Tip 1: Skip the prologue. It’s a tutorial disguised as a suicide mission. You’ll respawn repeatedly as different soldiers, which artificially inflates your playtime. Jump straight to the first real story, “Through Mud and Blood.”
Tip 2: Use the “Easy” difficulty for lore dives. If you’re here for the atmosphere and historical nods—like the cameo of a young Adolf Hitler in one cutscene—drop the difficulty. You’ll breeze through in five hours.
Tip 3: Don’t ignore the Codex entries. They’re short, often heartbreaking, and include real photos. One entry describes a pigeon named “Cher Ami” who saved a US battalion. These tiny details make the campaign feel weighty despite its length.
Fun fact: The entire campaign has zero health regeneration. You must find med packs or bandages. It’s a deliberate design choice to make you feel more vulnerable. Every moment of healing is a moment of reflection.
Why Length Matters Less Than You Think
We live in a culture that equates “long” with “valuable.” But Battlefield 1’s campaign is like a great short story—it stays with you longer than a bloated novel. The “Friends in High Places” mission, where you fly a bomber, lasts about an hour. Yet its final aerial duel is more memorable than entire campaigns in other shooters.
Consider this: the entire War Stories mode is shorter than a single shift at work. You could finish it between lunch and dinner. That’s intentional. DICE wanted you to play through multiple times, trying different approaches to each mission.
Battlefield 1: A Historic Look Back
For instance, in the “Nothing Is Written” stealth mission, you can choose to kill everyone or ghost through silently. A second playthrough as a run-and-gunner changes the experience entirely. Suddenly, the six-hour campaign becomes a twelve-hour sandbox.
