Battlefield V: The Kotaku Review



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Battlefield V is complicated, fast and fun to play. His story sheds light on the lesser known fronts of the Second World War, and his competitive multiplayer mode is dynamic and action-oriented. It's romantic, it's exhilarating, and I can not forget that something is wrong. For every great daring feat, there is a tension that I can not ignore.

the Battlefield series started with 2002 Battlefield 1942, a first-person multiplayer shooter featuring large-scale vehicles and battles unlike players. Since then, the series has expanded and explored many contexts: Vietnam, modern conflicts and the First World War. His fights became more destructive as the series added the destruction of the environment that levels buildings and transforms levels. It's a boastful series focused on the scale. More players, more vehicles, more fronts. 2016 Battlefield 1 changed the tone with a serious look at the First World War. Now, Battlefield returns to World War II with a similar gravity of self.

Battlefield V is divided into two modes with two different moods. The single game "War Stories" focuses on tiny tales from around the world. These are seriously told stories, more docu-dramatic than Call of DutyThe HBO approach. Each war story aims to educate players on one of the fronts of the war, focusing not on familiar battles such as Normandy, Stalingrad or Iwo Jima, but on lesser known aspects of the great conflict. world. As a Norwegian sniper, it is a stealthy mission, a warning about Senegalese soldiers fighting in France and a difficult campaign about British commandos. The developer DICE has announced its intention to add a final post-publication mission focused on a German panzer unit. Combined, the war stories offer a new perspective on a war that video games have been dealing with and recreated with enthusiasm for years. The narrative team at DICE is keen to ensure that each story is treated with respect. 2016 Battlefield 1 had more missions but they were shorter. Compared with the single and more single-player single missions of 2016 Battlefield 1, Battlefield V takes his time. As a result, each story is more complete and narratively coherent.

Drive

Quote of the box

"And I was a good soldier."

Type of game

Guilt trip. But, like … fun? I do not know.

Love

See new perspectives on World War II, beautiful and colorful levels, a fast multiplayer mode.

Did not like

The progress system is too complex, the number of cards and stories is limited. It feels stranger and stranger to play war games.

platforms

PC and Xbox One (Played,) Playstation 4

Release date

November 20th

Play

About an hour for each war story. 18 to 20 hours in multiplayer on all platforms.

The experience of actually playing through these stories is less consistent Battlefield has always worked optimally by focusing on combat and front-line vehicle sequences. Battlefield V continues to manage the two things well, especially with a frenetic defense against German tanks during the British campaign. Stealth is less of a force, which is evident in the many insidious segments of Norwegian history, as well as in some Far cry– infiltration missions of bases interspersed in British history. When things worked and the heavens aligned, I shot murderous ambushes of snipers and slipped into the treeline to slash through many dirty Nazi throats. When things separate, as often, enemy reinforcements overwhelm me and I remain as a serious disadvantage. The stealthy sequences can be tense, but this tension has less to do with solid design than with my growing concern that real bullshit is about to fall, be it a corner guard or a sequence sudden and forced action.

These weakest elements in no way detract from the solid foundation of all war stories. I was excited to experience new stories, such as those told by DICE, and even though the tone may change drastically from one story to the next, the l & # 39; French history is dark and serious, while the British mission evokes the Three kingscomic of 2008 Battlefield: Bad companyBut thanks to this variety, editors manage to incorporate a number of different ideas. One article deals with the specter of an imminent nuclear disaster while the Nazis are working on atomic weapons, while the other is dealing with the racism that has so often struck black troops. Battlefield V never dive deep into these topics, but it takes time to weave them into the story. It's a creative decision that adds wealth to what could have been a new war story.

Every story is also greatly improved by Battlefield VSuperb visual and audio design. It's a beautiful game. The soldiers rush through the Norwegian snowstorms, each flake fluttering in the wind under the northern lights. The burning sun hits the Libyan sands. The tanks that roll and the constant missile bombardment intoxicate a frenzy. Gunfire resounds in the halls of suspensions in North Africa, the used carcasses hitting the ground with coins. Soldiers shout in French, English and German and whatever language you speak, you know exactly what they say. It's easy to imagine yourself in these places and even have a fuzzy, if not incomplete, idea of ​​what you're saying. it could have been like those who were there.

When I play Battlefield V, I think of my grandfather. He was an immigrant, barely 18 years old when the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor. I never asked what made him go – I do not know if he felt more urgent or if he wanted to go on a trip – but he enlisted in the Navy and beaten in the Pacific. I saw the pictures of him at the time. Even at this young age, he still looked like my grandfather: small and nervous, at the Popeye without the huge forearms. In most pictures, he looks like he's good for nothing.

My grandfather, who died of cancer in 1999, liked to joke about the war. Once, he convinced us, my sister and I, that his head had been torn from him during the Battle of Midway. They sewed a spare head on his body, he told us. For some reason, we believed it. I also remember the last time I saw him while he was dying. He was lying in the darkest room I've ever been to. He said he loved me. I wonder now if he knew that when he registered and shipped, he would fight for me.

Sometimes he was looking at things I could not see; sometimes he got angry in a way that I did not understand. I learned later that he was struggling with alcoholism and that he was not always the best husband of my grandmother or the best father of his children . I remember a story that he was on the deck of a ship when the man next to him was killed. I do not know if this story was true. Maybe that's why he told us the big story of his own head injury. This may be the only way for him to support this idea that if the ball had been a few feet apart, it was him. I can not judge this man. I know his heritage was complicated. No matter what it was before the war, it was no longer the same after.

Battlefield V is a hero game. This is a game in which you only send enemy garrisons, launch smoke grenades before rushing to recover your wounded friend, and can reverse the course of a battle with a well-placed rocket fire. But whatever the courage and triumph of the Second World War, this loss also occurred. Not just the loss of money and resources, even the loss of human lives, but a kind of global cultural loss. The allies defeated the Nazis and their genocidal pogroms, but the United States also dropped the atomic bomb. Something broke in the middle of the 20th century and we never really repaired it. Battlefield VThe stories illustrate the mythological version of the war more than its cold realities, not to mention its enduring legacy. These stories are often touching and inspiring, and they focus on characters and places that probably deserve to be rendered mythically. But as I blow up another German gun and leave a stack of bodies in my wake, I think of my grandfather and the moments when he was staring at things I could not see. I do not know what he would say if he saw me playing.

This is not the only tension I felt while playing Battlefield V. There is also a fierce split between the single player and the multiplayer mode, between the serious narration and the V-1 rocket hits. Battlefield VThe multiplayer mode, which throws teams of up to 32 players into a bloody battle on sprawling maps, has never been so thrilling, and if you only want that, you can rest easy. Although it is missing the muddy sand of Battlefield 1, the multiplayer mode successfully captures the images and daring acts of a romantic second world war. DICE has picked up the pace and has softened the roughness and slower animations of the last game, making it a difficult game to stop. Snowy passages, aerial air combat, creeping flank attacks on fortified hills, as well as in the most skilled hands – such as enthusiasts YouTuber Stodeh – snipers who alone retain enemy attacks.

Everything is faster than in the previous game, allowing players to be more agile and deadly on the battlefield. Crossing the sandbag barriers is faster than ever. Players can fall on their backs and shoot their weapons forward, which is faster than lying down. Aiming down takes a lot less time than in Battlefield 1, which allows you to quickly (and accurately) engage multiple enemies back to back. The result is a game that may displease hardcore veterans who came to see the Battlefield series as a more realistic type of multiplayer shooter. The new rhythms have forced me to make some adjustments in the way I play, but once I kissed them, I found them both useful and exciting. I can not count the number of times these little touches have saved my digital life. I miss how stark and deliberate Battlefield 1The multiplayer felt, but Battlefield VThe high energy approach feels more in tune with its idealism. It was a war full of heroes, says the game. It makes sense that the gameplay reflects that.

Similarly, Battlefield V makes adjustments to long-standing team interactions to emphasize camaraderie and cooperation. There is less ammo to hand out unless a player in the Dedicated Support class replenishes your team. This system of attrition was excessive in the beta, depriving players of resources; since then, it has been adjusted to become something more manageable. You will always need to clean spare cartridges or take out your pistol to survive a beating, but these moments are dramatic now, instead of being boring. He also encourages teamwork by encouraging teams to have at least one support. Players can also carry with them a single medical kit to treat their injuries, regardless of their class. The team members can rush to revive their allies, an action previously reserved for the Doctors, which leads to a multiplication of rescue attempts. Spotting enemies is now more complicated than pressing a button. Instead, Recon players can more reliably score enemies so others can see them, increasing team synergy. At any time, players can build barricades and supply stations to strengthen their defenses. As a result of all these changes, each player has different ways to contribute to the fight. There is always something to do and doing it is always satisfying.

Outside the fight, Battlefield V nurtures players in a network of progression systems and customization options that causes the arcade game to feel too advanced. This is an obvious problem in the way weapon upgrades are handled. Each weapon has its own tree of experience and level, which you increase by reusing them. Once you have the necessary skill level in a weapon, you can spend money you have acquired through matches to unlock weapon upgrades, such as faster reloading or reduced recoil. These upgrades exist in their own bubble, with each new trait applying to the weapon without any special reason other than the one for which you spent the necessary resources. The upgrade trees are not very extensive, but they exist alongside additional progression systems, including a general rank (private, bodily, that sort of thing) and levels in your individual class. Do you want Medic stuff? Play in doctor's class. Logic. However, the presentation is complicated and the video game is lively, and its implementation is tricky. You will spend a lot of time in the menus checking your load, and you will have to repeat the same painstaking process for each class for both factions. It's a mix of work and progress that never feels quite right, even if it becomes understandable and less awkward after a while.

As with many other aspects of Battlefield Vthese complicated leveling systems reveal a split between serious wartime thinking and high-index action. You play and your numbers increase. You shoot a fucking Nazi and you get a pop-up window stating that you, your brave bastard, can now spend your digital money for a new upgrade. If you're lucky, you'll get one for the last single soldier skin of the store. These systems are, of course, the treadmill on which you run, each reward being measured mathematically – and possibly monetized in one way or another – that exists only to keep you happy on the spot Digital Battle. You fight for the king and the homeland, as well as for the Kar98 sniper rifle. And this next tiny improvement in statistics. And those bitch uniforms that you'll unlock to complete the next special mission.

C & # 39; Battlefield VThe biggest thing: it's fun. This pleasure is based on a myth and is maintained through modern design techniques designed for the retention of players. That's not to say that it's wrong to like Battlefield V. It's a good game and I know I'll play it for a long time. But it's also a strange game, and the more I play it, the more this strangeness is apparent. Here, as in many other video games of war, the gamification of the biggest and most expensive struggles of humanity attacks me every time I play. I think of my grandfather and the consequences of this war, even though I know that I will gladly lose dozens of hours of my crusade life on these beautiful digital battlefields. I do not know what it says about me, but I think it's probably not good.

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