Recently in the gaming world, the market has been plenty saturated by different “battle royale” type shooters, such as PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG), Fortnite, Apex Legends, etc. These shooters have been gaining mass attention ever since a few years ago when PUBG gained mass attention and staggeringly high player counts, and other larger corporations are starting to go for this possible “cash grab”.

One such company is DICE, a subdivision of Electronic Arts (EA), and through one of their most recent releases, Battlefield 5, have created their own triple-A developed battle royale; Firestorm.

Firestorm takes place in the fictional Norwegian peninsula of Halvøy, with many different locations to explore. Ranging from a crater named “Pluto” to a simple farm where you can obtain a tractor to drive around in, there’s somewhere for everyone to drop. However, some of the locations are lacking in interest to the player or are sparse when it comes to overall detail.

When Firestorm released on March 25th, 2019, it gained moderate acclaim from critics, with two major points coming up in all reviews; the Firestorm section of Battlefield 5 wasn’t free to play and that it was late to the party compared to some other battle royale games. Regardless, critics did enjoy the game.

The addition of Firestorm didn’t really hike up the player counts of Battlefield 5 or the total sales of the game, either. Those who really were passionate about the mode were also quite passionate about the whole game itself, much like I am.

Firestorm in my eyes is good for those who like a tense, competitive game environment but it doesn’t fit the Battlefield player base, in my opinion. Battlefield player base is mainly for those open scale battles, those “Only in Battlefield” moments where you snipe a player out of a moving plane from over 1000 meters away, and the feeling that you’re apart of a bigger conflict and you’re just a cog in the machine, so to speak. Battlefield wasn’t made to follow trends, it was made to have it’s own little niche and has, and should be, the one triple-A game to go to when you want to really experience large-scale battles while still having fun. Sure, Firestorm is fun in it’s own aspect but it doesn’t belong in a Battlefield game.

In general, Firestorm is an interesting newer addition to the Battlefield series but it shouldn’t have to be paired with Battlefield 5, Firestorm should have been it’s own standalone experience that was FREE. Firestorm does bring a beautiful map but one that isn’t so memorable and some other goodies, but overall it’s something that is both not too unique these days with the oversaturated battle royale genre and something that doesn’t bring too much uniquety to the battle royale scene. And with recent reports of the game’s Firestorm player counts dropping, it looks like most of the playerbase agrees.