Battlefield 5' Teaser Drops A Hint Ahead Of Reveal.

The Battlefield 5 announcement is coming later today, and EA has released the smallest bit of video it possibly can that still qualifies as “anything” to whet the internet’s collective appetite. We see a soldier in what we’re told is in-engine — but not in-game — footage, looking skywards to some sort of explosion: it doesn’t say much, but hasn’t stopped people from analyzing it, naturally. World War 1 has been rumored as a setting for months now: does this video give us any hints in that direction?

There had been rumblings of sci-fi, but at this point I would call that highly unlikely. Not only does EA haveTitanfall 2 and Star Wars: Battlefront to cover that particular base, this teaser just doesn’t seem to be leaning in that direction, scant though it may be. Some are taking this as “confirmation” of a WW1 setting, but I’d consider it to be more of a “suggestion,” with plenty of room for a fakeout if indeed DICE has one up its collective sleeve. But that olive colored clothing, and the soldier’s wide eyed amazement as he looks skyward to aerial weapons he might never have imagined before? Seems pretty WW1 to me.

People have been critical of Call of Duty: Infinite Warfarefollowing the reveal of its sci-fi setting, signalling some possible fatigue with the ever more fantastic shooters that we seem to be getting these days. If Battlefield 5 does indeed travel back in time past its roots to WWI, it will be making something of a strong statement in the other direction. Gameplay is a real challenge: the setting will have to be taken as inspiration for gamepaly systems rather than anything literal, because I don’t think anyone wants to spend their time just charging machine guns and dying. Though that is sort of how I play Battlefield anyways.