EA and Dice late last year released the newest entry in the long standing Battlefield series. This entry goes back in time to where it all began for the Battlefield franchise, World War II. After the disappointment that was Call of Duty WWII, does this entry into World War II time period reignite my interest into the series?

The answer to this question is a bit more complicated then I initially thought it would be and was not as cut and dry as with Call of Duty. It’s one of the reasons this review is coming out in January and not when the game released. The other reason is the game shipped with missing features that were not added into the game until December. Why did the game shipped without a firing range? The world may never know but Battlefield V did and once it was added to the game it did not function in the way I would think. I thought you could pick any gun in the game trick it out how I wanted and could figure out if it was worth trying to unlock or even use. Instead it is just has you run around and shoot targets with guns on the map. I digress but this is the type of half assed feeling that runs throughout my experience with Battlefield V.

Gameplay (Multiplayer)

At the start and end of the day Gameplay is what makes or breaks a video game. If the gameplay is fun than many other issues fall by the way side and you’re less likely to notice them. So how is the multiplayer gameplay of Battlefield V in early 2019 you may be wondering? In short it’s definitely good but not great. The guns all feel different enough except for the SMG’s and those feel all quite similar. I would say there are not really enough weapon choices in the game as a whole as there are currently only two factions in the game, German and British. It’s satisfying to shoot a guy in the head with one shot and watch him go down. However that really only happens with a few select weapons and the majority of the weapons require multiple shots, something that works for the Battlefield series but still when you’re doing the shooting it always feels like you need to shoot them more then they shoot you. A new-ish mechanic added is the ability for other squad members that are not medics to “revive” you and bring you back to life. This is the same mechanic as the medic but the medic can revive anyone inducing non squad members and the animation is much faster. Missing from this is the ability to drag your downed teammates out of incoming fire. This was shown in the E3 video and is apparently “coming” to the game but as of two months after release still is not present. I can tell you it’s much needed and hopefully gets added quite quickly.

For game modes and maps there are a total of 6 different game modes and 8 maps even though one of them isn’t out yet and isn’t due out until around March. That missing mode is the battle royal mode named Final Stand. Conquest makes a return along with Battlefield 1 mode Breakthrough. Frontlines is a mode that combines Conquest and Rush and a mode I enjoyed around release but had trouble finding players in January. Domination is a infantry focused smaller version of conquest that I skipped on the bases of not wanting to relive Battlefield 3’s Operation Metro. Team deathmatch also makes an appearance but let’s be honest we have call of duty and many other games for that mode. So you may be curious what mode I spent most of my time in and that would be conquest. The inclusion of vehicles and mostly open maps made running, driving or flying in this mode made this mode the most enjoyable way to enjoy Battlefield V. I tried Grand Operations and I really tried to like it the gameplay was slightly dull and no matter how many times I tried I would always end up on the Fall of Norway Operation.

There are eight maps currently and I like 2 of them, okay maybe only one that gets played frequently enough with conquest. The map I enjoy the most is Arras due to its lush green French country side. I have to say all of the maps that I’ve had the pleasure of playing have all been spectacular to look at and the sound design is spot on even if some of the weapon sounds are hit or miss.

Source: https://vignette.wikia.nocookie.net

Performance

I’m not usually one to bring up performance when reviewing a game as I try to stay more focused on the gameplay and it’s also difficult as your millage may vary based your own setup. With my setup I ran into a rather large problem. For reference my pc is an i7-4790k, 16gb of RAM and a 980TI Classified all stock on a 1080p@60hz monitor. I also recently updated to Windows 10 to version 1809 and that seemed compounded the issue. The issue is that my CPU becomes maxed out while playing Battlefield V and causes the game to stutter. I’m hoping a patch to the game can decrease cpu usage but I’m not holding my breath. Unfortunately this really ruins the playability of the game for me and I did not have this issue when the game launched. It seems to be a combination of the Windows 1809 update and game updates since launch. I should also state that these performance issues have only cropped up recently and did not affect the majority of my game time.

History

This is such a highly talked about topic online that turned off many potential customers. For this review I’ll try to keep my displeasure aimed on things that I think affect gameplay. First of all this game bills itself as a World War II game. This really is where my first issue with this game is, this game is not a World War II game. It’s a game that uses assets from that time period as a back drop for yet another run and gun shooter. It doesn’t respect its own source material in many situations and allows germen soldiers to use British or American weapons and vice versa. You would maybe think that’s a good thing or that is the case with all faction specific items but it’s not. Every vehicle is side specific meaning only the German side gets the Tiger tanks and German aircraft while the British gets the Churchill and British planes. The lack of weapons only being able to be used for the side you’re on is extremely immersion breaking and feels quite lazy. I won’t get into the attachments to weapons that were either never used or maybe used once and thus Dice thought the need to include it for the “unique” check mark box. If we stay on the topic of lazy design all the of the guns and vehicles get these upgrade trees that are used to upgrade your weapons and vehicles that are mostly just backend stat changes to the weapon and do nothing meaningful to the small arms weapons. For instance the Thompson gets access to a drum magazine and this feels like it falls into the “well it was used once so let’s make sure it’s in the game” column of game design and asset selection. Keeping the stick magazine instead of choosing the drum magazine magically increases the rate of fire of the gun. This issue is a little better on the vehicle side with leveling up actually allowing access to different armaments but it’s an issue that oozes throughout Battlefield V game design. There are literally hundreds of different weapons used throughout the war that could be included as different options for each class but instead we are left with a handful that gets magical buffs added through gun use. On top of that the weapon distribution between classes is atrocious. The Support class gets access to heavy machine guns, light machine guns and shotguns while the medic class gets access to just submachine guns as you can see below.

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In older Battlefield games there were all class weapons that could be used by any class and I really wish they would make a return. In the mean time I hope that we get more weapons added soon and can hope for a rework of the weapon progression system and using history a bit more as a source instead of jumping off point.

Conclusion

With all that being said I have had quite a few fun moments in Battlefield V with a full squad of friends that I’ve not experienced in many years. With such high praise I have to follow that up with these moments are extremely rare and the majority of the time I’m left with a bitter taste in my mouth after a round ends. I’ve personally set up my classes so that each side has the correct weapons for that given side I just wish this wasn’t on player choice and forced by the game. The aesthetic customization in the game is so poorly done that I frankly forgot they existed within a few hours of playing aside from the women player option. That leaves me with really one overreaching opinion, this game can be fun but could also be so much more then it is and at times feels like a Battlefront 2 reskin with how it handles weapon progression. We will have to see if Dice continue working on it and improving the game as there is no season pass or real monetary incentive to continue adding additional content to the game. If it doesn’t get any more content I’d wait for a huge discount.