Battlefield 1 – Preview Event

Battlefield 1 – Preview Event

Late last week at Sydney’s National Art School, Gamespot and Samsung held an event to show off the upcoming World War 1 shooter, Battlefield 1, as well as a number of new SUHD TV’s from Samsung. Thanks to EA Australia I was given the chance to head along for Player 2 and raid the free bar, as well as sampling both the single and multiplayer booths setup.

EA were showing off the game using the latest Xbox One S on the Samsung SUHD TV’s, showing off the brilliance that is HDR in full effect. They didn’t have an A/B station to directly show off the difference, but it’s visible for anyone who’s spent enough time pouring over the details of a game’s visuals.

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Speaking of, Battlefield 1 looks stunning. Mud and rubble glisten in the pouring rain as flashes of gunfire and shrapnel zip and ricochet off the environment. The destructible environments are the best they’ve ever looked; running over the decimated wall of a damaged house crushed its remains into nothingness, leaving naught but a dust pile in the tanks wake.

Player and AI animations all looked quite sharp; nothing less of what you’d expect from a Battlefield game, really. In fact, that’s one of two things I took away from my short time with the game that surprised me: Despite the WW1 setting, I immediately recognised I was playing a Battlefield game through the feel of the movement to the aiming down the sights. Even firing weapons felt similar; full and weighty I’ll freely admit, but this was an opportunity to try something a little different and I didn’t quite get that impression. Whether that changes for me in the full release, I’ll have to wait and see.

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The other big takeaway was how EA and DiCE haven’t shied away from putting the horror of war front and centre, and this really hits home during the opening of the games War Stories mode. I won’t go into detail about it here – chances are you can read about it on the internet already if You’re desperate – but it’s worth experiencing for yourself. In a way, I wish I hadn’t seen it out in a public space like I had because I found myself genuinely affected by how strongly an impression it made.

Battlefield 1 looks set to leave a strong mark on 2016 given my first impressions. It has the potential to go some unique places for a AAA game to go, and now that I’ve been given a taste of that, I’m signed up.

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What are your impressions of Battlefield 1 so far? Did you play the beta? Are you looking forward to the game? Let us know in the comments below.

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