Battlefield 1’s They Shall Not Pass Is A Grand Expansion Of The Western Front

As grand as Battlefield 1’s depiction of World War I is, as diverse as the locations it tried to pick are, in some ways it barely scratches the surface in trying to depict the events and key battles of the war. In fact, there were some notable and disappointing omissions, even as DICE promised to address things like the absent French and Russian army in DLC. Those expansions are now starting to appear, with the first releasing to Premium Pass owners in the middle of last month, and last week for standalone sale.

While Battlefield 1 might be sticking to a traditional paid business model for its DLC, They Shall Not Pass certainly doesn’t skimp on content. The four new maps can all be used for any mode in the game, but they also provide you with two new Operations, paired up into Beyond the Marne and Devil’s Anvil, both of which feature the French Army and depict two new key offensives from the war. Devil’s Anvil is an interesting one, as an infantry only affair and without even a Behemoth to rescue the attackers if they get stuck – the balance of this operation is currently too heavy in the defenders’ favour, which DICE are already addressing via the BF1 CTE on PC.

There’s plenty more fighting on the Western Front, in other words, and now you can do so as part of the French Army. In some ways, it’s a superficial difference, with your character screaming in French, or as you try and spot their distinctive light blue uniforms, when fighting against them. They don’t change how you play or the weapons you can pick to fill your loadout, but do bring with them the frankly odd looking, flattened form of the St Chammond Assault Tank and the frankly huge Char 2C as the new Behemoth vehicle.

The maps and Operations are themed around key battles that the French took part in – you know, instead of replacing them with Americans! Though the four maps might be in a similar vein to what’s already in the game (such as Soissons being a small village that is quickly decimated as the French tanks roll through to attack the defending Germans) there’s flashes of individuality as well. Verdun Heights is dominated by the raging forest fires, even if the muddy morass is familiar, while Rupture features banks of poppies that became one of the most enduring images of the First World War.

Frontlines is a pretty great new game mode for 32 players, giving us another twist on the game’s familiar capture point and objective-based gameplay. Starting with all things even, both sides are trying to push the other back along a chain of three capture points, fighting to get closer to the enemy’s base and eventually destroy their pair of telegraph poles before a small number of respawns are used up and you’re pushed back to the previous control point. It’s a nice and condensed mode that only ever has one capture point up for grabs and swaps the notion of attack and defence neatly between the two sides from moment to moment.

It’s not a completely original mode and the main touchpoint that sprung to my mind is Unreal Tournament’s old Onslaught game mode – what a game mode it was! – but it works really well in Battlefield 1. One of the few criticisms I had of the multiplayer at launch was that Onslaught always moved in the same direction and that it would be nice to have the defenders be able to push back and reclaim ground. It’s something that rival WWI FPS Verdun managed to do well, giving you this ebb and flow of battle. Frontlines is a cleaner, more streamlined and faster-paced representation of that.

One thing that helps facilitate that is the preceding patch that alters how grenades are handled. No longer do you have a finite number of grenades every time you spawn, but rather they’re on set timer, so that you have a new grenade roughly every 30 seconds, depending on the grenade and whether you’re stood near an ammo crate. They’re still prevalent at those key choke points, that’s for certain, but it feels like there’s less of the overwhelming barrage of explosions from before, and you don’t suffer for having stayed alive for too long.

The only real problem with Frontlines is the lack of a time limit, which means that this back and forth tussle can feel practically endless as it swings between points B and C. At the same time, it means that the battle can go from one extreme to the other, coming back from the brink of defeat for the most satisfying of victories. Beyond that, it’s just a shame that it’s locked behind the pay wall of paid DLC and these four specific maps.

Of course, long matches might be just what you’re after, thanks to the new weapons in the DLC. I’ve always found it a bit cheeky that, having asked you to shell out for an expansion, you then have to perform in-game feats to unlock them. It’s a way of adding longevity to a game, certainly, but at the same time, shouldn’t you be allowed to play with the new toys right away?

The challenges don’t seem to be particularly onerous, largely setting you the task of killing enemies with a certain weapon, either a total sum or within a single round, or by performing squad actions like healing, handing out supplies, and so on. Looking at what I’m getting killed by, it’s the Chaucat LMG that seems to have stuck, with the small clip of the RSC 1917 rifle and the Lebel Model 1886 not really standing out as better than whatever your previous gun of choice was. In fact, pushing me to use the M1907 SL and Autoloading 8 .35 as a medic helped break me out of a previous rut and they’re now firm favourites of mine!

One of the eternal concerns with paid DLC is that it fractures the play base, often meaning that the DLC maps and modes go unplayed by the vast majority and their popularity quickly dwindles. When a game is as big and popular as Battlefield 1, that’s not too great a problem, but it’s still good to see EA open the doors just a crack with the Premium Friends scheme. Though temporary, running through the current Battlefest event that ends on 9th April, it allows those with Premium to share access to the new maps with those in their party.

All told, there’s a great amount of content in They Shall Not Pass. It follows a similar formula to what you see in other EA expansion packs, but where Star Wars Battlefront’s DLC was fractured between modes, there’s a welcome all encompassing nature to They Shall Not Pass and its maps. After this, however, I’m sure people will welcome the change of scenery that the Eastern Front will bring with it.