Well, this is a turn up. Battlefield 5 has been spotted on German online retailer World of Games, listed for release in October. Most notable is the single line of description that reads “Mehrspieler Taktik Shooter im 1. Weltkrieg” – in English, a World War 1 tactical shooter. While generally release dates listed in this manner are inaccurate estimations made by the company itself, details rarely are, and may indicate an upcoming announcement.
While you wait, here’s the best FPS games you can play right now.
You can see the listing here while it lasts, and larger versions of the images over on NeoGAF, as well as the original finding on Twitter. While another DICE-made entry in the Battlefield series has been assumed to be on the way, this is the first we’ve seen of it outside that. The return to the past has been much requested, though the choice of World War 1 is odd for various reasons – not only is WW2 more common, but it’s easier to gamify, many already have the knowledge required to understand its various theatres and, frankly, it’s just more interesting.
Still, trench warfare with modern game design principles and graphics has proven popular recently with the likes of Verdun, and early-1900s warfare in general with Battalion 1944. It’s also worth noting that this listing for Battlefield 5 makes no mention of the previous generation of consoles – all new tech, all the time. That seems like the correct decision to me, the old generation should be left behind even if their install base is larger – the graphical improvements alone make switching over worth it.
What would you think of a WW1 Battlefield? Do you prefer the day-after-tomorrow future-tech that currently dominates the larger FPS franchises, or do you think there’s riper opportunities elsewhere?