Earlier this week, we had EA Play. Later we had E3. Lots of news and never before seen trailers and gameplay. If you aren't up to date with the newest installment of Battlefield though, get caught up here in an easy one-stop-shop of where the game was prior to this tumultous week of reveals.If you're already up to speed, Antivanity has put up some of the newest reveals, so be sure to check those out. I will follow this post up with a summary of what we've learned from EA Play later in the week.

I assume you know what Battlefield is, so I'll skip that narrative, The most recent installment was a spinoff made by Visceral - Battlefield Hardline. It flopped, hard, for many reasons. DICE had no hand in that game, instead they kept developing content for Battlefield 4 as they worked on their next installment to the series. We've expected a "Battlefield 5" type of game to hit this year for some time, and last month we found out for sure. The newest Battlefield game, made by DICE in a good 'ol fashioned military setting, is to be released on October 18th of this year (or 21st, if you don't pay in to the early acccess edition). It is to be named Battlefield 1, as a return to the series' roots and as the earliest Battlefield game setting to date.

Battlefield 1 will be set in World War 1, between 1914-1918. DICE had a hard time convincing their masters at Electronic Arts to fly with that idea, but they eventually won them over. A good thing, too - as their top competitors went in the opposite direction with Call of DUty: Infinite Warfare being set in the future and including battles in space... it's reveal didn't go over well with fans. On the flip side, Battlefield 1 was one of the most liked game trailers in history. Enough of the futristic settings where the game basically plays itself, we're going back to square one. Here's the reveal trailer.

So then, what do we know?

• Game setting is World War 1, between the year 1914 and 1918.
• Gameplay will take us to Europe and North Africa - and potentially Asia and the MIddle East as well.
  • Confirmed maps include areas in the French and Italian Alps, urban French cities, the Arabian desert, and a jungle map.
• Classes are being changed - with separate Medic and Assault classes, a more traditional (re; unchanged) Scout class, and Support encompassing much of what had been Engineers in prior games.
  • In addition, players will automatically change classes to be "Pilots" and "Tankers" in vehicles, with restricted weapons and specialized items. This is intended to prevent players from abusing and abandonding vehicles as taxis.
• We will get (portable) heavy machine guns, light machine guns, submachine guns, semi-automatic rifles, shotguns, bolt action assault and sniper style rifles all with different customization options.
  • Oh, and flamethrowers.
• Weapon customizations will be in the form of "preset" packages. Rather than slot by slot, there will be different weapon tunes or skews with different strengths and weaknesses.
• We will get multiple styles of melee weapons, from shovels, to maces, to swords, to bayonets. Included in this will be a "charge" ability in trench warfare, purportedly giving additional power at the expense of commitment to the attack (melee animation). Non-charging attacks will potentially be real-time and free of loss-of-control animations.
  • The charge described above could be unique to the bayonet weapon attachment. Different weapons have different properties and handling, damage, speed etc. Some will act as tools, cutting barbed wire and damaging light vehicles.
• We will get gadgets - revives will happen via adrenaline shots potentially, and tanks will be taken down with dynamite. 
• Tanks you ask? Yep. We're getting tanks, and they have been confirmed to hold an entire squad.
  • Squads have been confirmed to be 5 players at EA Play this week. In addition, new squad mechanics will prevent squads from being broken up as they move between matches and servers.
• We're also getting bi-planes and tri-planes, controllable naval ships, and zeppelins (no word on control over those). There was some pretty neat footage of zeppelins in this EA Play multiplayer gameplay (in addition to that reveal trailer).
• Vehicles will have sub-categories, and even more emphasis is being placed on differentiation between types (re: faction variants) of vehicles and their handling characteristics.
• Damage will have an immediate and targeted (area specific) affect on vehicle handling.
• Bullet velocity has been increased a substantial amount, to increase realism.
• Headshots in clude a "pinging" sound, and headshots from a sniper rifle purportedly make revival impossible.
  • Oh, and watch this guy's helmet go flying in the EA Play multiplayer footage.
• Grenade variants have been confirmed. The obvious ones are fragmentation and (mustard) gas.
  • We've seen gas masks -- how they work, who gets them, any downsides, etc. are unconfirmed. In addition, mustard gas was quite harmful to the skin even if you were protected from breathing it in. No news on damage even with gas masks equipped. We'll see.
• Digital Only in North America (access codes on retail packaging, no discs)
• 64 player servers.
• Server Browser is confirmed.
• Analog game - no FLIR, no lockon. Aim and shoot. 

So, are you excited? Stay tuned for more info and footage from EA Play.