What I want most—aside from everything in our Battlefield wishlist—is for Battlefield 1 to at least not get too wacky with the setting. Battlefield has never been much for historical accuracy—I’d play Verdun for something further in that direction—but Battlefield 1942 did attempt to model real weapons and battles. It was goofy but somber, as if we’d all invaded a giant WWII museum diorama to hop on the wings of planes and shoot paintballs while absorbing information plaques in our peripheries. I hope Battlefield 1 captures some of the atmosphere and despair of Verdun and Ypres and Somme in the same way, so that I feel like I’m running amok on a historical field trip, not flying around in Assassin’s Creed’s Animus with knives taped to my arms.
The costumes are looking good, though, and it doesn't seem to be going for Tarantino-like badassery in its soldiers. I like that the soldiers in BF1942 aren’t special. They just look like hapless guys with guns, and in World War I especially, I’m keen to see a similar take.
Whether or not Battlefield 1 ends up being all the fun I hope for, setting it in WWI was a great idea. It’s a reaction to players who are tiring of ever more futuristic settings (I'm getting there, though I think I like sci-fi too much to ever say no to spaceships). It avoids trying to recapture, or remake, what made Battlefield 1942 special by tip-toeing around it to an earlier war. And it helps that WWI is rarely represented in videogames, making expectations fuzzy and perhaps giving DICE more freedom to experiment and surprise. I hope they run with it.