Battlefield 1: Apocalypse – Was it All Worth it?

Anyone who knows me knows that I love the Battlefield series. I’d played a few rounds against bots in Battlefield 1942, Vietnam, and Battlefield 2 when hanging out with friends, thoroughly enjoyed the singleplayer campaign in Battlefield: Bad Company and I finally fell in love with the online multiplayer with Battlefield: Bad Company 2.

After that, Battlefield multiplayer became my go to online murderfest over Call of Duty. I loved the larger, more varied environments, the vehicles, but, above all else, it was the teamwork that really hooked me. The fact that players have to rely on their teammates to take objectives, refill their ammunition and health, and even revive them when they’re down, made for a far more engaging multiplayer experience.

In 2016, DICE made the bold decision to take their flagship series to a time period that has largely been forgotten by video games; the First World War. Battlefield 1 takes players from the shattered landscapes of the Western Front to the deserts of Arabia, seeking to challenge the notion that the war was nothing more than trenches, gas, and mud. And now the final DLC for the game, Apocalypse, has landed and "for us ze war is over". So has it all been worth it?

The Apocalypse DLC itself is a mixed bag. The maps included are based on some of the most cataclysmic and infamous battles of the First World War. Somme is a mid to long range paradise set in the wheat fields and trench lines of the 1916 Battle of the Somme. Then there is Passchendaele, a muddy, chaotic, close-quarters map named for the infamous final objective of the Third Battle of Ypres. Finally, we have Caporetto, with the Italian’s fighting off the Austro-Hungarians on a strange L-shaped map on the slopes of a mountain. This geography gives the Austrians an immediate height advantage, but strangely it is the Italians who seemingly gain the upper hand time and time again.

EA/DICE, 2016

Disappointingly, these maps are not available for the Operations gamemode, the flagship gamemode of Battlefield 1. DICE have instead made two out of the three maps use the Conquest Assault rules, in which one team holds all the objectives from the start but has a scoring disadvantage, in order to provide a similar gameplay experience, but the balance on Somme and Caporetto honestly feels rushed and the implementation comes across as a half-measure. If your team is not up to snuff then you’ll find yourself having a miserable time.

The DLC also includes the brand new Air Assault gamemode, where all players take to the skies and fulfill their Biggles inspired fantasies. Unfortunately, I couldn't indulge in said fantasies because I am a rubbish pilot as it turns out, and I spent a majority of my time flying in circles, becoming more and more frustrated by my sudden inability to take down anyone. So whilst my opinion on the new mode may be a touch biased, what I can say is the three sub-modes all offer different gameplay experiences (team deathmatch in the sky, followed by airship duels) and try to spice up a formerly bland gamemode from previous entries in the series.

However, I do think it is incredibly lazy and cynical to create this gamemode out of environments from the singleplayer campaign and then charge players extra to access it. Why not add the Alps and London Calling maps to the base game for free and allow everyone access? Why not add this mode to some interesting base game and previous DLC maps, not just a map with a mountain and a map with no terrain, just some clouds and a map of London pasted onto the floor? An utter disappointment honestly.

To round off the DLC, some new weapons were added to the game and, again, they are hit and miss, pardon the pun. Some, like the new LMG 08/18, are absolute powerhouses, whilst others are mediocre at best. New skins have been added for most base-game weapons and ones from previous DLCs too, adding a bit more variety, but still not providing a way to earn or purchase the skins outside of the loathsome loot crate system.

EA/DICE, 2016

Overall the quality of the content is…fine; it’s what players have come to expect from DICE, in positive ways and negatives too. The DLC launch was tainted with a progression-related bug that caused horrendous visual stuttering, rendering the game virtually unplayable for most players. The fact that Operations was omitted from Apocalypse and that the Turing Tides DLC dropped only a month prior to this DLC, makes what should have been Battlefield 1’s grandiose finale feel like a feeble whimper, as if it was shovelled out of the office to make way for this year’s entry into the franchise.

“It’s…fine” appears to be Battlefield 1’s rallying cry from its launch until now. Sure, the launch in October 2016 was the smoothest and best of all Battlefield titles, but that’s like saying “Boy, that sure was the smoothest and best car crash I’ve ever been involved in!” Whilst the gameplay balance worked and servers weren’t crashing left and right, the game was rife with progression related bugs (along with there not actually being all that much progression), and the stupid idea that Battlepacks, cosmetic lootboxes, should be awarded at the end of the match at random and not based on in game performance.

Whilst these were rectified, it took almost six months for DICE to do so. There have also been terrible issues with map balance due to terrain geometry and a near over-commitment to historical accuracy; the Gallipoli landings themed map, Cape Helles, is near on impossible for the British Empire’s faction to gain a foothold on, let alone win the match. There’s also been a decreased emphasis on teamwork, with the spotlight firmly on the individual. Many weapon and Specialisation (CoD-like perks) unlock requirements detract from teamwork and encourage a lone-wolf style of gameplay.

EA/DICE, 2016

DICE’s method of supporting and adjusting the game this time around has just appeared to be nonsensical. A weapon balance update has only recently been made available in the public game at the end of its life. The dev’s have continually tried to reinvent the wheel with new mechanics, like regenerating ammunition in order to "improve teamwork" and reduce the torrents of grenades, which both detracted from the franchise’s staple teamwork and were poorly received by the community, when all the change needed was to make actions like defending objectives, placing down ammunition, and repairing vehicles reward more XP and adjust the resupply timings of grenades. Following on from that, it took nearly nine months for DICE to implement a slider to tone down the screen shake caused by the multitude of explosive devices available to players.

Overall I think Battlefield 1 has been a thematic achievement. The game is the first big budget game set in the First World War and has done a lot to demonstrate the scale of the war, not limiting it to the Western Front. It has engaged a new generation and highlighted aspects of the war that have largely gone unnoticed by regions of the world unaffected by them; the Brusilov Offensive, the battles that raged in the Italian Alps, and the German amphibious invasion of Estonia, to name a few. What’s more, Battlefield 1 has attempted to demonstrate all of this with an educational angle, with players unlocking Codex entries with more information about the battles, equipment, and factions they are encountering in the game.

But despite all of this, the game still excludes a great deal of the First World War. The African campaigns are missing, along with the Balkans: Serbia, the nation within which the war started, is nowhere to be found. This game is, thematically and culturally, incredibly important, and could have existed as a tool to retell the war a century on. Instead, Battlefield 1 feels cut short, under polished, and a missed opportunity to create a classic. EA’s greed and DICE’s poor handling of the content and update schedule have, instead, created a game that lived and died under the heel of its successor.