With Verdun, Tannenberg, and especially Isonzo, BlackMill Games has built over the years a well-defined niche within the multiplayer shooter landscape. Its WW1 Game Series has never attempted to directly compete with the genre’s giants, preferring a more methodical, punitive, and historically accurate approach. Gallipoli continues along this path, but it would be reductive to consider it merely a new chapter set on a different front. The transition from the Italian Alps to the beaches of the Gallipoli peninsula and the deserts of the Middle East brings about rather profound changes, both in the pace of combat and in the structure of the matches themselves.
The result is probably the slowest and most thoughtful title yet created by BlackMill Games, but also one of the most immersive. A direction that may not please everyone, especially those seeking immediacy and excessive mobility, but which effectively recaptures that sense of precariousness that should accompany a battle from the First World War.
This content is provided by YouTube. To view it, you must allow external content. Activation may result in data being shared with the third party.
For king and country!
The main novelty is certainly Expedition, the primary mode in which two teams alternate between attack and defence across a series of sectors. The base inevitably recalls what was seen in Isonzo, but BlackMill worked to reduce several easily exploitable dynamics for more experienced players. The main innovation is represented by the Beacon, advanced respawn points that attackers can build while advancing or infiltrating beyond enemy lines. Each team can maintain only one active Beacon and building a new one automatically destroys the previous one, making their positioning a strategic decision far from secondary. Some Beacons can also provide ammunition or other advantages tied to the sector they belong to, turning them into true tools of support for advancement.
The objective system has also been made more linear and less predictable. The main objective is selected between two possible positions, and before placing explosives or completing certain actions, it is necessary to physically capture the relevant area. This limits those solo incursions that in Isonzo allowed veterans to cross the front and complete objectives before their opposing team could react. On the same line sits the new functioning of Foothold, more closely tied to the numerical ratio between attackers and defenders, and therefore less likely to turn the final phases of the match into a prolonged hunt for the last hidden soldier.
BlackMill has also touched upon some of the community’s most entrenched habits, such as the so-called wire jumping, which allowed players to bypass certain obstacles by exploiting speed and jump mechanics. In Gallipoli, barbed wire once again becomes a true obstacle, forcing players to seek alternative routes and passages. Overall, these changes make the battlefield more accessible for newcomers and reduce the reliance on obscure exploits and map knowledge.
Reduction from 64 to 50 players leaves instead more contrasting impressions. In some situations, the choice is understandable: certain defensive positions are already extremely difficult to overcome, and a larger number of soldiers would risk causing prolonged delays. Not all maps, however, succeed in masking the reduced density in the same way. Suez and Kut feature very spacious areas, with long stretches of desert terrain that can appear far too empty when both teams end up concentrating in the same sector.
When level design finds the right balance, however, Gallipoli knows how to be spectacular. ANZAC Cove represents one of the studio’s best scenarios, exploiting beaches, hills and trenches to create intensely gripping assaults, while Suez still manages to stand out for its atmosphere and visual identity. This is also aided by a significantly improved technical component compared toIsonzo: lighting, vegetation, models and textures return richer environments, while abandoned equipment, destroyed buildings, fortifications and small environmental details make the battlefields appear far more believable.
All men dream, but not equally
The most noticeable change in Gallipoli concerns the behaviour of the soldier and the weapons. The gunplay is significantly heavier than in previous episodes, and everything, from movement speed to rifle sway, seems designed to constantly remind the player they are not in an arcade shooter.
Stamina is used for many actions, and running before facing an enemy has tangible consequences for precision. After a prolonged sprint, the aim shakes noticeably, and firing immediately can mean missing even relatively close targets. You must slow down, recover breath, and be more careful about when to expose yourself. In some situations, the system can seem excessive, especially when an opponent just tens of metres away is missed despite the aim appearing correctly positioned. Complicating matters further are some hit registration issues present in the launch version, capable of making certain encounters more frustrating than they should be.
The weapons, however, deliver excellent feedback. Recoil, animations and sound give shots a strong physicality, and given the arsenal’s high lethality, a single bullet often suffices to end a fight. The ballistics have also been adjusted to reduce the effectiveness of fire at extreme ranges: within 100-150 metres, behaviour remains relatively intuitive, while hitting distant targets requires greater attention, preventing rifles and machine guns from becoming too easily controllable laser weapons capable of dominating half the map.
Even more important is the work done on suppression. Being targeted by a heavy machine gun no longer simply means witnessing some screen vibrations: accuracy is severely compromised and continuing to extend beyond cover becomes almost suicidal. The result finally grants HMG a genuinely intimidating role and often compels attackers to change routes, use grenades, or rely on artillery to clear a well-defended position. Support weapons have also received greater freedom. Heavy machine guns can now be placed directly by players, and mortars can be resupplied with greater continuity. However, this latter aspect may seem too permissive: with a class dedicated to resupplying, artillery and heavy positions can remain active for extremely long periods, creating situations where constant bombardment dominates the rest of the engagement.
In general, BlackMill seems to have consciously accepted to sacrifice part of the traditional balance for the altar of immersion. A hill can be extremely difficult to capture, a trench can become a deadly trap under artillery fire, and a well-placed machine gun can block an entire advance for several minutes. Maps attempt to replicate the real-world terrain rather than offering perfectly symmetrical arenas, and this means that neither team always has equal opportunities.
It’s a philosophy that inevitably divides. Gallipoli can be deeply frustrating: you die for a grenade that fell into a trench without hearing it, for a bullet fired from a position almost invisible, or for artillery fire while you thought you were safe. At the same time, precisely this unpredictability contributes enormously to the game’s identity. BlackMill doesn’t aim to simulate a perfectly balanced competitive match, but a battle in which the player constantly feels vulnerable.
I order you to die
The new five-player sections system integrates quite well with this philosophy. When a coordinated team communicates and effectively uses Beacon, supplies, and cover, Gallipoli delivers some of the best moments in the entire series. The problem emerges most noticeably when playing with friends. You cannot freely form your own squad before the match, and joining the same section can become a small race against other players at the start of the match. If slots are taken, few alternatives remain. A system to request a position swap, similar to what was seen in Verdun and Tannenberg, would be a simple solution to a limitation hard to justify in a shooter so reliant on coordination.
The same applies to communication. When players use voice chat to signal enemy positions and coordinate attacks, the game system comes alive. But when everyone proceeds independently toward the objective, many of the most interesting mechanics inevitably lose meaning. The absence of a true proximity voice chat is a significant drawback: being next to a soldier from another section without being able to communicate directly with them breaks immersion and unnecessarily limits coordination options. This is compounded by an extremely heterogeneous European community from a linguistic standpoint. In a game where communication and coordination are so crucial, finding yourself in a team composed of groups that exclusively use different languages can significantly compromise the effectiveness of assaults. It is not naturally a limitation attributable directly to the developers, but the lack of more effective tools for coordinating makes the problem more apparent.
On the content front, Gallipoli launches with five maps and an arsenal apparently less extensive than that achieved by Isonzo after several years of updates. The comparison, however, would be misleading: the previous chapter had also been released with a relatively limited number of scenarios, expanding progressively over time. The roadmap promises at least four more maps, new factions including French and Russian, and over seventeen additional weapons. A particularly appreciated choice concerns weapon access: weapons are available from the start and it’s unnecessary to complete lengthy mission sequences merely to wield your preferred rifle. Progression remains present through modifications and upgrades, some of which still require a bit of balancing. Upgrades like the mad minute of the SMLE Mk III, for example, can make certain weapons extremely effective once advanced levels are reached.
The launch version also comes with its share of youthful issues. Beyond the already mentioned imperfectly recorded shots, we encountered anomalies related to the officers’ artillery and several minor bugs. Nothing that seriously undermines the overall experience, but enough to occasionally cause some irritation.
In conclusion
Despite some rough edges, Gallipoli probably represents one of the most interesting steps taken by the WW1 Game Series. It’s slower, heavier, and less indulgent than Isonzo, but at the same time manages to be surprisingly accessible for those who haven’t yet experienced the saga, precisely because many of the old shortcuts have been removed and objectives are more immediately understandable. Those who enjoyed Verdun, Tannenberg and Isonzo will find much to love in this new chapter. The same applies to those seeking a historical shooter far removed from the dynamics of modern blockbusters, where being under fire from a machine gun is genuinely a problem and crossing a hundred metres of open terrain can become an achievement. BlackMill still needs to fix several bugs, fine-tune the balance of support weapons, and above all make playing with your friends less clunky. But the foundation is extremely solid. Between beach assaults, artillery-battered trenches, and long advances through the desert, Gallipoli succeeds in offering something few FPS multiplayer games are still trying to propose: the feeling that the battlefield is bigger, more dangerous, and above all more important than the individual player.
About the Author
