There’s a bit of a kerfuffle surrounding Battlefield 1 . A few days ago, DICE revealed the game was going to have five War Stories in it as its single player campaign. That’s all the developer said. It didn’t explain how long or detailed these missions would be. It said that each story would follow a different group of individuals, with Through Mud and Blood covering a British Mark V Tank crew and another story following Lawrence of Arabia’s right hand woman. However, some people are wondering whether these are or aren’t long and substantial enough single player experiences. Instead, they should be looking more at the what DICE is saying and be thankful that there’s a single player mode at all.
The first hint that the War Stories could be more than they seem comes in that Battlefield 1 announcement. It spends a lot of time talking about the Through Mud and Blood storyline and specifically notes that it is divided into parts. It even goes over a bit of The Fog of War, one of this War Stories’ portions. That segment’s hero, Danny Edwards, will have a The Fog of War encounter. This segment sees him acting as something of a scout for his company’s Mark V Tank. Already, we have proof of a multi-part scenario. This section is so significant, Dice has even named it. You don’t do that for brief missions. This indicates there’s some longevity here.
Continuing our focus on The Fog of War, DICE notes something else important about this section. It begins listing ways in which Danny can complete this portion of Through Mud and Blood. It specifically says, “Eventually you’ll come across a relatively large base with field guns you can either destroy to protect your tank – or use against the enemies. You’ll also have the option of taking out an enemy tank crew, which suddenly gives you access to an enemy vehicle that you can seize for the encounter.” Right there, we have three means of addressing an issue in a storyline mission. That speaks to its replay value. If we’re being given options, then that means each War Story could be something we’d want to play multiple times.
The fact that there even is a single player campaign is something we should applaud. Let’s think about some major shooters we’ve seen in the last few years. The first Titanfall was an online only game with no offline opportunities. Destiny is the same way. That Battlefield 1 is, first and foremost, giving us something to do offline is a good thing. We should be really happy about that, given that there have been some Battlefield games that were focused solely on online experiences. Battlefield 2142 was one of them, and it’s only recently that the Battlefield 2142 Revive project brought it back.
We should even appreciate that there is a campaign. Star Wars: Battlefront, Rainbow Six: Siege and Evolve didn’t have single player campaigns. Activision even left the solo campaign out of the PS3 and Xbox 360 versions of Call of Duty: Black Ops III. DICE could have completely omitted a storyline from this installment in the series. Certainly, shooters have done it before. But, it didn’t. It’s putting together five War Stories instead. We should appreciate this opportunity, rather than prematurely criticize it for any perceived flaws.
Even if Battlefield 1’ s campaign turns out to be a rather short affair, we shouldn’t go critiquing something we haven’t even played yet. We’re prematurely judging a game based on suggestions that five War Stories could mean there are only five missions total in a game. For all we know, each War Story could be a multipart saga with multiple missions taking you through a one to five hour affair. Even if they are short, Dice’s early description suggests each portion of a War Story could have multiple paths to completion, increasing the replay value. With the state of shooters in this day and age, we should be happy to see an offline story mode at all.