Battlefield 1 Leak Confirms World War I Setting [Updated]

[Update: Official Battlefield 1 reveal trailer (and Call of Duty comparisons) here!]

Electronic Arts was doing so well in keeping information about the new Battlefield game from developer DICE under wraps. In fact, the company was doing so much better than Activision, who had reports and leaks about this year’s Call of Duty being set in space and including a Modern Warfare remaster long before it was all announced officially with the Infinite Warfare trailer earlier this week.

That didn’t stop fans speculating wildly about what Battlefield 4 followup would involve though. Will it be a return to Bad Company? Will it go back in time? Or could it be more futuristic to compete with its rival in Call of Duty? While gamers waited, details for the new Battlefield game have leaked ahead of the planned official reveal coming in the next few minutes.

As reported by Polygon, a screenshot showed up on the Xbox Store’s trending section, featuring a soldier in the typical Battlefield art style armed with a 20^th Century pistol, a rifle, and a spiked trench club. An hour after that was discovered, alleged marketing material was posted onto Reddit, reveraling that the game is actually called Battlefield 1 and that it will be released October 18 – the busiest month for video games this year since PlayStation VR, Mafia III and Gears of War 4 are debuting then as well. Crucially, that date is also more than two weeks from Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare’s release.

The promotional material also says there will be a pre-order bonus called the Hellfighter Pack and include items inspired by the U.S. Army’s 369^th Infantry Regiment, also known as the Harlem Hellfighters.

On the official side of things, the tiniest of Battlefield 5 (we now know it’s not called that…) teasers was posted yesterday in anticipation for the world premiere and emphasized that the next Battlefield will showcase some incredible graphics. Even though the actual footage was short, showing a glimpse of what might be the protagonist’s face, subtitles confirm that it was in-game engine footage. Uncharted 4 is currently being heralded as the best looking game there has been so far on modern consoles, and Battlefield might just try and match that if not better it.

Stick around to find out if this is all true as the official Battlefield reveal happens from and you can watch the live stream below.

Watch live video from Battlefield on www.twitch.tv

Any trailer shown must impress too, especially after comments made by a member of DICE’s development team about how bad he thought Infinite Warfare reveal looked. Roland Smedberg, Senior Video and Media Director/Editor at EA Dice said that it looked like a game from 10 years ago. Not long after those comments a fan campaign launched a mass downvote of the trailer. Fans are apparently upset for various reasons, including a ‘too futuristic’ setting, that it doesn’t look good enough and that the Modern Warfare remaster is not being sold separately. It had such an impact that Activision eventually issued an official response which Eurogamer posted:

“We know there are people in our community who are nostalgic for the boots on the ground-style gameplay, and that’s why we made Modern Warfare Remastered. But we also have millions of people in our community who want to have new innovative experiences in the game each year and Infinite Warfare is going to deliver that.

The good news is this year we found a way to deliver both in one package while keeping our community together. While of course we see the passionate opinions online, we also look at other measurements and the fact is that while it’s very early pre-orders are off to a very strong start. Views of the reveal trailer that you referred to are up. And in fact, the number of likes per view on the Infinite Warfare trailer are the highest we’ve ever seen.

We’ve seen this in the franchise before. The reveal trailer for Black Ops 2, which took the franchise into the future for the first time, had the most dislikes of any reveal trailer we had ever made at that time. And that of course went on to become our most successful game, ever.”

With one franchise going back to explore historic events and the other launching in sci-fi as well as trying to perfect its own past, the Battlefield v Call of Duty face off could be the most interesting yet this year.

Sources: DICE, Polygon, Eurogamer