Battlefield V: Lightning Strikes

With the release of the second ‘chapter’ of the Tides of War feature, I figured it was time to write a brief update on the current state of the game. For those unaware, Tides of War is a series of weekly challenges, similar in style to the daily assignments. The chapter is split across multiple weeks, and each week will feature a unique set of challenges to complete.

By unlocking and completing each challenge along a branching path, you can earn a new weapon or cosmetic item every week until the end of the chapter. These challenges also grant you chapter experience, which contributes to a chapter unique level system. By progressing through this system you’ll unlock various weapon, character and vehicle skins.

Overall, I have to say I quite like the Tides of War feature. It’s a clever way of not only keeping the player base engaged, but also providing regular rewards for doing so. It’s also useful for encouraging players to try out different modes or classes, as some challenges are mode or class specific. That may be annoying if it forces you into playing a mode you don’t particularly enjoy, but the challenges are fairly easy (and fast) to knock out – I completed all of the week 1 challenges in a single session.

But as fun as the Tides of War challenges can be, they’re not really what Battlefield V needs. As I said in my review, what the game really needed post release was more content and polish. I’m pleased to say the game is in a much better state, with many of the bugs and technical issues fixed – it finally feels like the game has now moved out of the BETA state it was released in.

In terms of new content, we’ve had a new War Story added which, like the others, was a fun if forgettable experience. Whilst the War Stories may allow the developers to explore a variety of locations and characters, none of them are long or substantial enough to really make you care.

Also added into the game post release is a Practice Range which you wouldn’t think they could possibly f**k up but they somehow do. All I – and I’m sure many players – wanted was a simple shooting range where we could test every weapon, attachment and specialisation. And whilst this practice range does feature a shooting range it –

A) doesn’t allow you to hold more than one primary weapon at a time, so you can’t quickly switch between two for easy comparison B) doesn’t give you unlimited ammo, so you have to keep running back to an ammo station to resupply C) doesn’t let you experiment with various specialisations, some of which can radically change how a weapon handles D) has a very limited target range which makes practising with sniper rifles rather silly.

Hell, you can’t even select a weapon to test from an in-game rack but have to enter a shitty menu to find it. And, at the time of writing, you can’t even test the new weapons they’ve since added into the game. The Practice Range also has a really crap system for testing vehicles, with only a handful being available to practice in. There are several absolutely terrible mini-games though! Seriously, how do you f**k up something so simple?

There’s been one new map added to the game since release which is okay, I guess, but it’s currently only available in Conquest, which isn’t my mode of choice, so I’ve not played on it much. They also added in a new mode called ‘Squad Conquest’ which is just a smaller scale version of regular Conquest with only 16 players. Fun, for a few rounds, but I don’t really see the point of it. I was going to write about the TTK changes they were testing, but that was a total mess and rapidly reversed so there’s not much to say.

I’ve played Battlefield V for over 180 hours now and I’m certainly going to keep playing it over the coming weeks and months thanks to these regular challenges and rewards. But we really do need more substantial content than just new weapons and vehicle skins. New maps – not modes – are a must, and I really hope they lay out their plans for more future expansions beyond the Battle Royale mode scheduled for March.

I still have my concerns that because Battlefield V didn’t perform as well as EA expected, they’ll just cut back on post release content. And that would be a damn shame, because there’s a lot of battles and locations that would be fantastic to see incorporated into this game. I guess we’ll just have to wait and see.

Now Playing: The Vampire Coast (DLC)

The Vampire Coast is another enjoyable addition to Total War: Warhammer 2. Introduced in this DLC is a new, pirate themed faction comprised of four Legendary Lords (each with a unique starting location), an extensive and varied army roster, and several new campaign mechanics.

Before I get stuck into this review, however, it’s important to note the context – I played as Count Noctilus in the Vortex campaign and focused upon following the narrative quest chain rather than pure conquest. As we saw with the Tomb Kings DLC, your experience with the Vampire Coast will vary depending upon which Lord and Campaign you choose to play.

 

The Vampire Coast are a hybrid faction, capable of both ‘horde’ style play and the more conventional territorial expansion. I decided to play more as a horde, roaming the seas and sacking coastal settlements like a good pirate should. Your chosen Lord can upgrade their ship like a mobile city, allowing you to not only recruit new units, but to improve your movement range and replenishment rate.

And that’s how I spent a lot of my campaign – roaming the seas with Count Noctilus, raiding and sacking coastal settlements and improving my ship. When you sack a settlement you also get the option to establish a ‘pirate cove’ which allows you to leech money from the settlement.

But you’re not the only pirate sailing the seas, and this DLC introduces a dozen other pirate ‘rogue armies’ to the map, most of which you’ll end up in conflict with as you compete to become the most infamous – and ‘infamy’ is key to progressing through the narrative based quest chain. It’s a fun – if short – narrative campaign which culminates in one of the best quest battles in the game.

 

The Vampire Coast also get access to unique ‘Treasure Maps’, but I can’t say I really bothered with them. I much preferred collecting the ‘Pieces of Eight’ by defeating other pirates and unlocking new Regiments of Renown. This DLC also overhauls some existing campaign mechanics in the form of Treasure Hunts when exploring ruined settlements or shipwrecks.

You’ll now have to solve a simple puzzle to claim your prize, whilst shipwrecks will sometimes give you the option of fighting a Vampire Coast army to receive a greater reward. Another general improvement is the introduction of ‘island battles’ when two armies meet at sea. It may not be the naval battles some hope for, but it’s far preferable to a dodgy auto-resolve.

As you might expect, The Vampire Coast also get access to a unique technology tree and Rites. But the real star of this DLC is the new army roster, which is one of the most varied within the game. Whilst there’s a strong focus on ranged combat and artillery, it’s possible to construct very different army builds in support of this focus.

 

With a good selection of infantry, monsters and flying units, you can put together some very unique army compositions, and it’s pretty fun experimenting with different builds to see which is the most effective. Although I don’t think the roster is quite as interesting as the Tomb Kings, the Vampire Coast do get access to zombies with guns riding on the backs of giant crabs so it’s still pretty damn cool.

Overall, I thoroughly enjoyed my Vampire Coast campaign from beginning to end. But once again, let’s keep in mind the context. Because if I’d tried playing another Lord and focused purely on territorial expansion, I don’t think I’d have had quite such a good time. But I’m certainly going to give one of the other Lords a spin, probably in the Mortal Empires campaign, to see how the experience compares.

7/10