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Battlefield V - ring of fire

Battlefield V – ring of fire

EA has offered a new look at this years Battlefield, but will it be enough to reverse reportedly sluggish pre-orders?

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The war between Call Of Duty and Battlefield is one of the longest-running grudge matches in modern gaming, and it seems like COD might be winning this years battle.

According to investment firm Cowen Group pre-orders for Battlefield V have so far been weak, and below that of both Call Of Duty: Black Ops 4 and Red Dead Redemption II.

Theyve even predicted that the game could end up with the same fate as Titanfall 2, another EA game, which was released between Call Of Duty: Infinite Warfare and Battlefield 1 in 2016 and suffered in sales despite critical praise.

But then again, as NPD Group analyst Mat Piscatella points out on Twitter, Day one sales are less important today than they used to be in determining ultimate sales success. Pre-orders are only helpful in estimating day one, and theyre not as helpful now as they used to be even for that. I wouldnt put a lot of weight on pre-orders for forecasting in 2018.

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Its fair to say though that the initial Battlefield V trailer had something of a mixed response, but even if you ignore the bigots complaining about too many women, its certainly true that the overall tone seemed less serious than usual – and yet at the same time the gameplay appeared a little too similar to Battlefield 1.

The new trailer above looks technically amazing, with some fantastic destruction effects, but the new Rotterdam map seems very reminiscent of Amiens from Battlefield 1.

Towards the end of the trailer though is a tease for the games promised Battle Royale mode. Its not labelled as such, but the circle of fire seems to be the games way of restricting the play area towards the end of a match.

Developer DICE has implied that the Battle Royale option wont be available at launch but will be shortly after.

Battlefield V has been hosting its second alpha this week, but its still PC only, which means that, unlike Black Ops 4, console gamers havent been able to play it yet.

That will change next month though, at which point its likely that interest, and pre-orders, will pick up.

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But the fact that Call Of Duty did WWII last year, and has this year moved back to the modern day, does make it seem as if Battlefield is playing catch-up, which could cost it dear with such a busy Christmas schedule.

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Battlefield V is due for release on October 19, a week after Black Ops 4 and a week before Red Dead Redemption II.

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