An alleged trailer leak may have revealed the first details of Battlefield V’s upcoming battle royale mode, Firestorm. The video, which you can check out further down this article, was posted to YouTube last night.
If this trailer proves to be accurate, there are a handful of interesting ideas put forward by Battlefield’s take on the genre. For one thing, the zone looks extremely deadly, something that you’ll be forced to avoid rather than a minor inconvenience that will kill you over time. You’ll also be able to fire a pistol while you’re knocked down, and there are special objectives hidden round the map which will give you access to rewards including Gyrocopters, tanks, and ATVs.
Otherwise, however, there’s plenty that we’ve seen elsewhere in the genre. You can play in sols, duos, or squads, and the beginning of a game will see you drop from a plane to parachute into either the middle of nowhere, or at a location of your choice (I’m all for landing in that trainyard every single chance I get, personally).
You’ll have weapons of varying rarity and effectiveness, and have to manage your inventory to ensure you don’t run out of the right ammo type for your specific gun. And as ever, you’ll be fighting to be the last team standing.
This is just a leak, so worth looking at with an element of scepticism, but some of those details line up with datamined information posted to the game’s subreddit earlier this week. That post mentions a 64-player limit, with typical Battlefield classes present (although the video suggests that these won’t confer individual advantages).
The files also mentions safes and vehicles “breakouts”, healing and amour resupplies, and offers some more information on the reinforcements mentioned in the trailer. If accurate, it suggests that you’ll be able to call in vehicles, supply drops, and air support – V1 rockets, Artillery Strikes, and Strafing Runs against enemy positions. Again, none of this is confirmed yet, but there are enough comparisons between the two that I’m willing to offer it the benefit of the doubt for now.
Related: Here’s our list of the best battle royale games
The one thing missing from those leaks is a release date. We’re expecting a spring arrival for Firestorm, but EA has remained pretty quiet until now, and we’re approaching mid-March already (I swear it was Christmas yesterday). I’ve also got to question the timing attached to all this – by the time Battlefield actually gets its battle royale, it’ll be the last major shooter to do so. The mode is arriving incredibly late, and while Apex Legends is proof that you can still carve out a space in the genre, that at least had the advantage of a surprise release and a non-existent price-tag – advantages that Firestorm definitely doesn’t have.