Battlefield 1

Did You Know?

• The Battlefield 1 reveal trailer became the most liked trailer on YouTube as of May 9, 2016, with over 2 million likes.
• The cover art for the In the Name of the Tsar DLC features Vendela Lindblom, the Playmate of the Month for the January 2019 issue of Playboy.
• Electronic Arts expected the game to sell at least 14 million units in its first year of release.

Campaigns

The single-player campaign consists of six separate War Stories, each shown through the eyes of different Allied soldiers. The prologue, Storm of Steel, is set on the Western Front through the eyes of several American Harlem Hellfighters. Through Mud and Blood takes place at the Battle of Cambrai through a British tank driver. Friends in High Places is set in France and the UK through a Royal Flying Corps fighter pilot.

Avanti Savoia is set in the Italian Alps through a member of the Arditi. The Runner takes place on the Gallipoli Peninsula through an ANZAC runner. Nothing is Written is set in the Arabian Desert through a Bedouin warrior under Lawrence of Arabia. In the prologue, set in 1918, the player controls different Harlem Hellfighters defending against a German offensive during the Second Battle of the Marne.

The player must survive waves of German soldiers; if they survive, an artillery barrage hits, and the perspective shifts to another soldier. An unnamed narrator gives commentary on the war as the battle continues and player-controlled soldiers are killed.

Development

Game designer Daniel Berlin stated the team chose World War I because the weapons and gadgets suit different playstyles. The game was named Battlefield 1 because the team considered World War I the dawn of all-out warfare. Melee weapons were reworked to add more depth. Creative director Lars Gustavsson said the setting had been a concept for a long time and a dream for the team.

Berlin said gameplay was the most important aspect and promised it would not be slowed by the historical setting. The story is told through multiple protagonists exploring unknown war heroes. Patrick Söderlund, the executive at Electronic Arts overseeing DICE, originally rejected the idea of a World War I shooter, thinking it would not be fun, but accepted after a demo. He cited Apocalypse: World War I, a 2014 colorized French documentary, and World War I in Colour by Charles Messenger as influences.

His big inspiration was Blueprint for Armageddon, a six-part audio documentary by Dan Carlin. Prior to release, PC Gamer showed an early version to historian Alex Churchill, who identified historical inaccuracies while noting such deviations are typical of video games.

Downloadable content

DICE released four downloadable content expansions: They Shall Not Pass, In the Name of the Tsar, Turning Tides, and Apocalypse. They Shall Not Pass, announced in December 2016 and released March 14, 2017, focuses on the French Army with four maps set at Verdun and the Second Battle of the Marne: Fort de Vaux, Soissons, Rupture, and Verdun Heights. It adds new weapons, vehicles, the Char 2C behemoth, and the Trench Raider elite class. Two additional maps, Nivelle Nights and Prise de Tahure, were released in Summer 2017.

In the Name of the Tsar focuses on the Russian Empire, with a female soldier representing the Women's Battalion. It includes four maps on the Eastern Front—Lupkow Pass, Galicia, Brusilov Keep, and Albion—and two maps set in the Russian Civil War: Tsaritsyn and Volga River. It adds 11 infantry weapons, new vehicles, and a Cavalry Lance. The expansion was released September 5, 2017, for Premium Pass, with a worldwide release two weeks later.