DICE Talks Balancing Tone in Battlefield V’s War Stories

War Stories, the single-player vignettes featured in Battlefield 1,are returning for Battlefield V’s World War II setting. DICE aims to tell narratives that are just as emotionally resonant as those featured in the last entry. However, there are sections with lighter tones, stories somewhat removed from dread and horror. It’s a balancing act, ensuring narratives maintain a war-like tone. In an interview with Game Informer, Design Director Eric Holmes explained how DICE walks that line.

When asked about “lighter tone stories” and not glossing over the war setting, Holmes said,

So if it’s kind of a total offering, you want to make sure that, you know, let’s say this table represents everything and these four quadrants. The darker this one is, maybe the other one that’s lighter needs to be lighter to pull the center of gravity around. The more closed maybe this one is, maybe the more open this one needs to be, because there’s an overall kind of sense of how we want to measure where it goes. And people cried at some of the stuff in Battlefield 1. They found it very emotionally powerful. And I know I definitely laughed at a bunch of the stuff in Battlefield 1, and I’ve watched a bunch of streamers that play it too and watch how they react, so that’s an interesting new world with Battlefield 1, getting to watch people play the game online.

We don’t want to be disrespectful to the people who fought the war. That is an absolute line for me. I think it’s about respecting the events, and then exploring what it would be like to fight there and then trying to find a way to realize that in a way which is compelling within that offering. So, for example, the most outrageous one in this game is definitely “Under No Flag,” and the reason that can be outrageous is the people who fought in the [Long Range Desert Group] and the SAS and the [Special Boat Service] were outrageous, and if you go and read up on those people, there’s amazing stories of these people doing incredible, daring feats.

With what DICE has shown of Battlefield V’s War Stories, an emphasis on how various characters survive and endure certainly shines through. However, the ways in which the developer balances competing tones will have to be left to interpretation once the game finally launches.

Battlefield returns to WWII when Battlefield V launches on November 20, 2018.

[Source: Game Informer]