4 out of 5 stars

Fans of first-person shooters have been yearning for a non-futuristic shooting game for years. After the Call of Duty franchise released three futuristic titles in a row, fans started getting tired of it. The trailer for Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare, this year’s annual Call of Duty game, received over a whopping 3 million dislikes on YouTube. Gamers were finally making their statement, declaring they’d rather play through a realistic World War I or World War II game than an outer space and robot based game.

EA responded to the fans by making Battlefield 1, a shooter focused on the World War I era. Battlefield 1 has everything a war geek could ask for: tanks, old guns, cavalry, trenches, biplanes, and a large airship called a zeppelin. There are a ton of more items to name; from grenades, to random devices, to ground vehicles, and melee weapons, the variety compares greatly with what we depict war to look like.

Battlefield has never been notorious for storytelling. Battlefield 1 only contains 6 missions, each of them being individual war stories: personal accounts focusing on different protagonists with their own unique experiences. Overall, the campaign received good feedback. It was distinct compared to previous campaigns in the Battlefield series.

Unique game play mechanics are always something to look for in shooters. Shooters are very popular with modern gamers and are being pumped out every year. Most of them are repetitive and become undesirable after a year or so. Game creators have to consider what makes a game different and better than any other first-person shooter.

Battlefield has its own unique features such as real-time destruction, spotting enemies, and squads that can contain up to five people in which squad members can spawn at each other, and the squad leader can direct others to capture a point. The most popular mode in Battlefield is conquest: all-out war with gigantic maps and capture points where up to 64 players can be in one game.

Battlefield does contain multiple flaws, some bigger than others. EA is infamous for long loading screens. Sometimes it can take up to two long minutes just to load into a game. By the time you’re done loading, you realize some players have already been in the game for a while.

There is also an unnecessary amount of little things like camos that may make the gun look nice, but have no effect in changing the overall performance of the gun. Tanks are another situation in quantity over quality. It is very common to be barraged by tanks when attempting to capture a point.

Battlefield 1 is not a game for rookies. If you are a novice to video games, the game may come off as difficult. The recoil in the guns and travel-time snipers are two examples of this, but it all fits in to make the game as realistic as possible.

Battlefield 1 makes for a challenging and exciting game for most gamers, but doesn’t genuinely appeal to non-gamers. The fantasy of simulating WWI has now come true, and EA undoubtedly outdid themselves. Battlefield 1 should surely go down as a great first-person shooter for its unique game play, realistic features, and war-like experiences.