Battlefield 5's leaked Firestorm tutorial gives you a taste of WW2 battle royale

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Driving a tank in battle royale should be a treat

Battlefield 5's long-awaited battle royale mode, Firestorm, is set to debut sometime this month - but that's not soon enough for many players. And though EA has been pretty quiet regarding specific Firestorm details - save for a premature Daily Order mentioning the mode - a leaked tutorial video has plenty to offer, like the fact that Firestorm will feature solo, duo, or squad queues.

At a glance, Firestorm looks like exactly what you'd expect from battle royale: players parachute onto a giant map, hopeful to find powerful weapons and better gear before their opponents. You'll need to keep moving, as a giant wall of fire constricts tighter and tighter around the map. Ammo is limited, as is your inventory space, so it's best to expand your carrying capacity by tracking down a backpack. But in true Battlefield fashion, Firestorm lets you call in Reinforcements and drive an honest-to-goodness tank around the map, along with other vehicles like a one-seater whirlybird and an amphibious vehicle that can drive through water. 

Weapons in Firestorm come in one of three rarities: Common, Rare, or Epic, with the purple Epics offering added components like scopes, extended magazines, and reduced recoil. You'll also be able to fire off a pistol when you're downed and waiting for assistance (the obvious exception being Solo play, where you'll simply die). There won't be any revive-after-death system akin to Apex Legends or Fortnite's Second Chance machines, which makes sense given that reanimation doesn't quite fit with the World War 2 time period.

Once a video clip like this leaks, it's impossible to get the trailer cat back in the bag, as the clip has been uploaded numerous times to YouTube with no takedowns going through just yet. Battlefield 5's global community engagement manager F8RGE expressed disappointment in response to the leak, but wanted to clarify the state of the video. "Leaks of early versions and information are just that, early," they wrote. "When you read or watch something there's a risk that some of the things that you will see will be different when things release. Just wanted to flag that some information may change over time."

It's pretty clear that this tutorial video isn't final, given the mismatched subtitles and typos in some spots. But it seems unlikely that the core features of Firestorm mode will be changing before it debuts on a still-unrevealed date in March, at least at launch. The leak might force EA's hand to push up their planned trailer reveals a bit, but it hopefully won't be much longer before we get officially sanctioned footage or the mode itself launches in full.

We've already ranked the best Battlefield games, including Battlefield 5, but perhaps the addition of Firestorm will bump it up a few spots. 

Lucas Sullivan
Lucas Sullivan

Lucas Sullivan is the former US Managing Editor of GamesRadar+. Lucas spent seven years working for GR, starting as an Associate Editor in 2012 before climbing the ranks. He left us in 2019 to pursue a career path on the other side of the fence, joining 2K Games as a Global Content Manager. Lucas doesn't get to write about games like Borderlands and Mafia anymore, but he does get to help make and market them.