Battlefield 1

You’re in for a Real Treaty.

- Matt Gilman

Despite DICE’s guncentric multiplayer bonanza being one of the most celebrated first-person shooter franchises out there – regularly going up against perennial genre stalwart Call Of Duty – there’s always been something fixable to whine about. “The servers aren’t stable”, “the textures in multiplayer aren’t up to scratch”, or, “the single player is about as enrapturing as watching paint dry on the wall of a dentist’s waiting room which you are also banging your head against”.

If you’ve ever found yourself surmising your experiences with Battlefield thusly, then know this: you’ll have no such complaints about Battlefield 1. It’s like DICE heard every moan between Battlefield 4 and now, and specifically unloaded its problem solving cannons upon them with a salvo of sleek netcode, eye-popping visuals and an ace solo campaign.

Starting at this single-player offering, DICE has cunningly split the campaign into distinct chapters, each telling its own story. We say cunningly because Battlefield 1 is set during World War I, and while a single arcing story might have been the go-to approach in games past, here it would have necessitated an unbelievable stretch of the imagination for discerning history buffs. DICE’s several plots delve into the tribulations of a tank driver in Cambrai, dogfighting in the Alps, churning sand dunes under-hoof in western Turkey and more besides.

Cambrai five