily losing and need help to push back, they come in the forms of armored trains, zeppelins, and dreadnaught battleships. They offer a strong opposition but never feel like they’re unfair to fight but can really change the tide of battle.

“Battlefield One” is visually astounding and runs smoothly at 60 frames per second on any system with little to no slowdown or graphical tearing. This truly is next gen gaming and should be the industry standard of how games look and perform. Not as often praised is the level of detail that goes into the sound design, everything is crisp, the gunshots echo in canyons, field guns have a resounding thud that can be heard in the distance, even a shell hitting the dirty has a distinct sound versus hitting the sand. The orchestral soundtrack offers such a grandiose feeling when your squad rides in on horseback to assault an enemy teams encampment.

“Battlefield One” is not without it’s faults however, there are some issues with spawning and some guns need to be tweaked to be more balanced but all of those things pale in comparison to what it really offers the player: the chance to see what the Lost Generation saw and enjoy hours of gameplay with friends.

While there are no perfect games, “Battlefield One” comes very close. “Battlefield One” receives a 4.5 out of 5 stars.

November’s Free games

Xbox One: Super Dungeon Bros, Murdered: Soul Suspect, Monkey Island SE and Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon

PlayStation 4: “Everybody’s Gone To The Rapture” and Deadly Tower of Monsters