Continuing on from the early Battlefield era from the first World War of the early 1900’s to the second World War of the 1940’s, Battlefield V brings a whole new angle much different into World War II that even Call of Duty couldn’t mention…the details of hearing about a soldier’s war story and how they fought on the front-lines against the Germans in their military campaign. Besides going through the basic campaign of Battlefield 5, we’ll provide insight into the multiplayer game modes and of course the Tides of War bracket system as it works in the game.
Battlefield 5 War Stories Campaign & Gameplay
Now you may think back to when you were a young kid, you may get a chance to hear from your grandparents and great-grandparents on how they fought on the front-lines during World War II…only exception is that these front-line stories are from fictional figures/names.
The same war stories are given in Battlefield 5 that makes up the single-player campaign in the game where you would get to hear details from 4 different soldiers (3 Allied and 1 Axis power soldiers) as they fight their enemies out in the desert’s of Africa to the Scandinavian mountains in Northern Europe and beyond to learn more about their backstory of what their fight on the battlefront was like in the second World War whether it’s stopping the Germans from building an “Atomic weapon” to bombing air bases way behind German territory out in the desert.
There can be more than one objective in some war story campaign missions in Battlefield 5.
Jumping into the campaign of War Stories in Battlefield 5, there is nothing special about the main campaign game-play itself…typical offense and defense of certain objectives to the possibility that there will be a chance that you’ll be given multiple objectives across a wide open map that can be done in any order as you wish.
On a side note, there is plenty of chances to get into some stealth game-play during some missions/parts even-though Battlefield is not meant to be a stealth style game and a possibility to perform melee take-downs within the campaign missions if trying to avoid attracting attention and in all cases to keeping the enemy from calling for more reinforcements…this is important in most cases if playing the war story missions on the hard difficulty where you wouldn’t want to face a 10-20 man platoon.
Keep in mind the enemies are very sharp on the hard difficulty as they can see you coming from a long way…just stay hidden in the prone position as much as possible if trying to remain undetected and keep an eye on the detection meter that would pop up in the HUD to help you out. Beyond avoiding detection from the enemy, Battlefield 5 provides a decent enemy tracking system through marking the enemies and their silhouette outlines from the binoculars used in-game to help you as the player know where the enemies are before they wind up on top of you.
Beyond accomplishing the main goals and objectives of each mission, each war story mission or part adds another quest for the player to find a number of letter collectibles that can be found that would allow you as the main character(s) to understand brief backstories of other people not seen in the game that have to go through the same hell of war…even finding those long-lost bottles of French champagne that you still have locked down in your wine cellar the Nazi’s stole from you that you got back on a particular campaign mission.
Fighting your Own War…Battlefield 5 Multiplayer Gameplay
Since there isn’t much of a campaign, Battlefield 5 is considered worth the play for it’s multiplayer game-play where every gamer can start their own dirty little war in a number of game modes on a number of battlefield maps whether it’s in the popular class Conquest game mode where acquiring tickets (flags) and deaths would determine victory over a full-scale multiplayer map or on a smaller scale in your typical team death-match and domination game modes that everyone would know the objective of those game modes.
In Battlefield V, the front-lines game mode returns from Battlefield 1 where it would put 2 teams of 16 players against each other in a virtual tug-of-war match where the goal of this game mode is to capture all of the opponents flags and then capture 2 final objectives…this being destroying the opponents artillery radio stations or likewise defending those radio stations if pushed almost over that “center-line” in this mode.
The Hamada conquest multiplayer map view and layout in Battlefield 5.
Another game mode available in Battlefield 5 is the somewhat new mode called “Breakthrough” which works sort of like the Frontlines game mode with the exception that the goal is to capture the number of objectives in order to capture each sector (there is no final objective attached in this game mode).
Finally, Battlefield 5 has a Co-Op game mode called “Combined Arms” that would sort of tie into the War Stories campaign as far as the theme goes where it would pitch up to 4 players on a full map found from the multiplayer game modes that would make the players accomplish certain objectives such as destroying artillery cannons to assassinating certain targets in order to complete the co-op game mode. You can play this game mode solo; but, I would not recommend as it is difficult to accomplish on the Hardcore difficulty…you won’t survive against a whole platoon especially reinforcements that would include enemy Tiger tanks to half-tracks.
Classified Operations…Grand Operations Gameplay
Who wouldn’t want to take place in a top secret operation…better yet, jump out of a transport plane as a part of an airborne operation. Battlefield 5 brings in the Grand Operations multiplayer mode that would work sort of like a 3 out of 4 style of gameplay that would require one team to win 3 matches that feature different objectives whether it’s acquiring explosive charges to be used to destroying artillery cannons or likewise defending those cannons to capturing flags in a conquest-style gameplay.
In some instances where the timer runs out in the third match whether it’s in the conquest or breakthrough match and there is no definite winner, then there would be a sudden death match that will occur in the fourth match/day or in this case the “Final Stand” match where there must be a winning team to take the overall win in the Grand Operation. Beyond the other multiplayer game modes, Grand Operations is ideally one of the hardest game modes in Battlefield 5 especially if you’re on the offense team…just be sure to bring some smoke grenades and a LMG (light machine gun), they’ll come in handy in this game mode.
Tides of War
Beyond the fighting on the multiplayer battlefield, there is another war on the multiplayer battleground through the “Tides of War” operations that Battlefield 5 has which simply provides a path-style multiplayer format and map that would lead a player to completing certain challenges in order to unlock special weapons, vehicles, and soldier apparel that can be equipped when playing in the regular multiplayer maps. The challenges can be simply getting 5 long-distance kills with a kar98k rifle at 250 meters, getting saying 5 melee kills with a knife, damaging 7 enemies with a grenade or throw able weapon, and more challenges that would open up another path that would get the player closer to claiming the reward at the end. The good news is that all the challenges from each path do not have to be completed in order for the reward to be claimed from the Tides of War campaign…as long as one path is completed that lead to the final challenge is completed then the reward can be claimed.
Final Thoughts about Battlefield 5
Getting to the point of what I thought about Battlefield 5 personally, I thought the game was a well-designed video game that still has a leg up on the Call of Duty games at this point despite the recent COD game (Call of Duty: Black Ops 4) not featuring any campaign gameplay.
Battlefield 5 has a campaign; but, it is incredibly short that is sort of a let down in my opinion since it would be nice to see the game follow one main protagonist as usual through a certain battleground not yet covered by the previous Battlefield games (Battlefield 1942 & 1943).
However, I liked the twist on the campaign of going from one main character to another through different settings and timelines making the campaign have a twist sort of like what I remembered back in the early Call of Duty games (COD Big Red One or COD 3) going from one timeline to another during those WW2 themed games.
As far as how I felt about the multiplayer gameplay in Battlefield 5, the game-play pretty much feels the same as Battlefield 1 and previously with Battlefield 4 and beyond even-though EA laid out some new game modes within Grand Operations to the Co-Op Combined Arms that didn’t make this game “watered down”….so for me I’m glad there was some change made instead of just changing the plot and keeping the style of multiplayer within the game modes used previously even-though I still dig the classic Conquest game mode when I play a Battlefield game just because I’m old school with Battlefield.
The Grand Operations to me was probably the biggest pain though it seemed easier to defend the objectives rather than be on the offense…I feel that there should be some adjustments to this game mode that should make the defense work harder rather than just staying in one place to defend an objective.
For me, I felt like that the game-play should be adjusted say placing the objectives across the entire map instead of on a tight scaled area of a multiplayer map that would keep the defense guessing where the enemies are kind of like what is expected in conquest. Other than this misconception in Grand Operation, the other game modes were enjoyable and challenging to experience.
