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History Buffs Discover Inaccuracies In Battlefield 1 Trailer (hothardware.com)
MojoKid shares an interesting article from Tom's Hardware. While the new Battlefield 1 trailer may be the most-liked trailer in the history of YouTube, it's also historically inaccurate, according to a popular YouTube channel about World War I. "Some of the scenes feature some unusual or experimental gear," reports Indy Neidell, the voice of the video series The Great War, "and some weapons are carried by soldiers from the other side."
Thousands of people joined the YouTube channel after the release of the game's new trailer, prompting this special video review of the historical accuracy of the Battlefield 1 trailer. "Some of the most spectacular moments in the trailer, such as the tanks bursting into trenches or giant, ominous zeppelins hovering, are actually historically accurate," reports Tom's Hardware, adding that the YouTube commentator "ultimately applauds Battlefield 1 for incorporating so many different elements of WWI. Many people often forget that much of WWI was fought through hand-to-hand combat or that battles took place throughout Eurasian landmass."
Thousands of people joined the YouTube channel after the release of the game's new trailer, prompting this special video review of the historical accuracy of the Battlefield 1 trailer. "Some of the most spectacular moments in the trailer, such as the tanks bursting into trenches or giant, ominous zeppelins hovering, are actually historically accurate," reports Tom's Hardware, adding that the YouTube commentator "ultimately applauds Battlefield 1 for incorporating so many different elements of WWI. Many people often forget that much of WWI was fought through hand-to-hand combat or that battles took place throughout Eurasian landmass."
They straight-up admitted it's not going to be historically accurate because it wouldn't be any fun.
And while there's a time and a place for that (it's important to know how much the real World War 1 sucked) this is a video game.
"Blimps went out of use the moment airplanes became popular."
Blimps were STILL used in World War 2.
Of course by then they were inflated with Helium
One thing he got wrong, the tank crewman at 7:14 isn't the driver, its somebody starting the engine. Engines of the period had crank-starts. I don't know why British WW1 tanks had the crank handles on the inside, but I'd guess it was because the engines constantly broke down and had to be restarted, and you'd get shot if you had to go outside to do that.
In this picture https://upload.wikimedia.org/w... - you can just about see the crank handle, on the left of the window.
This is what the actual driving position of one of the things looks like.
https://commons.wikimedia.org/...
This is a standard 'best practices' story writing method in literature that has also carried over to gaming.
Most plots require that one thing that is unbelievable or breaks the laws of physics or what not. If the writer keeps everything else in their literary universe as accurate as possible, it makes it easier for the reader to suspend their disbelief further for that one "out there" plot device thing.
If your story just throws tons of established universe rules out the window at once, the reader has a harder time both relating to the world your characters are in as well as suspending disbelief for them, and usually such stories suck pretty badly.
That's why some people correctly ignore the one major disbelievable plot device while able to bitch about all the little things that Try to be accurate but aren't somehow.
It's still silly yes, but that's the explanation for ignoring the major time traveling knife all together while complaining about the really tiny discrepancies all at the same time.
Indy didn't really 'tear apart' the game and at one point said "It's just a game so it's nice they're at least trying to bring to light the brutal nature of hand to hand combat" or something to that effect.
Everyone should watch The Great War series though it's awesome what they're doing. They're following the war week by week as we go through the 100th anniversary of it. It's really worth subscribing to.
Designers say the new game explores the endless paperwork, routine patrolling a modern day soldier endures in photorealistic detail.