The initial trailer of Battlefield V was met with a host of criticism for not being nearly authentic enough. The trailer featured a woman with a prosthetic arm so that is not at all surprising that there were people who found a fault in that and were willing to voice their opinion. However, the Closed Alpha is out now and these are our Battlefield V closed alpha impressions.
Our Battlefield V closed alpha impressions will be telling you about our experience with the game in the state that it is in right now and what improvements can be made as we head to the release date.
? The #Battlefield V Closed Alpha ends July 3, 14:00 UTC, so make sure to catch the squad action later today. We’re keen to hear what you thought, what you liked, and what we can improve: https://t.co/aLaUcLa490
— #Battlefield V (@Battlefield) July 2, 2018
Battlefield V Closed Alpha Impressions
The closed alpha for the game has gone live and as the name implies, only a few people are able to play it. The alpha is only for those who were invited and those people were sent out keys that they could redeem in Origin to playtest the game and provide feedback. This means that unless you are a famous YouTub-er or one of the lucky few who got the invite, you are probably not going to get a key.
Not everything is bad news though and EA have announced that they plan to include quite a lot of people in the tests that follow this one until the release of the game on Oct. 19 of this year. Let us go ahead and see what we gleaned from the alpha of Battlefield V.
Game Modes
Since this is a closed alpha and majority of the things like the main menu and the responsiveness of the settings, etc. will probably be made immensely better as we near the release, I believe it is better if we do not discuss them and instead focus on the actual game.
As soon as you load up the game and head into the play section, you notice that there are 2 different game modes that you can play. One of them is the classic Conquest Mode that anyone who has played the Battlefield series will be familiar with. It involves you moving in and capturing flags that the enemies can also capture.
Capturing the Flags and holding over half of them will make the enemy bleed respawn tickets. The first team that gets to 0 tickets is the loser and the other one is the winner.
Now for the second mode that is known as Grand Operations. This is a very interesting Multiplayer Mode that involves you doing a number of various different objectives. This is a very interesting game mode that can have multiple different things for you to do. For example, you will have to defend artillery from the enemy at the start of the mode and later on, the mode will automatically turn into the Conquest Mode that people are so familiar with. It will be very interesting to see how DICE refine this game mode until release and whether or not it is able to give the default game mode of Battlefield a run for its money.
Graphics
As soon as you load up into the game, the first thing you notice are the colors. Colors can be used to set the scene for the most part. For a survival game, they can make or break the mood of the player. 2 good examples of this are the early DayZ mod from ARMA 2, and RUST.
While DayZ dons its zombie-infested Chernaurus with grey colored buildings and dissonant music, RUST entertains the user with bright colors which seem to suggest the game is a lot more upbeat and prepares the player for human interactions that lie ahead.
Battlefield has always been a game that has tried to be as authentic as possible and that has meant that they have tried to use color tones which are almost de-saturated. This is done in most FPS games so that has not been a surprise. However, Battlefield V has taken a page out of RUST’s books and tried to make the game as colorful as possible.
The forests are absolutely beautiful as are the mountains. To top it all off, the snow particles look incredibly realistic and make fighting enemies a pure pleasure. If you like the way ARMA 3 and Escape from Tarkov look, then you will love Battlefield V.
Apart from this, the graphics look amazing as always and everything from the textures to the lighting looks exactly as a triple-A game with a multi-million dollar budget should look.
Gameplay
This is a place where written words are very difficult to use since they are not able to adequately express how the game actually feels. For the most part, the game feels exactly as a Battlefield game should and the way that we have been experiencing the game for the past many years. However, there do seem to be very slight tweaks here and there that make a massive difference by doing very little things such as smoothing the movement.
As you would know by now if you have been following the game, the game will be set in World War II so you will have access to weapons from those eras. You have the option to select both female and male characters when playing in multiplayer. There is not much information available as of now if you want to play the singleplayer campaign but that should be along the way sooner or later.
Sniping people is still a lot of fun and there are many places on each map that you can use to snipe people. The visibility of the maps is incredibly clear, especially when they are lathered in slow while the sun shines down. This will allow everyone to spot everyone else clearly that means that sniping from a far will be something that is incredibly fun for the snipers and incredibly annoying for everyone else.
There are other weapons in the game and they are quite fun to use. You have weapons such as the Assault Rifle that seems to pride itself on its accuracy when it is zoomed in. The SMGs are downright vicious when used in close range and seem quite a bit overpowered when firing from the hip. That could just be the people adjusting to the game and it will take a few tries to find out how strong the SMGs actually are.
The LMG is quite smooth and has a lot less recoil whereas the Medic gun is the same as it was in Battlefield 1. The weapons are not something that Battlefield has had much of a problem with, so you do not need to worry in that regard.
Mechanics
There seem to have been a few changes to the Battlefield V Conquest Mode. The game mode is still very much the same and completely stays faithful to its core, but certain changes have been made by the developers so as to encourage teams to work together more rather than stay apart from one another in a gigantic uncoordinated mess.
The first change that has been made is that you have extremely limited ammo. This means that you cannot go easily lone wolf into enemy territory, as you will need to refill your ammo from the supply stations scattered about on the map. You will also be able to pick up miniscule amounts of ammo from the enemies that you kill in the game.
Whenever you try to pick up ammo, there is a very smooth and satisfying animation where the player’s character uses his hand to swipe the ammo from the ground.
Health systems are also different now in the game. The biggest change that I have seen is the fact that often times when you take a hit, your health does not go all the way back up. It does regenerate but in order to completely heal back up to the maximum, you need to seek a medical station.
The classic ways of resupplying teammates with ammo and medics is still present, and you can make full use of the medics and the supports that exist in your squad. However, the low amount of ammo does mean that a Sniper may need to use a Support with him as he treks up the mountain to get to a vantage point from where he can see everyone.
Final Thoughts
EA have confirmed it to us that the game will not be featuring any Season Passes. That is a good idea since paid DLCs can often end up separating the player base into separate factions and thus reduce the amount of fun that can be had with the game. This continues the trend that we see in the games industry of developers going old school and providing DLCs for free rather than releasing half games and having the other half behind a paywall.
Overall, the game does feel similar to Battlefield 1 but that is to be expected with a yearly franchise. There are still enough differences for people to enjoy the game and the minor details added do give the game a good first impression. The graphics and the sound seem extremely amazing, as do the weapons.
For me, Battlefield has always been a game for people who want something a little more hardcore than Call of Duty but not something particularly difficult like Squad or Rising Storm and this game perfectly summarizes that.
Those are our Battlefield V Closed Alpha Impressions. Let us know your thoughts using the comments section below!
