In this week’s newsletter: The series is known for its massive multiplayer shootouts, but there’s a missed opportunity to tell a meaningful story about war
A
nd so Battlefield is back. The long-running military shooter series, which specialises in gigantic online multiplayer conflicts involving dozens of ground troops, tanks and aircraft, has returned for its sixth main instalment – and it’s thrilling, epic and compulsive.
Apart from the single-player campaign mode, which I absolutely hated. It’s another oh-so-familiar tale of preternaturally talented soldiers just doing their jobs to defend the free world in the face of evil private military companies, terror organisations or double-crossing CIA operatives. It could be almost any military shooter of the last decade or any straight-to-streaming war film starring one of the Hemsworths. But it’s not. It’s a seven-hour cliche bombardment that you have to take an active part in.
The thing is, nobody buys Battlefield for the campaign mode. In fact, most games in the series haven’t had one. So this was a chance for the developers to experiment a little, try something new or even subversive. The mainstream movie biz may have been equally guilty of dressing up jingoistic celebrations of the military-industrial complex as thrilling action flicks, but it has also produced Paths of Glory, M*A*S*H and The Deer Hunter. While Battlefield 6 does make the occasional nod towards the less-than-ideal circumstances of modern hybrid warfare, you don’t care much because the characters are cardboard cut-outs with no backstories who speak in nonstop military jargon.
