‘Battlefield 1’ Players Attempt To Stop Fighting For Armistice Day, Get Strafed By A Plane

This past Sunday was Armistice Day, a day on which many countries commemorate the end of hostilities on the Western Front of World War I. This year was particularly significant, as it was also the 100-year anniversary of the end of the war in 1918. To mark the occasion, some Australians playing a video game set on the battlefields of World War I attempted a ceasefire. Unfortunately, it only takes one arsehole to ruin everything.

Battlefield 1 features a multiplayer mode that can support up to 64 players fighting each other. It’s nigh impossible to coordinate even five randoms in an online game, so trying to stop 64 people from doing the thing the game is specifically designed for them to do was always going to be a long shot.

But for a small, shining moment, it worked. In the video posted to Reddit, recorded by player TheAtomForce, players type “ceasefire” and “everybody stop shooting” in the game’s chatbox, gathering on the beach to perform a series of squats in the universal online-game sign for “friendly”.

“On the eleventh day at the eleventh hour the guns fell silent, today we remember,” says [TKS]GizMoKomodo in the chatbox.

“its 1pm here tho,” responds ICE_MANhellfire.

“melbourne time,” says TheAtomForce.

Soldiers with blue symbols floating above their heads mingle with soldiers bearing red symbols, enemies and allies repeatedly crouching in harmony. Lacking any real military authority who could command they lay down their arms, this is a moment that could only happen if everyone, individually, decided for themselves to stop fighting.

It’s a beautiful scene, right up until Silencer-01_AU strafes the beach, killing several involved in the ceasefire.

“fuck you silencer,” says Supa_Strayan, a sentiment echoed by many in the games’ chat as Silencer flies off into the sky, leaving a pile of corpses in their wake. Then TheAtomForce gets knifed, and from there we can assume it was back to your regularly scheduled war.

This is the 100 Year Anniversary of the End of WW1. On the 11th Hour we stopped fighting. from Battlefield

To the murderer’s credit, they showed up in the Reddit thread to apologise for literally stabbing TheAtomForce in the back. “Sorry for stabbing you in the back,” wrote hertie. “Got annoyed that our team kept on getting killed.”

Overall, I’d dare say it was a success. Yes, it quickly devolved once more into violence and mayhem. But for one brief, beautiful moment, there was peace on the battlefield and goodwill amongst men.

“Wow now that is something I’d never believe would happen in a online game until I saw this,” said redditor francois_heer34 in the thread’s top-voted comment. “[T]he smartass in that plane can fuck off though.”