Battlefield 1 World War 1 setting initially rejected by EA brass

The Battlefield series' surprise move to a World War 1 setting was initially a concern for EA Studios chief Patrick Soderlund, who feared that trench warfare "can't be fun to play".

As Gamespot report suggests that Soderlund has since changed his mind after rejecting DICE's first pitch. "If you look at what other partners in the industry are doing, they're going into sci-fi; we've had a lot of success in the modern military space. But we felt like there was a need for a change."

That change will apply the Battlefield formula to a technological era rarely explored by games. Old planes, flamethrowers and tanks can be seen in the debut trailer, which is largely free of trenches. Our in-house Battlefield specialist John Strike cast a keen eye over every frame, and came away excited about the new direction.

There's no in-game footage yet, though we can hope for more at E3 next month. We do know there will be a server browser, however, along with the expected suite of microtransactions and map packs.

Tom Senior

Part of the UK team, Tom was with PC Gamer at the very beginning of the website's launch—first as a news writer, and then as online editor until his departure in 2020. His specialties are strategy games, action RPGs, hack ‘n slash games, digital card games… basically anything that he can fit on a hard drive. His final boss form is Deckard Cain.