In a blog post on Battlefield’s website, developer DICE explains how horses will change the game in Battlefield 1.
DICE begins by explaining that World War 1 was a time where the old world and old technology clashed with the new, and pitting horses against planes and tanks is a great representation of that in Battlefield 1. Horses played an important part in the war, and players will see how they affect gameplay.
Horses are effective in close-quarters combat, allowing players to take advantage of their speed and agility by galloping up and slashing down opponents, but players do need to take caution as they are obviously not as sturdy as tanks or other machines. For people who prefer to sit back and watch some of the action ahead of them, there are multiple medium range rifles at the players’ disposal that can be shot from horseback.
They are also capable of becoming moving supply stations as the saddlebags can carry ammo and bandages which can be dropped to aid other team members. Horses have much more health than players do, but they are not indestructible, so their agility should be used to the players’ advantage.
If you spawn onto a horse or just jump onto one that you come across while playing, you will be able to choose from multiple weapons and gadgets that can be used on horseback. You can still jump off of horses as you please to do battle on-foot. DICE wanted to make sure that the horses felt like horses instead of standard vehicles like a tank.
Horses will also have their own AI and may not always follow what the player commands. For example, if you are driving a car in a game, you could easily drive it off of a cliff no problem, however you wouldn’t expect a horse to blindly jump off a cliff no matter what they are being told. In Battlefield 1, horses have the same innate self-preservation. DICE spent a lot of time and effort ensuring that the horses responses and actions feel natural.
Battlefield 1 releases on October 21, 2016 for Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC.
Source: Battlefield
Jennifer is a games journalist, former games journalist and PR Manager at Gearbox. They contributed 234 articles to ICXM between 2015–2017, focused on opinion pieces, game reviews, Windows and PC, and Xbox news: went on to write for Windows Central and later managed PR for Gearbox Software.