It’s been a long time coming, but the Battlefield V review is finally here. The highly anticipated first-person shooter from EA DICE has arrived, and it’s a doozy. Featuring a massive multiplayer campaign mode that spans the globe, as well as a single-player mode that tells the story of the Second World War, Battlefield V is one of the most ambitious games ever made. So, how does it stack up? Is it worth the wait?
Battlefield V Review
Battlefield V’s path to release was not easy nor typical for an EA product. Players began to wonder what content would be available upon release. After delays in gameplay adjustments and Battle Royale mode Firestorm loss, Battlefield V was delayed until March 2019. Now that it is finally here, the main menu is cluttered with ads for content yet to be released. DICE’s latest offering still delivers classic Battlefield multiplayer action at its best, but it doesn’t feel complete at launch.
You need to be informed
- What is it? It is a multiplayer-focused World War II shooter.
- Expect to pay: PS55/$60
- Developer EA DICE
- Publisher: Electronic Arts
- Reviewed on: GTX1080, Intel I5-6600K and 16GB RAM
- Multiplayer: 1-64
Guide to Content
Violence: The game portrays intense and often realistic violence, trying to reflect World War II’s horrors accurately. Playing online poker at 666 casinos is a good idea if you don’t like or can’t handle violence. However, classic online casino games are still fun. Characters are shot, stabbed and dismembered, then incinerated with weapons. Players who are hit will be covered in blood, and a misty appearance will appear. Many times, players die with intense pain and pleas for help.
Language: In multiplayer and the campaign, strong language is used extensively. There are many uses of f–k and some benefits of the c-t. If it’s a cuss word, it is there somewhere.
Sexual Content: None.
Spiritual Content: Two characters pray for God’s protection before going into battle. In abandoned churches, there are some battles in multiplayer and the campaign.
Positive Themes: The campaign is filled with solid themes of heroism, courage and perseverance in extreme adversity. To address real-world issues, the campaign uses fictional characters. These characters highlight the dangers and evils of hyper-nationalism and racial discrimination.
Performance & Settings
Graphics options Field, motion blur, color aberration, film grain and future frame rendering are all possible. Text quality and texture filtering are also available. Lighting quality, anti-aliasing post-processing, effects quality, post-process quality.
Performance Battlefield 5 runs flawlessly on the RTX 2080Ti I tested it on. My GTX 1080 at my home, however, I had to lower the graphics preset to maintain a stable 60fps at 1440p. Also, I experienced some judder on the Narvik map. DXR is a different story. For more information, you can visit our Battlefield 5 performance analysis.
Pros
- Gunplay has never felt so good from moment to moment
- Multiplayer is enriched by a wealth of small, but well-thought-out new systems
- War Stories is still a solid format for the campaign
Cons
- The map roster contains a lot of unremarkable duds.
- Multiplayer has lost some of its emergent anarchy
1. Campaign
The campaign of Battlefield V is divided into four chapters, called “War Stories”. Each chapter is set in a different part of World War II, and each character brings a unique perspective on the war. The chapter “Under No Flag” is about a pair of British commandos from the Special Boat Service (SBS) who attempt to stop Nazi operations in North Africa.
“Nordlys,” a Norwegian resistance member, follows her efforts to stop the Nazi plan to create a nuclear bomb. “Tirailleur,” which follows two Senegalese brothers who are part of the French Foreign Legion and return to France to help in France’s liberation, is about Tirailleur. The Last Tiger, a story about a German tank commander who is forced to flee the American invasion of his homeland by his troops, follows them.
The chapters are divided into three “acts”, which may be referring to the three-act structure of a movie, in which the first act introduces and then explores the conflict, while the second acts resolve it. The campaign is cinematic and focuses a lot on the beautifully-recreated cutscenes. Side-note: Each character speaks in their native language with subtitles, which I think is a nice touch. I am tired of the war movie/game trope where the Germans speak English but sound like the British. Each act is one extended mission that the player completes. They also tend to be focused on a particular objective or gameplay style. The central gameplay of “The Last Tiger” revolves around the operation of a tank. One act will have the player fighting off Allied tanks, while the other will require the player to escape the tank and hide from Allied troops.
Although I enjoyed every chapter, “Tirailleur” was my favorite. You can go from storming a German Fortification with a considerable charge to quietly entering a French Chateau. While other chapters focus on stealth missions or all-out battles, “Tirailleur,” is a solid mix of both. The most captivating story is “Tirailleur”, which follows two Senegalese brothers fighting for France, despite being looked down on by their European counterparts.
I was surprised to discover that this story touched on a portion of World War II’s history. The story is enough to make me happy that “Tirailleur”, as it was called, could easily have been the entire campaign.
Each chapter can take between 45 and 60 minutes to complete. This is the biggest problem with the entire campaign. The campaign takes approximately 3 to 4 hours, depending on how difficult you play. Although I enjoyed what I played, I didn’t feel like I had fully experienced the game.
It would have had a more significant impact if the game chose to make each chapter longer or make one chapter the main focus of the entire campaign. The campaign is enjoyable, but it seems to end as fast as it began.
2. Multiplayer
The multiplayer modes in Battlefield V are based on the same formula as the previous games. Battlefield V’s central multiplayer mode is “Conquest”. It puts the player in a 64-player battle where they must work together with their squad to defeat enemy soldiers and take out objectives.
Each soldier has their abilities and weapon, giving the player access to four classes. Recon soldiers are focused on sniping, and Assault soldiers on attacking. Medic soldiers and Support soldiers concentrate on repairing vehicles and supplying allies. Because of their use of heavy machine guns and their utility in almost all battle situations, Support was my favorite class.
Battlefield V’s multiplayer gameplay is not much different from other titles in the series, but it still has a solid foundation. The vehicles are fun to drive, and the classes are great. The tank operation is where I do my best. The game runs flawlessly almost two years after it was released.
Despite the vastness of the battles, I experienced very few technical issues. The multiplayer modes are variations on “Conquest”, with minor adjustments such as the removal of vehicles or the ability to have players fight for one central control point.
My favorite mode in Battlefield V is “Breakthrough”. This mode allows the player to choose between defenders and attackers. The attackers aim to capture various targets and push their enemies back to the last line of defense. While the attackers try to take as many objectives as possible to make the enemies back to their previous line of defense, the defenders attempt to defend their points by taking out enough attackers to win.
Breakthrough allows players to be in distinct battle lines, which change from the normal Conquest mode. It makes combat feel more organized and ordered. This makes combat feel more accurate, as you can fight against waves of soldiers like historical World War II battles.
Battlefield V’s modes have solid mechanics and gameplay. However, it is somewhat inconsistent in how the game handles customization and character progression. You must play in a particular class for long periods to improve your equipment. To be able to fight in battle, the player must spend time on each course.
Although this isn’t a problem, the time required to raise each character to a decent level can add up over time. It is frustrating to meet a group of sixty players playing this game with my story ten characters, even though it has been around for nearly two years. It’s a mechanic that allows you to succeed in the game less on your skill and more on how many hours you spend.
The game follows EA’s tradition by allowing players to buy in-game currency to customize their characters cosmetically. Although certain cosmetic items are possible be obtained via random loot boxes, it is not likely that you will get them all. in spite of decorative items being primarily cosmetic, I wish I could unlock these customizations before they are locked behind paywalls.
Although slow character progression and cosmetic microtransactions can be annoying, they are not the most problematic aspect of Battlefield V multiplayer. The “Firestorm”, a multiplayer mode that is both disappointing and poorly designed, is easily the worst. Firestorm is a 64-player multiplayer battle royale game in which players must find weapons and avoid a tightening circle.
This mode is reminiscent of the popular battle royale game Fortnite or PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds. HOWEVER, Battlefield V’s Battle Royale mode is not built around the battle royale format. It attempts to incorporate traditional Battlefield gameplay in a way that it wasn’t designed to.
Battlefield V’s foundations are not compatible with the battle royale modes like Fortnite or PUBG. Battlefield has been a standout in first-person shooter games due to its squad-based gameplay and different classes of soldiers. Firestorm eliminates the class system and most of the vehicles, which reduces the gameplay to its core.
The developers created a game mode that doesn’t feel like a Battlefield mode. The method is still prevalent in Battlefield, making finding matches difficult. Even though I could find Firestorm matches, I found that the player count had dropped by almost half to make room for a smaller player base. Firestorm is a fun mode in Battlefield V. However. It feels more like a corporate move to ride on the popularity of popular games.
Verdict
Battlefield V was deployed in action like a recruit without any preparation. There are many bugs, undeveloped features, and placeholder screen screens that remind you of this. There’s still a lot of potential in this game that could be made into a series of great games with luck and time.
A strong foundation is created by bold changes to Battlefield’s traditional gunplay, essential resource allocation, and team dynamics. Battlefield V offers three distinct, short vignettes for single-player that strangely focus on stealth rather than bombastic vehicular warfare.
Although they aren’t worth the effort, their story moments are well worth it. Battlefield V is a great game, even though there are still many buildings to complete.
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