Our 50 best games of the year countdown isn’t in any order, we’re just going through fifty of the finest the year has given us. Find out more here.
If you had told me in 2015 that Battlefield would be taking its action to World War I and it was going to be one of the most warmly received games of 2016, you would have had nothing but a frown in response.
The Battlefield series was hardly in need of a drastic overhaul, but it got one this year. As an antidote to the futuristic, lifeless shooters we’ve been slogging through over recent years, Battlefield 1 couldn’t have been more potent. It’s a breath of fresh air and something that a lot of its competitors could learn from.
According to some of the more pessimistic blogs out there, the single-player campaign in FPS games is a dead concept. Along with Titanfall 2, Battlefield 1 has done its best to put that misconception to bed – although brisk, the War Stories told are affecting and captivating in equal measure. Spanning the globe, they act as perfect tutorials for the multiplayer and make you care about the characters a remarkable amount considering how little time is spent with them. Highlights include fighting atop a zeppelin and attacking a fortress all on your lonesome, just in case you were worried that Battlefield 1 couldn’t achieve the same scale because of its setting.
Multiplayer, the bane of every Battlefield player with responsibilities, has been given a major boost with its stellar Operations mode, tasking you with re-enacting famous battles across multiple stages. If you’re wanting to be fully immersed in the drudgery of warfare, thinking you’ve won the battle before being booted to another will do just that. Each stage feels grandiose and important with interesting narratives running through each; an unusual touch, sure, but one that just works.
Perhaps Battlefield 1’s greatest achievement is its most subtle: the emphasis on teamwork. Compared to Call of Duty, Battlefield has always been focused on working with each other, but it has always been quiet about the fact. Although it still doesn’t shout at you to team up or face failure, it works in such a way that it becomes obvious. Going it alone is also only half as fun, especially as you don’t have friends to pretend to be mustachioed British gents with, but that’s another story.
Action is frenetic and harrowing as bullets rain down wherever you turn, no doubt helped by some generous tweaking of history. Bringing automatic rifles to a period of time in which they were still just prototypes annoyed some of the more demanding gamers out there, but it proved to be a controversy worth risking.
Something that I don’t feel enough people show enough love to Battlefield 1 is its sound design. Simply put, it’s stunning, consistently befitting of the spectacular scale of the game in general. It’s also incredibly emotional manipulative, throwing soaring violins at you while you try to come to terms with the death of a squadmate in single-player. It works, creating an endearingly beautiful experience is a searingly ugly world.
For daring to change the landscape and eventually doing just that, Battlefield 1 is going to be at the top of many best of lists for 2016 and had no trouble making it here. If you’re wondering if pigeons could possibly make you cry, play this game.
Available on: PS4
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