DICE’s new entry in the “Battlefield” series has been hyped since its reveal in May, and the beta, which ended Sept. 8th, has only propelled that hype.

The thing that really enthralled players was the idea of having a big gaming company make a game based off a virtually untouched era: World War One. WWI has only been tackled a handful of times, namely the PC shooter “Verdun,” but never on a large scale until now. Although the first days were plagued with bugs, “Battlefield 1” has surely made its intended mark on players.   

“Battlefield 1” has sufficiently made the leap to the current generation, and will be hard to run on computers with low specs. Unfortunate for some, but wonderful for most, as the dynamic weather changes are truly top notch on ultra quality. Even though the beta only sported one map and two match styles, the game held attention for a very long time.

Truly it was the one map that eventually turned a few away from the game, not the lack of game styles. The map was a desert map that pitted the Ottoman Empire against British forces. In Conquest, where players were expected to capture points using tanks, planes, armored cars, and on foot, it got quite hectic, even when players were not being battered by an exceptional sandstorm. In Rush, where players were supposed to disarm listening posts at different objectives, it was less hectic but more one-sided, usually favoring whatever team was assaulting and not defending.

Even with a lot of content missing from beta, the game was enjoyable. There wasn’t much customization in beta, but what DICE has reported to be in the full game looks exciting. Another exciting addition is the lack of battlelog for players. Customization can now be done in-game, and it keeps PC players from having to find game servers through the browser, a sure hit for the PC “Battlefield” community.   

Given DICE’s bad reputation of bugs and glitches, it is no surprise that the beta started off rough, with the servers down for 14 hours and an particularly annoying bug where parties would either join different games or get thrown back to the main menu screen, but the beta turned itself around quite nicely. A few graphical errors persisted throughout the time of the beta, but hopefully DICE will get it fixed before release, and avoid the disaster that the launch of “Battlefield 4.” Still, it is recommended to wait and buy the game a few days after launch, to let the extent of issues become known. All things considered, it is a good idea not to pre-order games anymore.

Platforms: PC, Xbox One, PS4

Reviewed on PC

Price: $59.99 on release day, October 21