Electronic Arts’ DICE studio’s new Overture update to Battlefield V has a new multiplayer map dubbed Panzerstorm. I’ve played it as well as The Last Tiger, the latest vignette of the War Stories single-player stories in the game.
I’ve taken a video of one of my more comical game sessions on Panzerstorm. I’ve added a running commentary to my slapstick gameplay, so you can just listen to the video review if you wish.
This map is a sprawling one set in Hannut, Belgium, in 1940, when the British and the Germans are squaring off in an armor battle. You can get as many as 17 tanks on this map at the same time, which can lead to some serious action.
In this session, I played Panzerstorm in the Conquest mode, where 32 players battle 32, and the goal is to control six capture points on the map. The capture points are in farmhouses and buildings, where the only infantry refuge points exist. Others have pointed out that it’s not very fun to play this map as an infantry soldier, since you have to run exposed over long distances to get to capture points.
But that’s the life of the grunt. Fortunately, you have plenty of vehicles to control or hitch rides from. You can also get in an airplane and terrorize the tanks the way that the tanks terrorize the foot soldiers. Or you can terrorize the planes with flak guns. This is a good example of the rock-paper-scissors nature of Battlefield V.
On this map, I played with a flak cannon, unproductively, until a lone infantry soldier took me out. Then I dueled with infantry enemies for control of a capture point. And I finally made my way to some action at another point, where I found an anti-tank gun. I was able to use that gun to head off an attack from four British tanks closing on the capture point. Another troop carrier managed to park right in front of my gun and then get blown up. That turned into my cover for the rest of the time, where I tried to use my weak anti-tank gun against the distant British tanks.
It wasn’t spectacular, but it showed you could survive on the map without a tank. It’s one of the reasons that Battlefield V is growing on me. Please check out the video.