Battlefield V Beta Impressions

Well, that was quite a beta in it's truest sense. Server errors and bugs abounded in the Battlefield V beta. I was unable to play it at all during one of the days. The battlefield was littered with dead players contorted in all sorts of weird positions based on bad object collisions. That being said, while the game at times had bugs, this was after all just a beta. EA was testing the servers and is still making polish changes. For the most part, for a game of this caliber, I expect the server issues and bugs to be ironed out by launch or at least soon after. What matters most, is how is the GAME? Is it beautiful? Why yes the maps and environments look stunning, especially in beautiful 4K on Xbox One X. Is the game FUN?

(Check out the latest trailer above.)

Well, that's where I may get some flack, and I'll have to see the how the final product arrives. Let me ask you, can a combat simulation game be almost too realistic where it is almost boring? At the end of the day, I'm playing a game and I want to run around and have "fun". Battlefield V makes the actual combat mechanic too realistic where it is actually quite boring. It made me react and act like I would expect to act if there were actual gunfire around me in a real war zone. What do I mean by that?, well "time to kill" in this game is the most ridiculous I have seen in a video game EVER. The very nano second you start to take damage, you DIE. If you play games that give you some time to dodge or react, this game will cause to throw your controller. This might be balanced if it was easy to spot each other in the game, but it really isn't. There is absolutely no red outline or even a red dot exposing your enemies. If you are seen, you are dead. While this may sound like fun or just an added challenge, like a super hard core mode; it's really just not fun dying a lot more than typical shooters. Here's partly why, for a game that is punishingly hard to survive, it double punishes you for dying. On top of a respawn time, you also have to first bleed out. Battlefield V introduced the bleed out mechanic where team members can revive you shortly after death. The problem with this is only a small percentage of players even care. I can't tell you how many times I laid there on the ground bleeding out when surrounded by dozens of players sat around me doing nothing. For a combat sim so focused on squads and teamwork, the player base just doesn't care. So every time you die, which will be often and from super far away, it takes twice as long to respawn as it did in BF1. I remember once parachuting in and dying before I hit the ground. You will spend this game on the respawn screen or cowering in a corner trying to not get nicked by a stray bullet from an enemy half way across the map unseen. This is paired with non regenerating health if you do manage to survive, and let's say you do manage to survive your first encounter with enemy. Maybe you catch them from behind and manage to shoot the painfully inaccurate WWII era weapons and kill them, guess what? You are now out of ammo after one or two engagements. Machine guns are spawning with something like 30 ammo. If you survive the first encounter you will die the next one just because you have no more bullets. If you don't believe me on how much ridiculous game death is in this game, just look at how many "respawns" are given to each side: Over 700! That means just in one (painfully slow) 40 minute round, they expect there to be 1400 deaths in a single match. How is running around being killed by far away unseen enemies when you have no more bullets left supposed to be fun? I haven't seen a game this broken on time to death and gun kill distance since the first Battlefront reboot. Dice seems to like this style and maybe it is just not my thing. If you like being insta-killed one-shotted by invisible silent enemies with 20 second respawns than maybe BFV is for you.

These are all things that can be tweaked and improved in a final release. Visually the game is mostly good. The vehicle combat is super fun as always in a BF game, it's the only time you don't feel like a delicate flower on the map, especially as anti vehicle weapons seem scarce and absent. My only criticism on the visuals is the lighting and contrast, especially when going from inside and outside. Again this is when realism distracts from a fun gameplay experience. On one map the sun is so bright, it makes outside difficult to see; and even harder when you transition indoors, you are now blind from the dark. It's almost like they are mimicking real light adjustment in the players eyes and it's just painful. Dark rooms are too dark and outside needs some sun glasses. At the end of the day, Battlefield V still needs a lot of tweaks before I can recommend it come November. Stay tuned for the latest Battlefield V news right here on Game Infinite.