DICE aims to wow ‘Battlefield 1’ players with historically accurate weaponry

DICE has released a new video detailing the weapons set to be included in Battlefield 1. The next entry in the venerable first-person shooter (FPS) franchise is set during World War I, which means that the armaments players will be using are quite different from the modern weaponry that’s been the focus in the last few installments.

Speaking in the video, era game designer Martin Kopparhed makes reference to the “huge variety of weapons in this war,” many of which the team at DICE has added to the game. In the clip, we see everything from rifles to submachine guns, with grenade launchers and stationary turrets to boot.

“We’ve done extensive research in order to re-create these weapons,” adds design director Lars Gustavsson. “Both in how they sound, what they feel like, how you handle them, in order to re-create them to perfection.”

Combat in Battlefield 1 isn’t just limited to ranged weapons. The trench warfare of the real-life conflict meant that getting up close and personal was often unavoidable, and the game features brutal implements spanning from bayonets to clubs in order to reflect that.

The video also reveals that certain members of the DICE team have been looking forward to working on a project like Battlefield 1 for more than a decade, so there’s long been an undercurrent of research into weaponry from the era.

There was once a time when historical combat dominated the FPS genre, but the enormous success of Call of Duty 4: Modern Warfare prompted a shift toward contemporary hostilities. Now, Battlefield and Call of Duty are taking two very different approaches in order to break the monotony — while the former is revisiting World War I, this year’s Infinite Warfare will take Call of Duty far into the future.

It will certainly be interesting to see which effort comes out on top this holiday season. While the first trailer for Infinite Warfare prompted backlash from fans, everything we’ve seen from Battlefield 1 looks rather promising.