Well lads, we’ve done it. We’ve landed ashore and now it’s time to rush forward into enemy territory for God and King. The rules of engagement are simple: there’s only one rule, and that rule… is to have fun. And maybe make some friends along the way? BlackMill Games’ Gallipoli, the fourth in its well-established WW1 series, is its best-looking and strongest WW1 project to date, and I’m ready to party like it’s 1915. Not only is Gallipoli a step above its predecessors in terms of its graphics and gameplay, it does an exemplary job of conveying a sense of historical accuracy while remaining fun to play. So chaps, keep a stiff upper lip and let’s charge into certain doom, shall we?
Gallipoli is set in the Middle Eastern front, the only World War 1 front not yet featured in one of BlackMill’s games. For some historical context, the forces here are primarily the Ottoman Empire versus the British Empire, a lumbering old empire in its failing days versus an empire that was still the most powerful in the world. If you, like me, grew up in the good old US of A, you probably spent zero time in school learning anything about the Middle Eastern Front of World War 1, because America didn’t do anything in that part of the world during that part of the first World War. In contrast, in Australia and New Zealand, the national day of remembrance established to acknowledge the tragedy of the Gallipoli campaign has completely usurped Remembrance Day in terms of national significance.
Since World War 1 is maybe the most impactful event in the history of humankind, it’s a shame vast parts of it often go undiscussed. This is something that makes Gallipoli all the more appealing to me. I want to learn more about this part of history now. I would venture to say I’m a little more well-versed than most in World War 1 history, but I’ve only ever really studied the Western Front and its long lines of muddy, rat-infested trenches.
I’ve only ever really studied the Western Front and its long lines of muddy, rat-infested trenches. “
When I’m playing Gallipoli and I start into a map, like Anzac Cove (which also happens to be my favorite), I find myself compelled to learn more. The loading screens have brief snippets of historical context to read, which is great, although it’s not enough to scratch the itch I have. It’s just a beautiful outgrowth of an excellent game; to be such a compelling experience as a video game as to make me want to learn more about the actual history.
The Middle Eastern Front
If you’re on the attacking side of the Anzac Cove map – that is, the British Empire – you start the match being rowed to shore in double-ender rowboats. We’ve all seen the scenes, both real and created by Hollywood, featuring the storming of Normandy during the Second World War. Anzac Cove is almost the same, but there are no diesel-powered landing craft opening their ramps into a hail of enemy bullets. Just Commonwealth troops scrambling out of painfully slow, wildly exposed wooden boats under a torrent of machine gun fire.
The uniforms at the start of World War 1 were basically just fancy clothes for army men; nothing like the armor and helmets of today. I love that Gallipoli captures the schism between the rapid advancement of warfighting technology and the lag that followed while armies had to figure out, in real time, how to fight this new and horrible type of war. Men were thrusting themselves into meat grinders, and the answer to the high casualty rates was simply “throw more men in.” It’s an era where the technology of war had fast outpaced the strategies to fight it.
For example, the machine gun. Gallipoli has two machine gunner classes: light, and the new heavy machine gunner class. While they have different abilities and missions, their ultimate goal is to spit out as much lead as is possible in the shortest amount of time. This will either provide cover for advancing troops or, in what I find to be one of the coolest additions to Gallipoli, terrify your opponents. In Gallipoli, you now get experience points for laying down suppressive fire, but that fire also has an effect on players.
During one match I found myself pinned down and separated from my squad, and the enemy team was laying down a constant barrage of fire in my direction. Suddenly, the terror of it all got to my character and I went into a panic mode. My vision was blurred. I couldn’t maintain a steady aim down the sights of my rifle. In essence, I had lost my nerve, and that element of the gameplay ultimately caused me to take the L and have to respawn.
The terror of it all got to my character and I went into a panic mode.“
What a fantastic way to add another layer of realism. Does it suck when bullets are whizzing over your head and suddenly you lose your faculties? Yes, of course it does. But that’s just an extra dimension to the experience, and one that I didn’t think I’d appreciate as much as I do. And it goes both ways, too. You can panic oncoming troops and, while machine gunners have it easier by means of bullet volume, I was able to panic my enemies just by firing at them with my standard-issue rifle. On top of another wrinkle of realism, it also means shots that don’t land on their intended targets can still provide a benefit to you and your team.
Class Actions
The machine gun wasn’t entirely new by the time WW1 kicked off, but there hadn’t been a test of it at scale to that point. At the start of the war, people basically had no idea how to approach them on the battlefield. Thanks to the suppression and panic systems, that feeling is replicated well here in Gallipoli. The heavy machine gunner is tasked with building machine guns wherever they can be built but, strategically speaking, you want to build them where they can help hold a line – or help advance your troops. It’s so wonderful when you’re laying down fire and suppressing the enemy and your team is able to break through and advance.
While the heavy machine gunner builds machine gun embankments, the light machine gunner brings his along for the ride. This is another thing I really like about Gallipoli; you can’t John-Rambo your way through a map hip firing a light machine gun. That’s Hollywood stuff. Unlike Call of Duty, or most modern first-person shooters, guns in Gallipoli behave like they would in real life. That means trying to hip fire your light machine gun is pointless. The barrel swings wildly and the shots are so scattered it doesn’t even panic your opponents. In fact, it makes you a nice target instead. If you want to do well with the light machine gun, you’d better put your face in the dirt and lay down some covering fire for the fellas to make that final push.
You can’t John-Rambo your way through a map hip firing a light machine gun.“
Realism with guns and weapons is part of the experience. Rifles and pistols lose their effectiveness depending on range. Not all bullets are built equally, and a rifle that does well at mid or close range is basically useless at long range. Even if you do hit a target from across the field, depending on the gun, it might not stop them or even do much damage. Pistols, the weapons of the officer class, are a great example of this. With their short barrels and powerful kick, hitting a target at any sort of distance is a challenge both in the real world and in Gallipoli. If you’re coming into this expecting the kind of gunplay in CoD or Battlefield, you’re going to be pretty bummed out. I’m not disparaging those franchises, either (I love CoD multiplayer and review it every year for IGN), but Gallipoli is focused on realism more than dynamic, clippable action.
And yet, the action is still present. It’s chaotic and brutal and confusing, and I’m loving it. One really awesome new addition is how dust can change everything about a battle. When an artillery barrage or a mortar strike happens, it kicks up a hauntingly beautiful cloud of dust that obscures everything. Suddenly you can’t see your target or your goal. It works to both obscure the enemy and to provide cover for yourself, but it remains mostly a hindrance to troop movement.
More than once, I almost fired on a teammate who emerged from a dust cloud seemingly out of nowhere. The same is true in the trenches. I found myself running into a player and almost shooting (or stabbing them) multiple times. In a game like CoD, I find this frustrating. In Gallipoli, however, it’s all part of the fog of war.
Yes, you will get dinged for harming teammates – and there is no option to turn off team killing. It’s entirely possible to call in an artillery barrage as the officer class and have it rain down on the heads of your own team. Thankfully,I haven’t had that experience, because I’m a thoughtful officer who’s concerned about the welfare of my boys and wants to see them make it home. But I’ve definitely accidentally bayoneted one or two of my teammates in the trenches when things were getting a little too crazy. Sorry about that.
Aside from the dust and the risk of wiping out large swaths of your team with artillery strikes and other off-map support, like aircraft runs, when you do manage to catch the other team bunched up and the points start piling up, it’s just wonderful. I was able to successfully take out large numbers of the approaching British not once, but several times while they held tenuously to their position on the V Beach map. It was as exhilarating as I’m sure it was horribly frustrating for the other team.
When you manage to catch the other team bunched up, it’s just wonderful.“
There are four new classes in Gallipoli: stretcher bearer, heavy machine gunner (which I already talked about), ammo bearer, and the bomber. Stretcher bearer is the medic class, and I found that I was extremely effective in helping my team reach our objectives by building med stations as we advanced, and keeping my head down to heal and revive my squadmates.
Healing and reviving is particularly effective in trench warfare, but there’s still plenty of opportunity to shoot the enemy, too. Ammo bearer also has a support role, refreshing squad mates with ammo by either dropping ammo boxes – or straight up just handing them a fresh mag. The bomber is exactly what it sounds like: a soldier armed with grenades and homemade explosive devices made with metal food tins. Fun fact, the metal tin “brands” are all fictional creations by BlackMill Games, and there seems to be an almost endless supply of different ones to hurl.
Of the new classes, I like heavy machine gunner and stretcher bearer the best. The bomber is a little difficult for me to really get into because I don’t feel like it’s as effective when defending as it is when attacking. Even then, landing a grenade or bomb where it can do the most damage honestly takes a little bit of luck. It’s not so much there’s an RNG element or anything, but you need to be able to know where the enemy is to get a successful lob – and the problem with war is that if you can see the enemy, the enemy can see you. That being said, when I was able to toss a grenade into a crater filled with prone enemies, holy cow did THAT rule.
There’s no quick scoping here, thankfully. “
Of all the classes available, the returning sniper class is probably the most fun to play, at least for me. I was able to post up and find a pinch point more than once, where the enemies just kept feeding themselves right into the sights of my scope. It’s so satisfying, and the best thing about it is there’s only one sniper allowed per team. In fact, other than rifleman and engineers, all the classes have caps on how many are allowed in a match, which prevents the entire team from just running around using sniper rifles like normal weapons, like in CoD. There’s no quick scoping here, thankfully.
The Players Make the Game
Perhaps the greatest part of Gallipoli, however, is the player base. You may have noticed that this review is coming after the game’s release. That’s because I wanted to make sure I got in some hours playing with real people. By and large, those real people delivered the goods. This is one of those kinds of games that attracts a certain kind of unc; that is, people like me – and almost everyone in every match is there to play Gallipoli as it was designed to be played.
You cannot successfully win if everyone is running around like it’s a death match. One of the least appealing parts of Call of Duty multiplayer to me each year are the objective-based matches. No one does any of the objective stuff; they just run around working on their K/D ratio. Not in Gallipoli. Almost everyone is doing what needs to be done.
You can just jump into a game, stay with your squad, and have a great time.“
And better still, it’s not intimidating. Yes, you’re going to get those people in the chat chastizing the team for not doing everything to their liking, but otherwise you can just jump into a game, stay with your squad, and have a great time. It’s not like CS:GO, where my one experience trying a ranked match ended three minutes in after being ruthlessly berated by my team before being kicked out.
People are pretty chill here, and they want more people to play the game – because the more people play it, the more fun it is. When everyone locks in, listens to one another, sticks to their role, and makes smart decisions, Gallipoli is a sublime experience. It’s one of the best multiplayer shooters I can think of in terms of squad-based, objective-focused gameplay. It just flows so wonderfully as a game, while also doing an incredible job of recreating the hellish nightmare that was World War 1 warfare.
Seth Macy is Senior Social Commerce Producer, and just wants to be your friend. You can find him on social media sites @SethFromMaine.