A huge update to Battlefield 1 comes out tomorrow, Dec. 13, on all platforms. The update, called Giant’s Shadow, will introduce a new map, game mode, has a host of big fixes and so much more.
The big news is the new map, taking place during the Battle of Selle in 1918 at the Cateau-Wassigny railway. Those with the Premium Pass (or who pre-ordered) will get the map on Dec. 13, while everyone else will have to wait until Dec. 20.
A Spectator mode is also being introduced in the update. This mode will allow observers to switch between first-person and third-person views of the players currently in a game. The observer can also view an overhead mode called Table Top mode or have total control over where to go with the Free Cam mode.
The new game setting is called Standard Issue Rifles. In an attempt at historical accuracy, SIR mode forces every player to use the standard issue rifle for that faction. For example, the British would use the SMLE MKIII. These weapons have no extra bonuses such as optics. The mode is not included in the base game, but can be toggled on or off as a Custom Game option.
Vehicle Patch Notes
Many changes have been made to vehicles, especially the Landship, air vehicles and others. The full changes for vehicles are as follows:
• TankGewehr now does increased damage, from 120-150 to 160-180. Change is on both the Landship and Tank Hunter. Damage against planes is virtually unchanged
• Landship mortars have had their range increased slightly
• The Mortar Pattern of the Landship now has 5 seats, adding two additional side LMG seats to the package
• The Squad Support Pattern of the Landship now features a front firing 20mm cannon like the Light Tank Flanker Pattern, instead of an LMG
• The Landship now takes the same damage as the Heavy Tank
• Decreased amount of health restored by emergency repairs on the Heavy Tank from 30 percent to 20 percent
• Increased the amount of health restored by track repairs on the Landship from 15 percent to 20 percent
• Decreased amount of health restored by emergency repairs on the Landship from 30 percent to 25 percent
• Decreased damage of Case shells against planes by 50 percent
• Reduced stationary AA range from 400 m to 334 m
• Fixed inconsistent damage of plane rockets against other planes
• Reduced plane rocket impact damage from 120 to 100
• Increased plane rocket initial speed and reduced time to live
• Reduced Ranken Dart damage against planes
• Made bombers take 20 percent more damage from bullets
• Increased Dogfighter and Trench Fighter MG damage by 4 percent and slowed down the overheat
• Increased Bomber Killer MG damage by 3 percent
• Decreased Airship Killer MG damage by 18 percent
• Decrease plane tail gunner damage by 23 percent (far) to 42 percent (close) and sped up damage drop-off slightly
• Reduced boat torpedo range to approximately 400 m, matching the behemoth AA range
Weapon Patch Notes
All sorts of weapon changes have been made as well. The full update on weapons are as follows:
• Reduced reload time for the Lewis MG from 3 to 2.85 s and 4.5 to 4.2 s for fast and slow reload to better match the animations
• Slowed down Lewis MG overheat from 35 to 50 bullets
• Increased Madsen MG fast reload from 2.45 to 2.65 s to better match the animations
• Reduced tactical fast time for the BAR from 2.9 to 2.8 s to better match the animations
• Increased MG15 reload time from 4.3 to 4.45 s to better match the animations
• Corrected an error where LMGs and rifles zoomed in too fast when used with iron sights and 2.00x magnification
• Increased the throwing velocity of the Light AT Grenade to the same value as used by the Frag Grenade
• Improved accuracy and recoil of M1903 Experimental
• Made revolvers and the Howdah Pistol recover faster from dispersion
• Flares no longer set the player on fire immediately after firing them while looking down
• Reduced the damage of mortar shells when hitting an object immediately after firing
• Fixed Martini-Henry dealing too much damage to most body parts. It is now affected by a 0.9 multiplier to the lower torso and upper arms and a 0.75 multiplier to the legs and forearms, like the other rifles with sweet-spot mechanics
• Martini-Henry now resupplies 5 bullets at a time
• Reduced No.3 revolver reload time from 2.666 s to 2.3 s
• Increased No.3 rate of fire from 150 rpm to 164 rpm
• Reduced Repetierpistole M1912 aimed stationary dispersion from 0.4 to 0.3
• Reduced Repetierpistole M1912 horizontal recoil from 0.8 to 0.5
• Increased Hellriegel first shot recoil multiplier from 1.8 to 2.0
• Increased Hellriegel horizontal recoil from 0.76 to 0.8
• Reduced MP18 first shot recoil multiplier from 2.1 to 1.8
• Improved shotgun crosshair size and scaling
• Sawed-Off shotgun now resupplies 4 rounds at a time
• Reduced 12g Automatic dispersion increase per shot from 0.3 to 0.15
• Fix for dispersion of Model 10-A Hunter decreasing too quickly
• Fix for dispersion of Model 10-A Factory decreasing too slowly
• Moved up damage drop-off from M97 Trench Gun Hunter, Model 10-A Factory and Hunter by 1
• Reduced 12g Automatic post reload delay from 0.5 to 0.3
• Improved hip fire of M1903 Experimental
• Changed SMGs and LMGs to use damage curves
• Huot, Lewis, M1909 and BAR minimum damage increased from 21 to 23
• LMG damage drop-off happens at farther distances
• Reduced effect of suppression on LMG vertical recoil
• Changed LMG base ADS dispersion increase per shot from -0.12 to -0.085 so they are slightly more accurate on the first shots
• Reduced Lewis horizontal recoil from 0.36 to 0.34
• Reduced Huot horizontal recoil from 0.32 to 0.16
• Reduced M1909 horizontal recoil from 0.3 to 0.24
• Changed post reload delays on Gewehr 98 from 0.4 to 0.8 to better match animations
• Changed post reload delays on SMLE from 0.8 to 0.6333 to better match animations
• Changed post reload delays on M1903 from 0.8 to 0.7 to better match animations
General Patch Notes
The rest of the patch notes for Battlefield 1’s latest update are as follows:
Stability & Performance
• Fixed an issue that caused a hang when pressing J/K/L on console keyboard
• Added a new Framerate Limiter option that limits the maximum framerate the game will run at to a specific amount. Limiting your framerate to a lower number can help improve performance if you are experiencing high CPU usage
• CPU optimization to improve high framerate operation on high end video cards where there is no VRAM pressure
• Fixed an issue where the game would sometimes crash when loading levels
• Fixed an issue where the game would sometimes crash when dying in a vehicle
• Fixed a server crash related to trip wires
• Fixed an issue where outdated game clients could still connect to EA servers without receiving an error
• PC: Forced v-sync to on during loading movies on PC to prevent screen tearing and stutters
• PC: Fixed some issues that could lead to GPU hang on DX11
• PC: Fixed ghosting issues
• PC: Borderless full screen now works as intended
• PC: Fixed an issue with fullscreen causing other windows to be resized and/or moved around
• Xbox One: Fixed a rare VOIP related crash
• Console: Tweaked dynamic resolution min cap scaling to improve GPU performance over loss of resolution
Gameplay
• Monte Grappa, Suez, Ballroom Blitz & Argonne Forest - Made tweaks to certain areas of the map where attackers had a very difficult time capturing specific sectors
• Fixed an issue where players could get team kills when killing an enemy who has joined on a friend in your team
• Netcode improvements to apply pose changes faster. Before it was only applied when standing and going from stand to crouch. Now it is applied for all pose transitions and while walking as well
• Wrecked Airship parts left behind by a destroyed airship should no longer occasionally kill soldiers
• Fixed rubber banding issues and non-smooth movement of airplanes in MP
• Slightly adjusted the matchmaking ruleset for Operations to reduce the chance of entering an Operation that is about to end
• Re-worked how the behemoth enters the map in Operations game mode. The Behemoth will no longer appear if a team is in a significant lead. This affects both attackers and defenders in Operations
• Defenders will no longer get a behemoth on a new level if attackers are on their last battalion
• Reduced attacker behemoths to prevent them from getting one on each retry on second and third maps
• Increased score difference between teams needed for behemoth to appear
• Fixed camera jitter during deploy transition to airborne vehicles
• Binoculars in Single Player are now working if click-to-zoom option is selected. In multiplayer if click-to-zoom is selected, the zoom clicks are not lost anymore if happening during weapon switch or reload transitions
• Added kick of player if spawning with restricted weapons to prevent usage of weapons not allowed in Custom Games
• Split the click/hold-to-zoom weapon option into separate ones for vehicles and soldiers
• Fixed an issue where the player was not being awarded score for capturing a conquest point after exiting and reentering the capture area
• Reduced mortar dispersion increase per shot from 3 to 2.75
• Prevented the possibility to spawn with the wrong class when switching class at the time of deploy
• Fixed an issue where grenades didn't rotate correctly or at all when thrown from the player
• Fixed an issue with camera transitions when dying
• Fixed an issue with horse twitching from explosives
• Fixed an issue where trying to place a limpet charge on a door resulted in a crooked, floating charge instead
• Fixed an issue where prone aiming constraints were not properly applied after respawn
• Fixed an issue where players sometimes became invisible when exiting certain vehicles
• Fixed an issue where soldiers would get stuck on top of vehicles
• Fixed an issue where captured flags could be stretched by shooting them with shell projectiles
• Fixed 3p stuttering of Behemoth when viewed from the ground
• Fixed an issue with the placed collision on the tunnel ceiling on Monte Grappa
• Fixed an issue where the rifle on cavalry would appear with the sabre animation
• Fixed an issue where destroying turrets on behemoths with explosives would sometimes disable the wrong turrets
• Fixed an issue which caused part destruction on airships to not work as intended
• Fixed an issue where Elite Classes in vehicles or stationary turrets took the same amount of damage as normal soldiers
• For players using the click-to-zoom option, sprint is now properly interrupted on zoom and re-engaged on un-zoom
• Fortress turret wrecks now stay forever, or until a new turret respawns to prevent issues with vehicle and soldier collision
• Minor adjustments to Ballroom Blitz battlement gate damage behavior
• Destruction tuning to avoid floating lamps
• Adjusted Sinai desert rock bridge debris damage and health for consistency
• Fixed object on Ballroom Blitz that improperly caused collision damage to tanks
• Fixed strange looking enter animation on QF1 AA Stationary Weapon
• Added more spawn variations to the C flag in Conquest on Empire's Edge
• Soldiers can no longer enter the tower on Ballroom Blitz after it has been destroyed
• Grenade throws will no longer be canceled by pressing Zoom while holding the grenade button. Instead they can be canceled with Reload
• Fixed flare projectiles penetrating aircraft
• Flare projectile now breaks glass
• Soldiers can no longer switch to rifle grenades when they are out of ammo. The C96 Carbine now automatically switches to secondary when out of ammo
• Fixed the beam reticle for the Cei-Rigotti showing the cross reticle instead
• Corrected occlusion and collision issues on Ballroom Blitz
• Resized the Ring Reticle for improved shooting experience
• The mortar can no longer be deployed on bushes
• Fixed an issue where sometimes matchmaking from recommendation did not show the loading screen
• Fixed an issue where players would sometimes be taken to an earlier checkpoint when rebooting the console while playing the campaign
UI
• Improved overall UI performance and stability
• Fixed an issue of Medics not seeing 3D revive/minimap death icons of teammates who died behind them until they look at the body
• Hardcore now shows team kills in the score log
• Made it simpler to report offensive emblems by adding reporting functionality in the EoR scoreboard
• Improved latency in End of Round when scrolling through the scoreboard
• Fixed an issue where vehicle crosshairs would disappear in Hardcore when using the Armored Train or Dreadnaught
• Gadgets now take priority if pressing dpad up and dpad left or right at the same time
• Fixed an issue with the Operation Outcome screen that caused it to display the wrong information about the result of the Operation
• Crosshair visibility can now be adjusted in the gameplay options
• Fixed an exploit where a player could steal Squad Leader status from an active squad leader
• Fixed an issue with the number of service stars always showing as zero in the customize screen
• a gas mask in stationary weapons and other vehicle seats where it was previously hardcoded
• Fixed an issue where customization submenus would automatically close while selecting equipment
• Fixed an issue with the current soldier not displaying in the squad screen in Team Deathmatch
• Squads with players in a party now stay unlocked if there are only two players in the party
• Prevent squads having too many players when running map rotations with mixed game modes
• Joystick now works without setting the controller layout to Custom
• Fixed an issue causing delays in game chat
• Fixed an issue where hints would get stuck on the screen
• Skins unlocked from Battlepacks now properly indicate they are for all patterns of a specific weapon
• Fixed an issue where friendly mortars would sometimes appear as deploy points
• Player can now select squad spawn points with the dpad
• Fixed an issue where a tech hang was caused by joining an Operation's session while in progressive installation
• Fixed an issue where no error messages were displayed when accepting a Multiplayer invite during progressive installation while playing Singleplayer
• Fixed an issue where joining a multiplayer game invite resulted in a black background
• Fixed an issue where no queue information was provided after accepting an invite to a full server, while on another server with the option menu open
• Fixed an issue where the round bonus score bar in EoR personal tab was counting up and then disappearing
• Fixed an issue where spamming the options button in EoR lead to a technical hang in the next round
• Fixed an issue with Model 10-A Slug that was tracked as Artillery kills in the EOR screen
• Fixed an issue where the EoR countdown stopped when quickly navigating through tabs
• Fixed an issue where a tech-hang was caused after selecting the shovel and bayonet in Weapons and gadgets
• PC: Added server info in the "..." menu
• PC: Pressing "ESC" while in customize now properly takes you back to the deploy screen
• PC: Exposed Gas Mask keybind in vehicle section. This allows you to rebind the button to put on
• PS4: Fixed an issue where User Created Media Restricted users were able to see server names created by other users
• Xbox One: Fixed an issue where the LB/RB buttons had no functionality in the news menu
Audio
• Fixed so that master and music volume fades nicely to the saved settings when starting the game
• Fixed an issue with in-world sound heard briefly when going into the Deploy Screen
So what do you think? Are you excited to play on the new map? What other changes would you like to see in future updates? Let us know your thoughts in the comments section below.
