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Battlefield's best stories have always been found when there are some 63 others screaming mad by your side. Playing as the lone soldier holed up in the attic of a villa, wiping out an entire squad as they rush to take a capture point; manning the AA gun on a rocky island outlet and sending a fighter plane tumbling down into the rolling seas; or spotting the silhouette of a lone horseman appearing through the fog that has just crept upon a mortar-chewed village. These are tales worth retelling. All the better when they're played out in fancy dress. Whether that's been the khaki slacks of the original 1942, the mecha keks of 2142 or the jungle fatigues it let you don for Vietnam, Battlefield's always been at its best when it's got a neat costume to hand. It's no surprise to see the series back on top of its game, then, with Battlefield 1, DICE's attempt to explore the relative No Man's Land of the First World War. It has even narrowed the gap between the superb multiplayer and the typically weak single-player, though the campaign still trips over itself in its attempts to appear respectful to what's perceived as difficult subject matter.
There are no great wars, of course, but The Great War stands as one of the grimmest of them all. The conflict that claimed some 38 million casualties as it engulfed the globe from 1914 to 1918 was a messy, morally murky affair that's said to have served as the foundation for modern warfare by those who fetishise military hardware. It certainly predicated the senselessness of so much combat that would follow, with innocents being sent out to slaughter by blundering politicians.
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