In Battlefield 1, DICE has made its best single-player game in years

Do you remember Battlefield: Bad Company and its sequel? Those were good games, weren’t they? They had real character. Shooter campaigns often fail to do much more than paint a bad guy as the most evil man on the planet (or galaxy, or ring planet, or whatever), and then throw explosions together in rapid succession until that bad person is dead or at the very least definitely maimed, likely to return later wearing an eye patch. The Bad Company games had personalities that drove the story. It felt as if Marlowe, Sweetwater, Haggard, and Redford knew each other. There was, for want of a better word… banter. Now, Battlefield 1 is a very different tale, but finally DICE has once again captured something real in a campaign (or multiple campaigns in this instance).

Battlefield 3 and 4 both delighted in trying to outdo every other game in terms of visual spectacle, but they were dull. There’s only so much fancy graphics can do before the real game rises to the surface. Production values were high, but there was nothing behind the eyes. The characters and the story were as dead as the hundreds of pop-up enemy soldiers who most took very little joy in killing. Both games were paper thin, with the campaigns coming across as nothing more than items needed to be checked off on the AAA-shooter checklist. Somewhat bizarre given the millions of dollars poured into each over the course of development.

Battlefield 1 is a proper shooter campaign, or more accurately five mini campaigns that each tell the story of a different part of World War 1. A prologue of sorts tries to show just how dispensable troops were, with the US Harlem Hellfighters fending off German soldiers, death causing the player to jump into another body as the war rages on all around. It’s brilliantly effective, even though realising the true horror is surely not possible, and immediately shows DICE isn’t messing around this time.

Five campaigns, focusing on very specific people and warfare, then open up. Amongst others are campaigns covering a Mk. V Tank driver’s death-defying push through enemy lines, Lawrence of Arabia’s battle against the Ottoman Empire, and a pilot’s story flying in the British Royal Flying Corps. The idea to split the game into five distinct chunks is brilliant, doing away with the kind of filler and story drag that seeps into most campaigns. Each delivers a brief, well-paced and entertaining set of missions over sprawling maps. There’s just enough to make you care about the characters, but none outstay their welcome.

There is a bit of Bad Company to it all, but the tone isn’t as jovial. Bad Company’s leading men felt like they were the best of the best and had the arrogance to go with it, whereas BF1’s heroes are doing the very best they can in situations they clearly don’t want to be in. Comradery doesn’t come through witty one-liners and team banter, but through real actions that put the mission above all else. There’s still Hollywood-style bravado here – it is a AAA video game after all – but it doesn’t overshadow the efforts that have been made to make the whole thing feel more grounded.

DICE has never really disappointed when it comes to high end production values, and if anything with Battlefield 1 the studio has gone beyond what I expected. Over the five campaigns you’ll be taken to some beautiful locations and witness epic levels of destruction and firepower that must be pushing the two current consoles close to their graphical limits. But whereas previous Battlefield entries felt a little like multiplayer games with graphical showcase campaigns bolted on, BF1 is genuinely worth playing for the thrilling tales it tells.

Now, DICE, can you just do something similar for the next Battlefront please. Thanks!