Theo Clarke's MA Diary (NO LONGER UPDATED): An Analysis of the Atmosphere of Battlefield 1

As the focus of my MA Games Design studies is the creation of atmosphere in games, I have decided that its time I really began to analyse games that I find particularly atmospheric. Through in-depth critical analysis of all of the relevant features and elements of a game and its environments, I will try to break down everything that contributes to the atmosphere of the game in question and apply my findings to my own game design and environment art.

I will try to do an analysis fairly often, though as of yet I don't plan to do them to a set schedule. These posts will differ from my regular Spontaneous Sunday posts in that they will focus specifically on atmosphere, and I'll be playing games that I have played before. I may even look at other media such as films, or real life places/events - all time permitting of course.

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In this piece of writing, I will be analysing the atmosphere of EA DICE's WW1 first-person shooter, Battlefield 1, using my own experiences playing the game and any relevant articles and resources that I can find. I have spent many hours playing the single player campaign and multiplayer and have also conducted extensive research and gathered information in order to gain an informed opinion.

As a high-profile, current-gen AAA title, Battlefield 1 arguably achieves some of the highest levels of realism currently possible in a video game. When discussing atmospheric realism, realistic graphics is a topic that is pretty much always mentioned, and Battlefield 1's graphics are definitely of a very high standard. The game uses the latest version of the Frostbite engine which allows for hyper-realistic PBR texturing, advanced development tools, accurate physics, realistic lighting, dynamic weather systems and enhanced facial animations. In fact, EA DICE have such confidence in their engine that it has been reported that they will be working towards starting to use it for all of their releases in the future [1].

The graphical quality of the game really comes into it's own during the cinematics and cut-scenes in the first-person campaign. Its here that the engine's graphics and facial animation capabilities shine, making for an authentic and cinematic quality to the game's cutscenes. The characters are believable thanks to the quality of the facial graphics and the voice acting and scripting. All of this means that the cinematics help to set the scene and establish the characters and allow the player to suspend their disbelief, which makes the feelings of atmosphere and immersion more readily experienced and accepted.

Taking a slight segue from the topic of realism, the question arises of how historically accurate Battlefield 1 actually is (though I will not be getting too into this as it is another matter). Senior Producer at DICE, Aleksander Grøndal, in an interview with Motherboard, said "It's just an interesting era. We're not trying to create a documentary about that era. We're trying to make a game, it's supposed to be fun first so, of course, we're going to take some creative liberties where we can." [4]

Screenshot from a campaign cinematic.

The quality of the games art and visuals is thanks to the skill of the artists and the quality of the tools that they use. EA DICE uses such top-of-the-range software as Maya, Photoshop, zBrush, Mudbox and Substance Suite, and processes such as photogrammetry to create art assets. Photogrammetry is a process that "involves taking a ton of photos of real, actual things/places. Those photos are then scanned, meshed together and turned into 3D landscapes." [2] Performance and rendering settings and techniques also play their part in the graphical quality of the game. As one would expect, the best graphical quality can be achieved on max settings on PC, offering such things as higher resolution shadows and greater draw distances. Meanwhile, Xbox One and PS4 graphics are apparently comparable to medium PC settings. With such high quality graphics, a game runs the risk of suffering from immersion-breaking performance issues and frame-rate drops, which can compromise the atmosphere. EA DICE's efforts to tackle this issue include using LOD models and textures, shorter draw distances and culling of particle effects, all on a "scene-by-scene basis" [3], this means that the game runs smoothly and immersion is not broken.

The games unique settings also help to enable its strong atmosphere. Battlefield 1 is the only mainstream FPS set in World War 1 that I am aware of. As such, it is a unique and interesting setting that offers a lot of opportunities for new scenarios, locales and visuals that most players will have never seen in a game before. I think that EA DICE really used the setting well, including campaigns and multiplayer maps from a wide variety of fronts of WWI including France, Italy, Gallipoli and the Middle East. In my opinion, A key factor in creating atmosphere is to offer unique and new environments and experiences that the player can't help but be drawn into, and I think that Battlefield 1 pulls this off well. An example of a particularly unique and memorable bit of gameplay is when the player takes control of a messenger pigeon in the single player chapter "Through Mud and Blood". This was a very unexpected bit of gameplay, and its a testament to both the creativity of the game's developers and the detail that they went into when trying to portray features of The Great War. It's unique gameplay experiences like this that can make games have a lasting impression on players.

One could argue that games have a greater power to evoke atmosphere in their single player campaigns - where the developers have control over the action and events follow a set path - than multiplayer modes, where action is much more loose and reliant on the players themselves. I believe that this is true for Battlefield 1. In the single player campaign, the player takes on the role of a character that has been created by the developers, and completes activities and tasks set out for them, in environments created specifically for this purpose. This allows the player to place themselves in the characters shoes, with the character and the events that occur acting as a catalyst for the game's atmosphere. However, in multiplayer mode, the player-characters are almost anonymous and the gameplay experience is more freeform as it is essentially created by player action.

While I think that the single player campaign is more atmospheric because it allows you to take on the role of a character in a controlled environment, other gamers may experience a greater sense of atmosphere from the multiplayer because the lack of a clearly set-out character and narrative allows them to create their own personal narrative. This is an example of how atmosphere can be subjective - it depends entirely on the player's own psychology and how they experience atmosphere.

Battlefield 1 offers plenty of opportunity for the player to interact with and alter the environment around them. This sense of agency within your surroundings is a huge source of atmosphere that might not seem terribly important at first, but can do a lot to help ground the player within the game. The player can open doors and windows, vault over obstacles and use stationary weapons. As well as interactive elements, the levels are also filled with destructible things. Most buildings can be completely levelled with tank fire, artillery or other types of heavy explosives, craters can be created in the ground, and small props like crates and barrels can be blown to bits and scattered around.

Environmental destruction has long been a prominent feature of the Battlefield series, and this feature returns in Battlefield 1 with full force. Almost all the assets in a given environment will be able to receive some level of damage, with most objects and buildings being able to be completely levelled. The environments react accurately to the forces that are exerted upon them. For example, running over a rickety fence in a tank will see the fence splinter and flatten with ease, and shooting a brick building with a rocket gun will blow a sizeable hole at the point of impact, bringing debris raining down. The environment reacts as expected, making for congruence between player action and the in-game result. Dan Berlin, lead world designer at DICE, said "if you expect an explosion to cause a crater, it’s going to cause a crater. What you see is what you get – it’s what we’ve been pushing for the whole time" [5]. The accuracy of the destruction helps to further cement the game's believability and allow the atmosphere to exist. Seeing environmental destruction occur adds to the overall sense of chaos and excitement and adds another layer of agency and responsiveness to the game.

Destroyed buildings in a round of War Pigeons on Suez. These buildings
were perfectly intact at the start of the round.

The sheer depth of environmental destruction that is possible in Battlefield 1 means that the battlefield changes drastically and very realistically over the course of a game. There is also ways in which the player can also use the destructible environments tactically, such as destroying a building that they suspect to contain enemies or destroying objects blocking their paths, and players can take cover in bomb craters that weren't there at the start of the game. In this sense, Battlefield 1's destructible environments affect the gameplay, perhaps more directly and drastically than any other game I have personally played. One instance in which environmental destruction directly affected my own gameplay experience occurred in a multiplayer round in which an enemy sniper was holed up in the attic of a house. A member of my team used an explosive to blow the roof off the building, exposing the enemy sniper and allowing me to use a mortar to take him out.

The ability to interact with your surroundings can take a game's atmosphere to new heights. To see a level change and progress around you in response to your input can really help the player to feel immersed and buy into the illusion of the game. It is very important for game environments to be as interactive as possible to establish a sense agency that aids immersion and atmosphere, and I will make sure to consider this when creating my own environments by providing interactive elements and meaningful consequences to the players input.

For Battlefield 1's multiplayer mode, EA DICE set out to create a game in which each round is different and unique - "Even after multiple matches, you will encounter a combination of weather, location and gameplay you've never experienced before, with a new dimension to your Battlefield moments." [6]. This sense of unpredictability surely adds to the immersion - if the player is always unsure of what to expect, they are less likely to become disinterested and therefore have their immersion broken

One major catalyst of variety and immersion is the game's dynamic weather system. The weather within a level can change over the course of the game, and possible weather systems include clear, overcast, rain, fog and even sandstorms, all of which look and feel very convincing. Different weather can force players to alter their play style, which in itself can change the pace of a game. Gamespot's Mike Mahardy wrote "I played one match, but it felt like three: the San Quentin Scar, as DICE calls it, began with ample space for me to cover through the scope of my rifle. But the fog transformed it into a massive close-quarters battle" [7]. Rain, on the other hand, distorts your vision at long distances and even affects textures, such as turning the terrain into mud.

Fog rolls in over a round of domination on Giant's Shadow, greatly
reducing visibility and sight-lines.

An example of many particle systems on screen at once.

Visual special effects play a huge role in creating this convincing portrayal of the dramatic, violent and high-energy era of history that is World War 1. VFX has been described as "everything that moves that isn't a character" [8] which is, of course, an awful lot of stuff. VFX in Battlefield 1 takes many forms, from particle effects of explosions, fire, smoke, weather and clouds of gas, to post-processing and lighting. In my opinion, visual effects in games is a sort of "top layer" that adds to and augments the visual experience. It is still incredibly important, of course - especially in a first person shooter, where the atmosphere hinges largely on how well the chaos and destruction is captured. Particle effects are a huge factor in the visuals of Battlefield 1. There is scarcely a moment where there is not multiple particle effects on screen. The particle effects are realistic and dynamic, and they affect visibility and lighting in a convincing, almost tangible way. The particle effects are so well-optimised that there can be any number of particle effects visible at one time, even at long distances, which is a testament to the optimisation skill of the game's VFX artists. The quality, variety and number of particle effects contributes greatly to the visual experience and the overall atmosphere of the game.

Lighting is often cited as one of the most crucial contributing factors of atmosphere in games. Like just about every other visual factor present in Battlefield 1, lighting is used to great atmosphere effect. Lighting effects present in Battlefield 1 include dynamic lighting, ambient occlusion, bloom and flares. The power of the Frostbite engine allows the game's artists to achieve high quality and realistic lighting. The game features rays of light streaming through trees and lighting effects such as exterior areas appearing brighter if being viewed from an interior, e.g through a window. This mimics the way human eyes receive and process light. The lighting is also consistent with the current weather conditions and as such can change drastically throughout a level and have a great impact on the mood of an environment. The single player campaign features some stealthy and night-time missions, the atmosphere of which depends heavily on the quality of the lighting. Light is used to pinpoint areas of interest or enemy activity, which informs and guides the player. Overall, lighting is used well to contribute to the atmosphere.

Light streaming through trees in Fog of War campaign level.

Subtly illuminated enemy encampment in the campaign level Young Men's Work

Audio is undoubtedly a crucial part of the atmosphere of any game. Lead Sound Designer Mari Saastamoinen Minto had the following to say about the audio of Battlefield 1: "The level audio in Battlefield is an everlasting challenge that constantly changes, and as sound designers we need to really nail those soundscapes so the players feel immersed and also believe in the worlds we are building" [9]. Audio has tremendous power to establish atmosphere, and is often cited as a factor that can make or break a game. Recreating the sounds of World War I can't have been an easy feat, but the game's audio team have done a very good job of it.

Battlefield 1 has some of the highest quality audio of any current game. The sound effects are authentic with gun shots and explosions sounding weighty and purposeful. Every sound, from the largest explosions causing buildings to collapse to the sound of falling shell casings from machine guns, has been created with great care by the game's audio team. One particularly impressive feature of the sound design is how sounds change depending on the player-character's distance from them and the direction of the sound's source. The accuracy of the audio means that you will often find yourself ducking for cover with real urgency at the sound of bullets whizzing by you and ricocheting into the scenery. No other game that I have played has simulated the sound of being under fire so accurately. Good FPS sound design should be able to communicate situations to the player and markedly affect how they interact with and experience their environment, and Battlefield 1 definitely ticks this box. The consistency between the action, the visuals and the audio is near-perfect.

Music is another huge factor in creating atmosphere. In Battlefield 1, music is used to create a mood and tone and it influences (and is influenced by) the nature and pace of the action that occurs. The game's varied score helps to establish a variety of emotions from the noble, heroic bravado of World War I, to the conflicts more sombre, fearful and hopeless side. The game's soundtrack is invariably emotive and grand. It is also dynamic, with the music becoming more driving and energetic during especially dramatic single-player sequences and as multiplayer rounds near their end, which in turn spurs players on to make their final desperate grasps at victory almost subconsciously. Finally, there is the voice acting, which is again well executed and convincing. This gives the different characters and armies a lot of personality, authenticity and identity. On top of all this, the game offers several different audio presets, including the "War Tapes" setting that compresses and distorts the audio to make it sound like vintage film-reel footage of wars. This subtle change affects the gameplay experience more than one might expect. My personal favourite audio setup is wearing headphones and using the "headphones" sound preset, as this allows for the greatest clarity and sense of directional audio.

The list of things that contribute to the creation of atmosphere in Battlefield 1 goes on and on, and there's plenty more "miscellaneous" features such as the fact that great plumes of smoke can be seen on the horizon far outside of the boundaries of maps which gives a sense of greater scale to the battles, and that the audio lines of soldiers from different countries are all spoken in their native language. If I had to think of ways that the atmosphere could be improved, I would say that the addition of more natural sounds (such as more birdsong in forest levels) could add to the atmosphere. I also think that the game could benefit from having more consequences to taking damage than simply losing health, such as being knocked to the ground and temporarily deafened by explosions. This could help to humanise the player-character more and add corporeality.

Overall, I think that Battlefield 1 stands as an example of the atmospheric power of games. Being a AAA title, the game had a big budget and was created by top-tier artists from around the world using the most up-to-date and powerful software. In a way, it shows what a game can be when all the stops are pulled out. Factors such as realistic graphics, unique settings, environmental interactivity, dynamic weather, visual effects, lighting and audio all come together to create a very atmospheric experience. In terms of my own practice, I believe that taking design principles from Battlefield 1 and applying them to my own environment art could help to elevate the atmosphere of my own environments. In writing this piece, I have gained valuable experience in critically analysing game atmosphere. I've also learned a lot about areas of game development that I had not properly looked into before, such as visual special effects, which has helped me to broaden my general game knowledge.