It's been three years since Battlefield 4, but the latest instalment in the Battlefield franchise is set to be announced at 9pm tonight during a worldwide reveal event. Fans are already starting to speculate on details about the game, amidst a new teaser trailer shown ahead of the official announcement.
An eight-second teaser video showing ‘game engine footage’ was released yesterday in lieu of the upcoming announcement, that just shows a soldier cast in shadow looking up. Many have speculated that the uniform and haircut bears a resemblance to soldiers in World War II.
But that was quickly scotched as another image has just arrived with World War 1 looking to be the setting, or possibly an alternate past version of the conflict. The soldier here is using what looks to be the iconic Mauser C96 pistol in one hand and a vicious-looking trench club in the other. A zeppelin hangs over the scene and he also seems to be wearing a cloak. The gun at his side looks something like a Sten Gun, though that doesn't fit historically speaking.
There’s not really a lot to go on, but if true, it looks like the next Battlefield will be a proper return to form for the series after the Battlefield Hardline spin off and the Jedi-themed Star Wars Battlefront last year. Even an alternate WWI would have more grit and more pathos than recent settings for the game.
And after much talk of Battlefield 5, it looks likely the new game will be called Battlefield 1 - it's an odd title admittedly though it doesn't clash with any previous name. This leak came from pictures of marketing materials, see below. It mentions the 'Heroic Harlem Hellfighter Infantry Regiment' this was the real-life 369th Infantry which consisted of African American and African Puerto Rican soldiers.
Release date
We can probably make a fairly educated guess about when the game will actually come out, as Battlefield games have always generally been released at the end of October. Battlefield 4 launched on October 29th 2013, while Battlefield 3 launched on the 28th October 2011, so we wouldn't be surprised if Battlefield 5 launched on more or less the same date - the 28th October is a Friday this year, after all, but we'll update this article with the official release date as soon as EA give us a concrete date.
Features we'd like to see
Ten years ago, nearly every first-person-shooter was set in World War II, but since then we haven't really had a AAA game set in this time period at all. Instead, most shooters like Call of Duty and Titanfall have jumped forward to future fictional conflicts, so it would be refreshing for the next Battlefield to bring things back to basics. With no ridiculous weapons and jumping around in jetpacks, it would be great to finally have a shooter featuring historic battles once more.
Graphically, we can expect the gorgeous Frostbite Engine to make another appearance here, and we can already see from the teaser trailer that DICE and EA are still waving the flag for some of the most beautiful and photorealistic games to date. If the recent Star Wars Battlefront is anything to go by, we can expect the next Battlefield instalment to be absolutely stunning.
