Verdun Review: How does the WW1-shooter fare on consoles?

We all knew that Battlefield 1 was coming out and the World War One setting has drawn a whole lot of excitement. In the shadow of this big-budget release, though, indie studios M2H and Blackmill Games released WW1-shooter, Verdun on PlayStation 4, with an upcoming release on Xbox One. Many will have already played the game on PC, via Steam, but the timing of the release on PS4 was genius. With Battlefield fever bringing a new excitement to WW1 games, Verdun’s release brought with it attention, but also comparison.

Verdun is a very different shooter to most, if not all others. Those independent studios do a brilliant job of creating a shooter based around trench warfare. Aside from obvious game modes like Attrition (team deathmatch), Rifle Deathmatch (Free-for-all), and Squad Defence, the game really focuses on Frontlines. This is where trench warfare comes in. Each team, made up of four squads of four (complete with squad roles such as gunner, grenadier, and officer) will defend its trench and attack another. Losing a trench on defence will lead to a counter-attack to take it back. Taking a trench leads to a defence of that trench. It is an exciting game of tug-of-war but with the terrifying difficulties of WW1 weaponry and the mortality of No Man’s Land adding an extra edge.

How does the game play, though? The graphics are not terrible but not great. There are some small technical glitches but they are not beyond fixing and the connection is, for the most part, stable, if not demanding.

Playing in a trench can be terrifying. Mortar shells fall all around you. Gas lingers in the air and you are forced to put on your gas mask. Machine guns sound out from both trenches, rattling bullets off and forcing you to panic when they whizz past your head. Up to 16 enemies scramble around, looking for any hole in your team’s defence. You shoot at them but the artillery and suppressing fire forces your head down and the enemy breaches the trench. They then hold their position or creep along to clear the line. It is then up to you to push them back. That is the game in essence. You have to focus the whole time. You will be sitting on the edge of your seat. Your neck will ache and your hands will be sore from holding the controller so tight.

Basically, Verdun is addictive. At the start, it is not all that entertaining. The more experienced players will put you on almost permanent respawn delay and it will take many matches and more than a handful of deaths to get the hang of it. What drives you forward is the complete and utter desire to stop getting killed so much. For your pride’s sake. One player will kill you again and again and you will play again and again until you are good enough to kill him. And when you can do that, you can do anything. By that point, you are a positive kill/death player, even if that is not the true objective of the game. That desire to catch up to others never does leave. Even when you are in the top 500 in the leaderboards, you will play a game and there will be a flawless sniper or dominant gunner who downs you for 8 of your 10 deaths. You have to get revenge and so you are driven to keep fighting on. That is the addiction.

You will find strategies that fit you. Whether it is holding your ground and killing the attackers when you are told to retreat or legging it into the corner of the trench and fighting for dear life. Perhaps you take the pistol and just mash the trigger when you turn a corner. Perhaps you snipe from long range or become something of an artillery expert. You play it how you want and, for the most part, everyone gets along with the idea of fighting to capture the trench rather than to boost their personal kill/death ratio. Sure, it is a bit of a disappointment that there is no communication. You can join a party with friends but your team, on the whole, have no chat and there goes some of the co-operation that made it so strong on the PC. On this version, you will get clumps of defenders in one portion the trench, even when the enemy attacks the other side. But, overall, it is a strong game with an incredible, albeit frustrating pull, and it represents a more realistic representation of one of history’s most brutal conflicts than its higher-budget competitors.

No WW1-shooter will be truly realistic; it just couldn’t work. The stalemate and attrition that dominated the bulk of the war just does not make good gameplay. It is also hard to capture the tragedy of it. Going over the top of the trench was a solemn but organised march into enemy guns. Gas attacks were dependent on the wind and could easily blow back onto friendly trenches instead of enemy ones. Whole generations died on those fields in France and no game can capture that agony.

Verdun does not have that but it is as close as it can be. Its maps are authentic, as are the weapons, uniforms, and roles. The warfare is difficult and dark. Barbed wire litters the battlefield to pick off unsuspecting attackers. Whereas Battlefield 1’s online multiplayer contradicts the sympathy the campaign tries to achieve, Verdun’s multiplayer manages to reach an optimal combination of entertainment, difficulty, and historical sympathy. Its tactical approach will not be for everyone and the lack of communication does hinder the game, but Verdun is worth playing. Just be ready to die. A lot.

*All images from Verdun’s Press Kit.