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Battlefield 5 Preview: War Stories

Earlier this week Stevivor had the opportunity to get some hands-on time with Battlefield 5 and the War Stories campaign. Much like Battlefield 1, these are a collection of self-contained narrative driven missions that try to deliver those Battlefield moments in a single player experience.

For this year DICE is attempting to tell some more diverse and emotional stories around a few of the other aspects of World War II which we normally don’t hear about. They didn’t want to do the obvious version that we’ve seen in past titles. In doing so they have created four stories that will be told in their original language from different perspectives during the war, including the German military.

Nordlys will take place in 1943 where Norway has been under occupation for three years. You play as a young resistance fighter in search of her mother who uncovers a facility producing heavy water, and German plans to use this to create an atomic device. The arc of this campaign allows you to approach it in your own playstyle, whether it be in stealth or guns blazing. At times there were a number of ways to tackle objectives in whatever order you wanted to do so. And getting from place to place was quite easy as you’re equipped with snow skies during the entire campaign, with all the levels taking place in the extreme cold.

Under No Flag is the second story that we played, and while we had the chance to see the entirety of Nordlys unfold, for this campaign it was just the first act. The year is 1942 and British army is putting together a newly formed Special Boat Section (SBS). As a criminal in prison you’re recruited into this special forces unit and tasked to employ dirty tricks behind enemy lines. Your primary objective in the mission was to infiltrate an air force base and take down some of their aircraft, but things don’t go to plan. Much like Nordlys you could go in stealth and attempt to disable the bases alarms or try your luck at shooting your way in.

The final story we had a glimpse of was Tirailleur. Set in 1944 you play as Deme, a solider in the French Colonial Forces who is not impressed with his involvement in the war. Initially tasked with filling bags of sand, Deme finally receives his opportunity during Operation Dragoon – known as the Allied invasion of Southern France. Unlike Nordlys and Under No Flag, what we saw of Tirailleur was combat heavy as you push into Axis trenches and bunkers on foot to take control of their defensive line.

Although we didn’t get the opportunity to play it The Last Tiger will be the concluding story from the available arcs. Stevivior spoke to Eric Holmes, Design Director at DICE about this specific War Story as you’ll take on the perspective of a German solider driving the devastating and heavily armoured Tiger 1 tank.

While multiplayer for the Battlefield series is a huge draw for most players, there is still plenty of room for a single player experience in games like this. There were a lot of great moments that came out of the War Stories for Battlefield 1; particularly the Australian campaign – and if DICE can replicate that with Battlefield 5, then fans should be happy about the continuation to include it.

Battlefield 5 is available from 20 November on Windows PC, Xbox One, and PS4.


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About the author

Luke Lawrie

Writing and producing content about video games for over a decade. Host of Australia's longest running video game podcast The GAP found at TheGAPodcast.com. Find me on Twitter at @lukelawrie