WWI: Verdun - Western Front

Verdun is not your average shooter, it focuses more on the realistic side of war and teamwork is a very important aspect of the game. Therefore it will most likely appeal to a different public than games like Call of Duty or Battlefield.

While it’s far from the most attractive FPS I’ve played this year, Verdun gets its setting and tone incredibly right. There’s a moment in every match where I found myself peering out from behind cover, looking down my rifle, desperate to catch sign of any movement in a field of debris — a moment where the game completely justifies its setting and mechanics. Verdun is rough at times and only half of its modes are any good, but those special moments it offers are rare enough to deserve attention.

Slow and methodic, this clumsy shooter isn't for everyone. Those who persevere, however, will find a diamond in disguise.

The game has a very different pacing to modern shooters and that’s not a bad thing.

Verdun has really good ideas, and it tries to achieve a realism most shooters discard these days, but a very poor technical side and some control issues prevent it from achieving something bigger.

Verdun offers a unique experience not seen elsewhere on the PS4. It’s realistic, historically accurate and sometimes satisfying gameplay can’t make up for the fact that the game’s community is almost non-existent, gameplay is riddled with technical issues and the lack of a proper tutorial can make the game downright frustrating.

Verdun captures all the action and misery of being stuck at the front in a war where the power shifts constantly and young lives are lost in a hopeless struggle. Except now you're sat on a sofa. While its more traditional modes show off its weaknesses, the main Frontlines mode seems to have captured an audience on PSN.

Not only is the lack of tutorial and unfamiliar gameplay going to scare off casual FPS fans, but the nature of the game as a large scale multiplayer experience will mean there’s not much point in playing if you can’t get a proper 16vs16 match going. If you like the idea of a historically accurate, hardcore WWI FPS, Verdun is going to be right up your alley. I’m just not sure if the PS4 port will be the best way to experience it.

It’s a refreshing change from the rest of the first-person shooters and goes to great lengths to ground itself in reality.

Verdun ignores modern FPS design for better and worse - it's distinctive, but hard to recommend. [Nov 2016, p.72]

Verdun is authentic, you are crawling in the trenches, waiting for the enemy to take a risk. Original? Yes, but it is not something that everyone will enjoy.

This sombre evocation of history can feel silly and contrived. [Nov 2016, p.88]

A brave attempt at creating a more thoughtful shooter hindered by poor execution and messy technique.

Nobody is playing this game because it’s a technical mess, and I can’t recommend it to anyone due to that. If you want to play Verdun, then pick it up on PC. Sadly, the PlayStation 4 version is an inferior version that launched dead on arrival.

If Verdun had adopted a free-to-play model on consoles, I could see the beauty in its unrefined animations or crudely rendered environments. But with a superior PC version on the market, it’s best to forget this PS4 port even exists.

Verdun’s goal is an admirable one, to capture the feel of warfare on the Western Front, on occasions it manages to do that and be fun. The rest of the time, it’s an unintuitive slog. It might be a better game on PC, but on PlayStation 4, it’s almost certainly not going to be this year’s most fun or engaging WWI shooter.

Its goals are noble enough, but this low tech shooter takes its realism too seriously – as the drudgery and unfairness of trench warfare is made all too real.