On the topic of Battlefield 1 and playable nations.

[Sonmi]

Most people having basic knowledge of World War 1 would know that the heart of the Allies was the Triple Entente, an alliance between France, the Russian Empire, and Great Britain. They are the countries on the side of the Allies who participated the most to the war effort, and who in return also took the most casualties. DICE's Battlefield series finally decided to cover the war to change all wars with Battlefield 1, but to be completely fair, their choices in terms of playable factions is extremely questionable.

While the Central Powers are perfectly represented with the Germans, the Austro-Hungarians, and the Ottomans all being playable, the bright people at DICE decided that the Allies would be well represented with the Brits, which should absolutely be there, the Americans, which raises eyebrows, and the Italians, which is baffling.

Now, both of the Americans and the Italians absolutely had their role to play during WW1, but I think it's frankly absurd to add either of them before the French, who were along with the Brits the most active Allies on the Western front, or the freaking Russians, who were pretty much alone on the Eastern front against the Austrians and the Germans. I understand that both of those nations might later be added as DLC, but I'm nonetheless pissed that they would be left out, even if temporarily, in a game with any minimal pretense of historicity.

I might be overreacting, but I somewhat expected better of DICE here.

EDIT: Here's the tweet where they confirm the playable factions for MP:

https://twitter.com/Battlefield/status/742475469140824064

 

[Saelune]

Well, I was going to say "American company, American focus" but DICE are Swedish, though maybe they wanted to appeal to either EA (who are US based) or just general US centralism. I'm not surprised about that though at all.

I am not as informed on WWI though, but cant say why France is underrepresented and Italy over.

 

[Sonmi]

Well, I was going to say "American company, American focus" but DICE are Swedish, though maybe they wanted to appeal to either EA (who are US based) or just general US centralism. I'm not surprised about that though at all.

I am not as informed on WWI though, but cant say why France is underrepresented and Italy over.

The Americans being in is most certainly due to American cultural hegemony. It's considerably easier to sell the game to Americans if it stars Americans, historical accuracy be damned.

As for Italy and France, Eastern France and Belgium were pretty much the main battlegrounds of the Western Front, it was extremely important, and the French supplied considerably more troops (and consequently lost much more as well). In terms of manpower and casualties, they are only second to Russia, as far as the Allies are concerned. The Italian Front, in comparison, was a much smaller part of the war.

 

[Lennac]

Call of Duty: World at War featured America v Japan and Russia v Germany. It entirely excluded the Western Front in Europe. The same rationalization could be used for excluding the Eastern front and the Russians. I can't say too much to the inclusion of Italy, especially over France... but previous games have often excluded one front of an entire war before. And though I don't know the intimate details of the game itself, I do know that the Western front and Eastern front were very different from a tactical point of view with trench warfare never really being developed in the same way as the Western front.

A final piece of speculation would be that the Western front was far from decisive. Even when the Germans "lost" the Entente never crossed Germany's borders whereas Russia eventually collapsed entirely. Maybe the developers want to avoid a campaign with a decisive "end"? Especially if they're focusing on a single-player campaign from the perspective of the "good guys" er... Triple Entente. All speculation and just trying to get the details of the game to make sense.

 

[Breakdown]

I'd guess that some of the main participants have been held back for DLC. Maybe more people would be willing to buy DLC related to France and Russia rather than Italy.

 

[TheMysteriousGX]

France might still be hampered by the "cheese-eating surrender-monkeys" stereotype relatively prevelant in US society.

As far as Russia goes, trying to place a video game narrative around the Russian Revolution could be a metaphorical minefield.

 

[Zhukov]

Call me crazy, but I kind of like how they're including some lesser known aspects of WWI.

Playable Ottomans? Hell yes.

Sure, France and Russia would have been nice to see and obviously the Americans got in because of 'Murica, but that's the reality of the business that I've come to accept.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

I'm gu

 

[DrownedAmmet]

Call me crazy, but I kind of like how they're including some lesser known aspects of WWI.

Playable Ottomans? Hell yes.

Sure, France and Russia would have been nice to see and obviously the Americans got in because of 'Murica, but that's the reality of the business that I've come to accept.

Me too, I remember being a wee lad and playing one of the PS2 WWII games where you play as Canadians and thinking "Since when did Canada fight in WWII?"

But they definitely should include France just so people can finally get over that French surrendering bullshit. In both world wars it took almost the entire rest of the world to defeat Germany, I don't know what more you could expect from France who was land-locked with them. Britain would have been just as fucked if they weren't separated by water

 

[Evonisia]

It kinda sucks that they take focus away from the biggest players, but at the same time so many war games (particularly World War II games) ignore massive chunks of their war anyway so DICE's decision to focus on the lesser players is at least interesting. But given the small number of World War I games, shooters particularly, I suppose we haven't been inundated with the big players to the point of oversaturation like we have with, say, Britain/USA/Russia vs Germany in WWII.

 

[Faaip]

I'm starting to wonder if they're just going to focus on another theater of the war (at least in the SP campaign).. that would explain why they chose not to include France and I think it'd be a bit admirable to turn the focus away from the part of the war everyone knows.

Though if that's the reason the inclusion of the US is still confusing.. I'm sure they're just holding France for DLC

Me too, I remember being a wee lad and playing one of the PS2 WWII games where you play as Canadians and thinking "Since when did Canada fight in WWII?"

CoD 3? I thought it was pretty cool that they focused the whole game around the Battle of France and included some lesser known participants (Canadian, Polish, etc). I wish the game was better though..

 

[TotalerKrieger]

The inclusion of the Americans is not surprising despite the fact that they really only fought from July-August to November. Lets just forget that their officer corps largely ignored the advice of their battle experienced allies and got a lot of fresh troops pointlessly killed in the waning months and days of the war simply for "glory" (ie: to add combat experience to their career record). As Sonmi so succinctly put it, American cultural hegemony and commercial implications take precedent over history...

The absence of the French in a WWI game is a real slap in the face to that nation. Their contribution to the war effort was massive, the Entente would have unquestionably lost to the Central Powers without them. The Italians eventually played their role, but when compared to the French they were a minor player in the overall conflict.

The Russians should have also been included given the scale of their contribution (they supposedly had the largest army and airforce in the world at the beginning of the war), but their absence is less baffling given their severe morale problems and subsequent withdrawal from the conflict. Still, they successfully carried out several major offensives early in the war and probably deserve to be in the game more than the Italians or US...

The gameplay trailer/clips for BF1 are certainly visually impressive (that zeppelin going down, wow), but as I expected, the game has really failed to capture the dynamics and atmosphere associated with the Great War. I might give it a try given how impressive the visuals are, but it really seems like a WWI flavoured playground rather than a remotely serious depiction of the war. I'll continue to go with Verdun to get a slightly more genuine WWI FPS experience.

 

[Bob_McMillan]

This is coming from a person who just has the most basic education on WWI, but a reasoning I thought of is that the battles fought in France and by the French were trench warfare-y battles, and DICE has made it clear that they want to shy away from that. Feel free to correct me if I'm wrong, this is just conjecture.

As for the Russians, well, I'd much prefer them over the Italians, but the Russians have been a faction in Battlefield since forever. I think they only games they might not be in are Vietnam and 2142. I guess DICE thought that Italians would be a nice change of pace. As for the Americans... well, Murica.

 

[Zykon TheLich_v1legacy]

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[pookie101]

im gathering they might be leaving the anzacs until dlc as well.

ah i just read a few seconds ago that the french will be a special 'premium expansion dlc"

 

[Sonmi]

OP, there are 4 Central Power... not 3. You are missing one.

There were, but like Italy, Bulgaria joined in relatively late, and was one of the weaker members of its side.

Bulgaria not being in is understandable, I'd personally put Canada/Australia/India (though I believe they do count as British in-game), Serbia, or Belgium as a playable nation before I'd add Bulgaria, to be honest, as well as the obvious France and Russia.

im gathering they might be leaving the anzacs until dlc as well.

ah i just read a few seconds ago that the french will be a special 'premium expansion dlc"

Glad to see they weren't completely forgotten, hiding them behind a paywall is still BS though, and I suspect the Russians will suffer the same fate.

 

[JUMBO PALACE]

The Americans being in is most certainly due to American cultural hegemony. It's considerably easier to sell the game to Americans if it stars Americans, historical accuracy be damned.

You know, not all of us are gun-toting right wingers who list "jingoism" under hobbies and special skills and only support 'Merican troops.

That aside, I agree with you. In comparison to other nations the US' involvement in the war was minimal. The only explanation other than "America, fuck yeah" is that DICE decided to focus on particular theaters/battles for the campaign and is carrying the involved factions over into multiplayer. At least I hope so. Maybe I'm giving US citizens too much credit...

 

[Sonmi]

If you wanna make the WW1 job be done correctly, you would put all Unfortunately, it is hard to do that. Still, due to the technological and strategic prowess on display and the battles where supposedly superior forces were slaughtered... it would still make for good content. As would Osowiec Fortress BTW, which IDK why is not aped by DICE...

I agree though, I can tolerate us not being there, but forgetting France and Russia (and putting in America before those two) is utter stupidity. But hey such is life in the dominated by illiterate Western Monolingual imperialists gaming culture (not you OP, am ranting).

Agreed about needing everything for the War to be represented accurately, in most WW1 games there is sadly a focus on the Western front and the Eastern front though, which means theatres like Serbia or Arabia are mostly underrepresented. Outside of a grand strategy game like Hearts of Iron but for WW1 (which would be a godsend), I doubt we'll see Bulgaria as playable anytime soon, unless someone decides to make a WW1 game solely focused on Serbia.

The Americans being in is most certainly due to American cultural hegemony. It's considerably easier to sell the game to Americans if it stars Americans, historical accuracy be damned.

You know, not all of us are gun-toting right wingers who list "jingoism" under hobbies and special skills and only support 'Merican troops.

That aside, I agree with you. In comparison to other nations the US' involvement in the war was minimal. The only explanation other than "America, fuck yeah" is that DICE decided to focus on particular theaters/battles for the campaign and is carrying the involved factions over into multiplayer. At least I hope so. Maybe I'm giving US citizens too much credit...

I apologize if it sounded like I implied that all Americans were of the patriotic "Fuck yeah!" sensibility, I simply meant that there were enough of them to make the United States a playable faction profitable.

DICE deciding to focus on certain theatres for campaigns would justify leaving the Russians out, but would still leave the French underrepresented on the Western Front, which is pretty much the only theatre where the Americans were active.