War: quite apart from “absolutely nothing”, we all know it’s good for gaming. Without historical and current conflict, our digital libraries would be much the poorer.

But that also means any new title has a lot to live up to and improve on. On its release date, Battlefield V was broken, with a raft of glitches such as stuck menus and hilarious body-popping.

A few updates later and matters have improved, although there’s still a huge jobbie pending for January. I know the Christmas market is the big one, but software shouldn’t be released in such a state.

Nevertheless, the multiplayer-first-campaign-second approach of recent fighty titles has reared its spotty face here, although the handful of single-player stories on offer are pretty fine compared with many, especially Tirailleur with its social commentary and wide-open battles. Not so sure on the knife-throwing skiing in Nordlys, but the mountains are pretty.

Online and the big lesson to be learned is ‘stick the hell together’. Med packs are scarce and they don’t heal too well here - and the fewer in your team, the more difficult it is to achieve your objective. Stay tight and, if you take one to the face, your chum can give you a quick blast of the good stuff.

Resources are difficult to come by, so you’ll find yourself scrambling off-piste to pick yourself up a handful of bullets. Realistic? I suppose. Annoying? Damned straight.

When it doesn’t glitch out, BV is an exhilarating piece of work. The variety of weapons all handle and ‘feel’ different, and the array of vehicles is tremendous. Gameplay is smooth and most of the maps are stuffed full of detail. Apart from Rotterdam, which is a large pile of cat excrement.

It’s a shame BV had to go through such a patchy birth. Hell, it was busted and shouldn’t have been released in that state. But the bug fixes have been plentiful and, for the most part, effective. Come January, we could have a classic on our hands.