The Norwegian Netflix WWII Flick That Has Battlefield V Fans Buzzing

Video games and live-action films are not always a good match. Countless silver screen adaptations of popular game franchises have proven to be either box office flops or embarrassments berated by reviewers. The best example of that is Uwe Boll's filmography, which mainly consists of distasteful live-action video game movies. 

But sometimes, a movie can grab the attention of gamers not by being a direct adaptation, but by covering similar ground. Most notably, video games taking place during either one of the World Wars heavily draw inspiration from movies set in the same time period. In some cases, studios directly involve filmmakers in the creation of virtual experiences, with Steven Spielberg being the most prominent example. The renowned "Saving Private Ryan" director famously drafted the original concept for the first "Medal of Honor" (via Gamesradar), a title that went onto become a franchise that defined the first-person shooter genre for nearly a decade. 

Gamers have an eye for catching the depictions of locations and events from their favorite shooters in war epics, but rarely is the resemblance so uncanny as in this recent Norwegian WWII drama. It's a movie that's taken Netflix by storm and bears similarities to one of 2018's biggest games in both style and substance.

Erik Skoldbjærg's "Narvik: Hitler's First Defeat" was released on Christmas Day 2022 in Norway. Within a month, it became the country's most-watched domestic release of 2022, with 400,000 tickets sold (via Dagsavisen). On January 23, 2023, "Narvik" got its global release courtesy of Netflix. In two days, it surprisingly topped the U.S. charts on the streaming platform, with virtually no prior promotion (via Tom's Guide). 

The WWII drama particularly caught the attention of fans of "Battlefield V," a shooter in which one of the multiplayer maps is a faithful recreation of 1940's Battle of Narvik. In a recommendation post on the "Battlefield V" subreddit, a user whose account was recently deleted pointed out that the film has "a lot of things people will recognize from the map." They also praised the efforts of DICE (an EA-owned studio and "Battlefield" developer) in accurately depicting the battle. 

The comment section quickly picked up on the resemblance. One Redditor, u/TheMexicanJuan, went as far as saying that "the opening 10 minutes is basically the spawn sequence of Narvik Operations," in reference to "Grand Operations," a game mode that adds a narrative component to multiplayer battles by revealing their historical context. Given the reception "Narvik" enjoyed on Netflix, it has the potential to stand shoulder-to-shoulder with some of the best World War II movies of all time, and judging by "Battlefield V" fans' reactions, it's a must-see for enthusiasts of that franchise as well.