8 Ways Titanfall 2 Blows Battlefield 1 Out The Water

Nov 4, 2016 November 4th, 2016

1. Titanfall Has A Way More Confident Tone Throughout

A lot of positivity has been thrown Battlefield's way for its campaign, and especially the portrayal of multiple ethnicities and cultural backgrounds as a means to show the effect of the war around the world.

As a blanket statement, I'd agree. However, Battlefield 1 has a serious tonal dissonance problem. See, it opens saying that you're about to "Experience frontline combat" and how "You are not expected to survive", and then proceeds to kill off each of the characters you're playing as, one by one.

It feels incredibly forced, like Oliver Stone's World Trade Centre being marketed off sadness. You can't manufacture emotional consequence, and naturally, once you get past this prologue, you'll be getting your one-man-army on as an Italian in a suit of armour, or an Australian battling through a small castle's worth of infantry to save another soldier.

Battlefield wants to show you the 'horrors of war', but only when it's convenient. You'll notice it when the piano stabs start up underneath a character's dialogue, despite the campaign chapters only being around 40 minutes each.

On the flip-side, Titanfall 2 doesn't go anywhere near the realities of warfare, instead letting you play as a figure regarded almost as a superhero on the battlefield. It's a gloriously OTT Saturday morning TV show with quippy dialogue to match. Many of the characterful interactions are still fleeting thanks to its 6-8 hour runtime, but across that runtime, not once does it betray its original intentions.