To start on a personal note, I grew up on WW2 shooters like Call of Duty & Medal of Honor. It installed in me at a very young age an intense passion for the conflict & time period to the point where I was devouring every movie, book & game on the topic I could find. So much of my knowledge of that conflict is directly due to these old WW2 games & is my very own personal testimony to those who don't understand the educational & artistic importance of video games.

So it warmed my very soul when Battlefield shifted the industry back to historical shooters with the release of the horribly titled Battlefield 1. And while the "War Stories" concept is a great one, unfortunately some of the short stories were a little shaky with their history, but overall I was still very pleased with the game. Despite knowing a ton about WW2, I only knew a basic overview of WW1 prior to this game & Battlefield 1 still awakened an interest in me to learn more. I have a better understanding of WW1 because of this game so overall I think it was a success.

So I was excited about DICE bringing this "War Stories" concept to a WW2 game. My excitement doubled when I heard these "War Stories" were going to focus on small, lesser known stories of WW2 because I can only storm Omaha Beach or fight in the Battle of the Bulge so many times.

And what we ended up with was a very mixed bag of War Stories, much like Battlefield 1. That's not surprising. Of the 4 War Stories, 1 is exceptional and 2 are okay and 1 is outright awful. The two average stories were little off on the finer details, but decent takes of lesser known efforts in the War. I expected some of these War Stories to take a few liberties with history. What I did not expect was for one of them to not only be a little shaky with its history, but to be an outright lie. A complete re-write of history.

So let's start with that one. With that said, I'm now moving into SPOILER TERRITORY, so be warned.

The Outright Lie: Nordlys When DICE revealed one of their stories would focus on a female Norwegian resistance fighter, I was enthused. Yes! This is exactly the type of obscure story I wanted a game like this to tell. Yes, women did fight in WW2. Women served as snipers in the Soviet Union & fought in various guerrilla resistance groups such as the French Resistance. Women made up an incredibly small percentage of those fighting, but that doesn't mean their efforts should be forgotten to history. All in all, a female resistance fighter was a perfect candidate for a War Story like this.

The problem is Battlefield 5 does not craft its narrative around an effort the actual women of WW2 resistance groups really took part in. Instead they took a real, well-documented operation, completely tore it out of the history books & put this false, completely made up operation in its place. I'm referring to Operation Gunnerside, which was the most successful act of sabotage in all of WW2.

In the real Operation Gunnerside, a team of Norwegian commandos successfully destroyed a German Heavy Water plant (a compound used in Germany's attempts to develop of nuclear weapons). Long story short the commandos infiltrated the facility, planted explosives and fled into the woods as the chambers housing the heavy water exploded. The most extraordinary thing about this raid is it was accomplished without firing a single shot.

In Battlefield 5's version of WW2, this operation did not take place. At all. Instead, in the War Story "Nordlys," the heavy water plant is destroyed by a female teenage Norwegian resistance fighter and her mother. And while Nordlys is incredibly fun to play & its depictions of the snow-covered Norwegian mountains are drop dead gorgeous, it's all based on historical revisionism. In layman's terms, an outright lie. Instead of basing this story on actual efforts female resistance members took part in, the game decides to rip well-established historical fact out & make up their own story instead.

I hope I don't have to explain to anyone how dangerous this is. This is an "Inglourious Basterds" level of falsehood, but the difference is the film "Inglourious Basterds" was very upfront about the idea that its story was a depiction of an alternate history. The film never tried to present its story as historical fact. Nordlys does. To take this idea to the extreme, that's like saying "Operation Overlord," the invasion of Normandy, never took place. Instead France was liberated by a bunch of internal resistance fighters. In both these versions of history, France was still liberated. Just like in both the real version & BF5's version of the Heavy Water plant sabotage, the Heavy Water production was ultimately halted. Even if the end of both versions is ultimately the same, that's not justification for lying about the means. The resistance fighters played a large role in the actual liberation of France, yes, but this depiction of history would rip out real, documented history in order to craft a false narrative.

The "Okay" War Stories: Under No Flag & Tirailleur These two stories are the typical fair you'd expect from a mainstream media depiction of history. A little loose on some details, but generally have enough going for it to earn a pass. At least they aren't completely shredding history books to tell these stories.

Under No Flag doesn't have much to say artistically. It's just a story about a fictional sabotage mission undertaken by the British Secret Boat Service (SBS) in North Africa. I say fictional because the SBS undertook many sabotage operations in WW2, we aren't entirely sure how many, but the one depicted in the game is pretty similar to missions the SBS undertook in real life. The only real major historical problem is the SBS were made up of very well trained, disciplined men. The kind of men you'd expect to be a part of a special forces unit. Their ranks did not include convicted criminals trying to earn their freedom by volunteering for these assignments like the game depicts. This was included to make the characters more intriguing and even though this loose history is annoying, it's not enough for me to condemn this entire War Story. In the end, I learned a lot about the SBS & had fun with this one. A decent look into the real SBS with a little fiction thrown in.

Tirailleur: This War Story has much deeper themes it's trying to convey & it's only somewhat successful at doing so. Tirailleur focuses on the discrimination black French colonial soldiers faced when they were conscripted into the French army & brought in to defend France against the Germans. These soldiers were from French colonies in Africa & had never actually set foot in France before & were now asked against their will to defend it. The shaky history here is the main character complains they are forced to do the mundane work like digging trenches, cleaning latrines, ect while the white soldiers get to go fight. In actuality EVERY soldier did the kind of mundane work that only the black soldiers are depicted as doing in this game. And while every person is different, if I was conscripted into an army against my will, I would much rather do the safe, hard labor than go fight for people who detest me. This is also not true. The French had no problem sending Tirailleur soldiers into battle.

Eventually, of course the characters in this War Stories get to fight & they spend the rest of the story trying to prove themselves until inevitably their white colleagues take all the credit for what they accomplished. This history is obviously shaky, but there is some truth to it. Unfortunately we don't know exactly how much these soldiers accomplished because France had been very reluctant to even acknowledge the existence of these soldiers until the last few years. This does make it very likely some of the contributions of these men have been whitewashed by history. All in all, this is a decent depiction of a little known group of soldiers that unfortunately exaggerates some facts to make it's narrative a little more compelling.

The Promise Fulfilled: The Last Tiger This War Story. Is. Exceptional. This is the promise of Battlefield 5, which was to highlight lesser known perspectives from WW2, fully fulfilled. All my life, I always wanted to play a WW2 game from a German perspective. Films from the German perspective like 1993's "Stalingrad" & 2004's "Downfall" have been incredible & a video game from that perspective could be a deep dive into living under a Nazi ideology & focus on characters who have to take a deep look in the mirror once they realize everything is crumbling around them. Some will become more staunch in their beliefs others will painfully realize they were wrong, and most will be somewhere in between. Incredibly conflicted. What an amazing game that would be.

For years I thought publishers would avoid a game like this for fear of the incredibly predictable & moronic media/parental outrage over a video game in which you "PLAY AS NAZIS AND SHOOT AMERICANS AND OTHER ALLIED SOLDIERS. ERSH MAH GERSH! EVIL VIDEO GAMES!!!!"

Fortunately, Battlefield 5's War Story in which you play as a Tiger tank commander & yes, kill many, many American soldiers, has flown under the media radar. Perhaps that's because it's only a very small portion of the overall game & because this War Story released a few weeks after the launch of the initial game. Maybe the media outrage has yet to come. I don't know. I'm just glad DICE made this work of genuine art because it is an incredibly nuanced & surprisingly subtle look at a man in the dying days of WW2 in the May of 1945 having to confront the fact that his entire belief system is crumbling before his eyes while also trying getting his men through the conflict alive.

From a historical standpoint, this War Story is pretty airtight as far as I can tell. In the spring of 1945, Peter Mueller and his Tiger I tank crew are defending the Rhine river against the Americans. It's apparent this defense is a futile attempt that will only delay the end of the war. Germany is losing. Badly. Deep down our characters know this, but some are more aware of it than others. What follows is a personal struggle as Mueller struggles with the German High Command's order that all German soldiers must fight to the death. The tank crew's young & fiercely patriotic gunner's extreme fanaticism also shows Mueller the senselessness in continuing to fight a war that has already been lost & makes him contemplate his role in all of this.

How superb this War Story is goes to show how conflicted I am of this game. On one extreme, Battlefield 5 has one of the most egregious re-writes of history I've ever seen. On the other extreme, Battlefield 5 has one of the most deeply layered & nuanced stories I've ever seen from a WW2 game & had the balls to go into territory no other game developer has ever dared to go. Because this game's "story" is split up into these 4 completely separate short stories, it means both of these extremes can in-fact exist in the same package. It goes to show game rankings aren't always so black & white. Somehow I'm going to have to reconcile the fact that a game can be fantastic & terrible at the same time.

Aside from Tunnel Rats, and maybe You Are Empty, this has to be the most frustrating campaign I've ever played in an FPS game. Many people were annoyed by the game because of its supposed "wokeness", but I don't think it's troublesome here. It has a campaign about two female Norwegian resistance fighters which I think is handled pretty well, and a French black battalion one which is a bit more in your face about its message, but it's not really a big problem and I think the people who complained about it were big whiners. In fact the worst story is the British one, whose main character is a completely unlikable moron.

The main problem the campaign has is its stupid focus on stealth in a game that is not a stealth game and doesn't have good stealth mechanics. When it decides to focus on shooting, it's mostly fine, though it has a few frustrating scenarios. But when it decides you must play stealthily, it's a shit show. I didn't enjoy a single moment of those levels. In many occasions you don't even have access to silenced weapons, enemies spot you very quickly and from a good distance, and then you are instantly overwhelmed by a myriad of them and easily killed.

The last scenario, the German one, is clearly the best. Not only does it have a more nuanced story than the others (I wouldn't call it 100% nuanced, but in the context of these mainstream FPS games, it's reasonably well handled), but the gameplay is almost completely about handling a tank, leaving behind all those stupid stealth levels. Still, I wouldn't call it great and it's just one story out of four.

All in all, this was a miserable experience for me 75% of the time, and the remaining 25% was just passable. Wasn't a big fan of the campaigns in CoD WWII or Battlefield 1, but those are still miles better than this one.

I love certain aspects of the game, I also detest others. This isn't really a review, I just feel there's a couple things I need to get off my chest.

1. EA, stop using the iron cross exclusively to distinguish Nazis. The iron cross is a German military insignia and is still used today, to constantly use it and omit the Swastika is historically inaccurate and pretty inconsiderate to Germans.
2. Some of the mission design (war stories) is very similar to BF1 and can feel a little repetitive. "Under no Flag" is perhaps the weakest of the bunch.
3. "The Last Tiger" is perhaps the strongest narrative Dice has provided in years. It is genuinely quite brilliant and so different (narrative wise) to the other stories. It was also not released until a few months after the game's initial release. Many people unfortunately, will or have missed out on this great piece of content. Although it's free, it still feels as though it's arrival was too late, especially considering the run time of the campaign in it's entirety.
4. Can't really comment on the multiplayer yet, maybe I'll update this once I've started getting into it.

If you are wandering whether or not to buy this game. I'd say the game in it's current state is worth it (maybe best to buy it on special though). "The Last Tiger" is a highly recommended war story which you should not miss. If you played the game and missed it, do yourself a favour and go back and play that campaign!

I was in the mood for an FPS and Battlefield V went on sale after sitting on my wishlist for a while. I really enjoyed the direction and spectacle DICE had on display in Battlefield One and Call of Duty WWII got me pining for the days of shooting Nazis, so I was amp to play this game.

Speaking of CoD WWII, even though this game came out a year later, it feels like it was rushed to strike on that WWII trend that CoD sorta restarted. Whereas Battlefield One had this unique over world menu where you scrolled to different parts of the war to pick a theater to fight in, V just has a bland screen with little pictures from the different war stories. All but one War Story you play as just a person, vs Battlefield One that had you playing as a pilot and a tank crew. Just the overall production value of this game seems lower than the WWI entry.

The gameplay mechanics aren’t all bad though. The shooting feels responsive in the right ways. They took a cue from Red Dead 2 and you have to manually action the bolt on bolt-action guns, a nice authenticity touch. I’ll get into story details in a bit, but two of the War Stories were very stealth heavy, which was not what I was looking for in my Battlefield game. If I want WWII stealth I’ll play the Saboteur again. The stealth mechanics are pretty basic, the guards spot you relatively easy and while most times you can shoot your way out, other times you get swarmed when they discover you. It’s fine, but again, not what I want from my Battlefield game. Flamethrower troopers however are aggravating bullet sponges.

The graphics look fine, to be expected from a Triple A FPS. The gun models look faithful to their historic counterparts. The music isn’t too bad either. Very traditionally scored, but it works.

Now onto the content of the War Stories. Battlefield V wanted to highlight the lesser known conflicts of the war, which I can appreciate. You can storm the beaches of Normandy only so many times. Unfortunately they picked to highlight special operations, which is why there’s the unexpected stealth focus. The first story feels like a traditional buddy war film. You’re a criminal turned soldier who gets recruited into Britain’s new Special Boats Squad by a sarcastic, but caring officer. You two get dropped behind enemy lines in North Africa to sabotage some German airbases, and shenanigan ensue. Your bombs don’t go off as plan & you accidently alert the whole German army to your whereabouts. All along the way your character is trading “witty” banter with his superior officer. It’s a fun romp, even with the stealth focus, and it did cause me to research the SBS.

War story two, you play as a Norwegian girl who saves her mother from a Nazi hard water facility. Now, DICE did suffer some backlash for putting women in their WWII. Another great review here mentions that while women did serve in limited roles, they still served and this game is about those lesser known stories, so it makes sense, but the review also mentions the “history” behind this Norwegian level has been bent and broke to include this plucky young rebel girl. It’s also another stealth heavy section, is what upsets me more than anything. I think a better story to tell would be of the 10th Mountain fighting in the Alps. It’s a similar atmosphere and it would be a little more action oriented. Anyways, a special quirk of the Norwegian level is you can use skis to traverse the levels. They can be a little unwieldy, but pulling off a sick jump feels cool, even if it should’ve resulted in a broken ankle.

Story three has the type of gameplay I was expecting from Battlefield V. You play as a French colonial soldier from the Senegal. As a black soldier you are relegated to ditch digging, but when the French get to a German artillery bunker they can’t crack, your squad steps up to fight. Along with your brother, who gives off “I’m gonna die” vibes from moment one, you storm a Nazi-held chateau in the hope you will be remembered in history. Unfortunately, your contributions are buried due to, well, racism, and it hasn’t been until recent in our real world that France as acknowledge it’s colonial soldiers’ sacrifices. It’s an interesting bit of history and the gameplay is fun.

Story four is the most unique out of them all, because you one, get to play as a tank and two they have you playing as a Nazi. You’re put into the boots of a Tiger tank commander in Berlin during the final death throes of the Third Reich as the Americans close in, which I’m pretty sure that’s an inaccuracy, because the Soviets got to Berlin first. Your commander is sort of in a tough spot. He seems to see the writing on the wall, but he can’t turn tail and run, he’s a good soldier. This is the most thought-provoking story, bringing up the “I was just following orders” dilemma. He realizes his party is wrong, but dissent would mean his death now vs later. Your tank crew contains the jaded driver who has seemingly been with you since the beginning and a young loader who still believes in the Nazis wholeheartedly. The driver tells you this is all bullshit, and you know it, but you’ve your orders. In the end, the German high command crumbles, you are the last Tiger in Berlin, and you end up being shot by your fanatical loader as you surrender to the Americans. It’s a weirdly bittersweet ending. There are a few out of tank sections where you are back to forced stealth, which definitely hurt my enjoyment a bit.

Now, as a history buff, I want to talk about the overall history of this game. You don’t ever play an American, which makes sense given the lesser known stories intent, but it does feel weird to play a WWII game and not get to shoot an M1 Garand. But the biggest pet peeve I have is this game seems weirdly adverse to saying “Nazi” or depicting the swastika. Now, preface, I’m not saying they should be proudly boastful of Nazism, but this is a WWII game, it’s correct to address the bad guys as Nazis. I know “Nazi” has become an even more charged word in our modern politics, but it’s awkwardly noticeable in this game that everyone calls them, “the Germans” and purposely avoids “Nazi”. In regards to the swastika, I do know Germany has had a strict censorship on that appearing in any media. I learned that while reading about an old Indiana Jones game. But again, the lack of it for us non-Germans is awkwardly noticeable. In the Tiger tank level, you are rolling down the streets of Berlin and there are red banners with iron crosses on them. It’s very much the developer saying, “imagine a swastika here”. I get people are more sensitive to everything nowadays, but this is a game set in 1941-45 not modern times, and it’s a disservice to the real history.

All in all, Battlefield V was underwhelming, mostly. The multiple levels centered around stealth gameplay and odd progressive politics that won’t let you call a Nazi a Nazi kinda drag down the experience. But there are glimmers of something interesting, the SBS story was a light-hearted romp that reminds me of older WWII movies and the Tiger tank story started to tackle some complex feelings and ideas. All the stories felt like they were just a few levels too short, each a prologue to a story that wasn’t fully told yet.

(As with my previous Battlefield posts, these are my thoughts on the singleplayer campaign only.)

I have to be honest. This was a disappointing end to my Battlefield journey.

From the opening scene, which showcases an intro where, for like five minutes, you basically do nothing but die after you're thrown into random missions - yet it actually counts as one of the game’ ‘missions’ -, I could tell this wasn’t going to be great. There were a lot of poor choices in Battlefield V that put a damper on my experience and frustrated me to no end, simply because they were clearly avoidable. Trying to ride on the coattails of BF1, there’s a permeating appeal to emotion the fails across the board, since at best, the most intense reaction BFV is able to elicit is perhaps a sense of exasperation because so many of its aspects aren't able to deliver.

This is a direct reflection of the lack of competence on display, as technically there is zero reason for this to be such a step-down compared to its predecessor. Atmospherically, the game looks worse. Level design is often subpar. Mission pacing feels terrible at times. Stealth is absolutely atrocious from start to finish, and I wish they hadn't included it this time around. The episodic stories are, for the most part, a nothing-burger that aren't enjoyable or charismatic in any meaningful way - though there's a big exception here that I’ll get to. And to top it all off, there is an incomprehensible glitchy nature and lack of polish present (needing to restart between missions due to unending loading times caused by online crap, zoom glitching out upon after swap, achievements not given, prompts that wouldn’t register, and even a buggy crouching system). It got to a point where I was honestly struggling to finish the game, especially throughout the first couple missions.

I persisted however, and I'm glad I saw it through. What kept me going, aside from the compulsion to complete my Battlefield single player campaign no matter what, was the fact that BV does have some stuff going for it, the main one being its destructible environments. This, I’ve come to learn, is a staple throughout the series and a serious highlight, even if some games are able to do it much better than others, and I’d put BFV in the former category when it comes to this. There is no better feeling in the entire game than bringing down a whole building along with the enemies burrowing in it. In these - admittedly not numerous - moments, BV was at its absolute best. Shooting also feels pretty decent for the most part. None of its gunplay feels particularly improved over BF1, but I will say that headshots are incredibly precise and awesome to execute. There’s also great scenery diversity, which goes a long way to appease the other bad aspects of the levels. And in clear contrast with its predecessor, the game's last mission is arguably the best, even if it shares some of the hurdles of the previous ones: it’s a compelling time spent with a party whose side we don't often get to experience these days whenever WWII is involved. To me, The Last Tiger is clearly the highlight of the entire game.

But the sad truth is that Battlefield V fails to improve or even effectively iterate on BF1 in most other aspects. It tried to capture the magnetism of what came before it, but in the end not only was it unsuccessful in that, it actually turned out to be one of the least charismatic entries in the entire franchise, to me at least. It's a decent time at best, but I was expecting more than decent. This shouldn’t, however, been seen as a reflection of the Battlefield singleplayer experience. The fact is that, on the whole, I enjoyed my time with the series more than I thought I would. There are a couple of lows, but the overall experience was certainly one I appreciated, and felt offers enough to stand on its own in a saturated genre. 6/10