"Battlefield 1," a video game by DICE, is a first-person shooter game that is set in World War I. What's good about this game is that it realistically depicts what happened in the war in an entertaining and educational manner.
According to CBC News, "Battlefield 1" somehow goes against the usually take of video games where it deals with "fantasies of power." The opening prologue of the game shows a realistic aspect of the war with a touch of education.
Players are plunged into a middle of a battlefield where they are to defend a position from the advancing German army. Once killed, the name of the soldier, along with the year he was born and the year he died will be flashed.
Then the player is again placed in the role of another soldier in another part of the battlefield. The point that the video game is doing here is that it shows how the war took the lives of young men, all of whom was never given any chance for a moment of glory.
Of course not everything is realistic, as the game also provides a dramatic effect with a lot of hand-to-hand combat. A lot of the kills in the actual war happened between people who never saw each other face to face, as a lot of the deaths occurred during shell fire.
There were also a lot of moments in the game where players get to play a soldier who performs a lot of conventional acts of heroism. This part somehow puts the game in line with the more conventional war game in the market.
The Verge reports that "Battlefield 1" is also good at balancing the entertainment aspect of the game in rewarding players with kills and in the education aspect with its anti-war tone. The game lets players see and experience, as realistically as possible, what was it like to be part of World War I.
"Battlefield 1" allows the players to progress in the game and be rewarded with a level up system, upgradeable firearm cache and kill counters. But it also "goes to great lengths" to remind players of the "dehumanizing aspect of the war."
An example of this is the bayonet charge of the game. The players' character sounds conflicted, simultaneously being tormented by the thought of running a sharp object into the throat of unsuspecting enemy soldier.
Though the realistic element of the "Battlefield 1" makes it somehow unsettling and uncomfortable to play at times, it does provide an entertaining and educational video game. For those looking for a more accurate depiction of World War I, "Battlefield 1" is for you.
