First of all, if you haven’t checked out the new trailer for Battlefield 1 yet, check it out here or below, and make sure you have the sound turned up because it sounds just as good as it looks.
If you didn’t notice, EA and Dice are throwing it back to World War I for the aptly named Battlefield 1. Chronologically speaking, that’ll make it the first game in the series and a lot of people are getting seriously excited for it already. In fact, the trailer has already been viewed over 20 million times on YouTube and has received over 1.1 million thumbs up. On the other hand, the trailer for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, which came out a few days earlier, has been viewed less than 15 million times and already has an astonishing 1.37 million dislikes.
In other words, Battlefield 1 is now the most liked trailer in the history of YouTube and Infinite Warfare is by far the most disliked. It seems that gamers are taking all of their hate for Call of Duty and redirecting it towards love for Battlefield. And with what we can tell from the trailer, Battlefield 1 might just deserve all of the love it’s getting. To put it a different way, the trailer is so good, that even Infinity Ward is praising it.
The question is, how did EA and Dice go from a series of mediocre Battlefront games to one of the most anticipated games this decade? It certainly didn’t happen overnight. Production on the game likely started well before the release of last year’s generally poorly received Battlefield: Hardline and probably started around the release of 2013’s Battlefield 4, though neither EA nor Dice has given an official timetable. The important thing is, well before Hardline or 4, gamers were begging for a breath of fresh air to be breathed into the first person shooter genre, and EA delivered.
FPS games, military ones especially, have been growing stale for at least the last few years. EA tried to do something unique and different with Battlefield: Hardline and the cops and robbers motif, but it seemed like things were constantly working against them there. From delays to system problems, the game just never got a chance to hit the ground running. Nonetheless, it became a better game over time and it proved two very important things, that EA was finally listening to gamers, and that they weren’t afraid to take chances.
Right now, that’s what’s setting Battlefield 1 apart from Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare. EA listened to all the gamers screaming that they wanted a game that threw it back to the roots of the franchise. Something with no exosuits or boost packs. Something grounded in a semblance of gritty reality. Even if the trailer wasn’t so good, fans were probably still going to be happy just to see something new that they actually asked for.
For essentially the first time this decade, we’re actually seeing a viable scenario where a Call of Duty game might not be the year’s bestseller. Surely it will still sell incredibly well, and there’s still a chance it could end up being a good game, but there’s really never been another time when so many people were so for one game and so against another, especially not months before they’re even set to launch.
Looking great and not being COD isn’t all Battlefield has going for it though. Gamers tend to really hate day one and early DLC that you have to pay for, but when it’s free, that’s a whole different story. As of now, it looks like at least the first batch of DLC for Battlefield 1 will be free, with an option to get it a week early depending on if you preorder the game. Granted, there’s also a pretty insane $220 Collector’s Edition that serves as a reminder that EA is still in the business of making money as well, but that’s excusable.
Doing what the fans want, producing a great trailer, and handing out free DLC all means nothing if the gameplay is awful though. Luckily, according to the lead game designer, Daniel Berlin, Battlefield 1 is built on the notion that gameplay is king. For him and the Dice team, building a game set in the WW1 era was something that many of them wanted to do for quite some time. It was a passion project for them and hopefully, that’s the last key to the puzzle for Battlefield 1 that ensures its greatness.
For now, we’ll have to wait until E3 where both Battlefield 1 and Infinite Warfare will surely be on full display. We’ll also likely hear more about each games betas when the expo rolls around, if not before then. After that, it’ll be a long wait until October 21, when the game drops on PC, Xbox One, and PS4 and we see if all the hype was really worth it.