Battlefield 5 War Stories Aren’t Different “Just for the Sake of It”
Since the first few announcements about Battlefield 5, DICE has said that its presentation of WWII will be different. Rather than re-imagine the famous battles, events, and theatres which most people are familiar with; the developers instead chose to focus on those that weren’t well-known for the Battlefield 5 War Stories. According to Design Director Eric Holmes, however, the team’s decision wasn’t to be different “just for the sake of it.”
Exploring Untold Stories: The Battlefield 5 War Stories
From the early stages of planning for Battlefield 5, the developers chose to bypass the best-known parts of the war. One need only look at the plethora of existing films, TV series, and games to see those things. Instead, DICE would be focusing on the “untold stories”; important parts of the colossal conflict which nonetheless have received little attention; “That drove us to do a lot of research into places and things that we didn’t know and were surprised and struck by when we found about them,” says Eric Holmes; “we decided when we would tell a War Story, for example, we’d either go to somewhere you’ve never seen or… be someone you hadn’t heard about.”
This is why Battlefield 5 emphasises events like the Nazi occupation of Norway, or the story of colonial troops fighting for France. Even the Under No Flag War Story, which features British forces, involves the Special Boat Section; a lesser-known branch of the Royal Navy; “The team was motivated by the magnitude of WW2, and not to be different just for the sake of it,” says DICE; “They wanted to chronicle the historical period in single-player via ‘different voices, different nationalities, and different adventures,’ that draw on unfamiliar struggles.”
As was the case with Battlefield 1, which the developers learned much from, the War Stories won’t be lighthearted romps. The four stories don’t shy away from portraying the grim realities of the conflict; “We’re not afraid of digging into the heavy topics,” says Pelle Hallert, Cinematic Director at DICE; “To me, that’s our strength, that we dare to grasp this, to show and portray the war from sides you haven’t seen before.”