This 'Battlefield 5' Reveal Trailer Has Me More Confused Than Hyped

Credit: EA/DICE

What on earth is going on with Battlefield 5? DICE revealed the WWII shooter today in an awkward reveal event hosted by The Daily Show's Trevor Noah.

By the end of the event, I'm more confused than ever.

Let's get the good stuff out of the way first, before diving into the rest.

  • There will be no premium pass, so everybody gets to play all the maps just by owning the base game. That's excellent.
  • There are no "pay-to-win" micro-transactions. This is also good, though DICE revealing that like it's some big triumph is just absurd. The crowd cheering that a major shooter won't have pay-to-win elements is also absurd. This shouldn't even be a question and it certainly shouldn't be a selling point.
  • The graphics look amazing, though I'm not sure if anything in the reveal trailer (below) was actual gameplay. Looked pretty scripted to me. The game will undoubtedly look very pretty, though.
  • Co-op is back. That's cool.
  • You can use toolkits to build stuff like fox-holes on the battlefield. Also cool.
  • Grand Operations sound very cool---multi-stage, multi-mode clashes that sound even more epic than Operations.
  • It's very squad-focused, which could be good or bad I suppose.

There's more, but I want to get to the actual trailer. Watch it below:

Okay, so I've watched this a few times, and I have to say...I have no clue what's going on. It's absolutely stunning. Graphically it's one of the most gorgeous looking games I've ever seen.

But what on earth is going on? Is this a multiplayer trailer or a single-player trailer? It looks like multiplayer, with various MP cues popping up on the HUD (like 'Squad Spawn' and so forth) but there are scripted scenes. Dialogue.

Also, is this an alternate history WWII? The British lady has a mechanical arm. Another soldier has a katana strapped to his back---but we're clearly in the European theater of the war, not Japan.

The tone here is all over the map. The trailer is big and bombastic and crazy. At one point a soldier tosses a grenade back the way it came and the 'player' shoots it in mid-flight, blowing up a low-flying enemy plane in the process. The characters are all outlandish looking. Lots of face paint. Colorful uniforms.

Credit: EA/DICE

Is this supposed to be a big, goofy take on WWII? Is this supposed to be a Bad Company style game that doesn't take itself seriously? Or is the vast, immersive, serious-sounding version of the Great War that the developers made it sound like in the reveal presentation?

All told, I'm left feeling both confused and not all that excited. I'm willing to have my mind changed, but I'm not sure going from WWI to WWII is going to be a big enough change. I think I'd be more excited if this was a Vietnam-era game, or some other historical conflict. WWII is fine---it's a fascinating war and I understand why it makes for a great video game setting---but we just had Call of Duty: WWII last year and Battlefield 1 the year before that.

I think if this was being marketed as a purposefully outlandish or steampunk version of WWII I'd be more excited. A full-on steampunk WWII setting in Frostbite 3 with epic battles, zeppelins and mecha-limbs would be incredible. Right now, though, I'm just not sure what it is we just witnessed. And I'm not sure how to feel about this game at all.

But hey, it sure is pretty. Check out screenshots below:

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