Battlefield 1

Battlefield 1 marked DICE's bold return to the World War I era after previous entries had long focused on modern and near-future conflicts, delivering one of the most striking audiovisual portrayals of that conflict in video games ever. The opening sequence alone, in which the player progressively dies as one soldier after another while their names and dates appear on screen, made it clear the game didn't want to be a typical gung-ho shooter. The single-player campaign split its narrative into several standalone stories called War Stories, each following a different character and front, from a tank crewman at the Battle of Cambrai through an Italian mountain soldier to a British fighter pilot, emphasizing the human, personal tragedy of the great conflict rather than a single linear campaign.

Multiplayer, the series' key focus, offered massive battles of up to sixty-four players on sprawling maps with destructible environments, dynamic weather including sandstorms, and legendary Behemoth vehicles like an airship or an armored train, activated for the team in a significantly worse match position. Alongside classic Conquest and Rush modes came Operations, long multi-map battles with a gradually shifting front line that best captured the war's trench-warfare character. Weapons and equipment faithfully reflected the more primitive but brutal nature of World War I weaponry, from bayonet charges through gas attacks to cumbersome early tanks, and the inaccuracy of period rifles pushed players into closer, riskier combat.

The Frostbite graphics engine achieved on Xbox One one of the most striking renderings of wartime chaos of the generation — the sound of artillery and villages turning into muddy wastelands became the game's signature. Battlefield 1 is generally regarded as one of the best-received entries in the entire series thanks to its atmosphere, theme, and technical execution. The game stayed alive for a long time thanks to expansions bringing new nations and maps, and many players still consider it the last truly great old-school Battlefield.