Oh yeah, Battlefield V is a World War II game
When Battlefield V was shown at E3 2018, I was less than impressed. I recall watching the trailer, thinking “that looks terrible,” and moving on. The one image that stuck in my head from the trailer is below.
Over the coming months, I occasionally heard discussions of the game that were mostly negative and described BFV as a Fortnite clone. I also remember discussions about whether women (as depicted in the trailer) saw combat on real battlefields. Then it got delayed, further suggesting the game either would be flawed or would not be able to compete with other AAA shooters in the same release window.
Fast forward several months and Electronic Arts released the Battlefield V open beta. I decided to give it a shot and downloaded it on Xbox One. After launching the game, I was presented with the select a class screen. This is when I first started to think something was up, as the weapons associated with each class didn’t look modern. As soon as my character spawned, I said “This a World War II game!? This is a World War II game!”
After coming to this realization, I vaguely remember having already known this back at E3. And as I read the July issue of GameInformer magazine (albeit well after July), I saw the above screenshot and was reminded why I was so confused: While I don’t profess to be a historian, the lasting image of this game in my mind following the E3 trailer looks like anything but World War II. The characters themselves don’t even look affiliated.
All this said, so far the beta has been okay. All the mechanics feel pretty good. However, playing conquest these days feels extremely dated. While it’s still a great game mode, I couldn’t help but wish I were playing a Battle Royale game instead. And the fact a Battle Royale trailer for Black Ops 4 dropped the same day as the beta released, didn’t help (nor do I think it was a coincidence).
