EA and DICE Stand by Decision to Include Playable Females in Battlefield V
Long-time fans met the Battlefield V announcement with scrutiny after it the reveal that Women would play a prominent role in the video game. Strangers with mouths full of salt contrived the hashtag #NotMyBattlefield and criticized the devs for an iteration that is not “historically accurate.” While some veterans shared legitimate concerns, others simply pointed to a woman on the cover and in the trailer, proclaiming it SJW nonsense. Since then, DICE and EA have found multiple ways to tell players to get over it.
The backlash against women in Battlefield V is one EA’s chief creative officer, Patrick Söderlund, shrugged off in an interview with Gamasutra. “We stand up for the cause because I think those people who don’t understand it, well, you have two choices: either accept it or don’t buy the game,” he said. “I’m fine with either or.”
The decision to make Battlefield an inclusive experience belongs to the dev team, a decision that EA supports. Moreover, the studio did not conjure the idea from thin air; the idea to include women in Battlefield came from player feedback. “If I got a dollar for every interview I’ve been in through the years, where people challenged us about not having female soldiers, I would be a rich man,” Lead Designer Lars Gustavsson told The Verge. “So to finally be involved with this decision, it’s actually quite mindblowing.”
Some would point to evidence that females contributed to the war effort in a variety of ways (many people have, and women fulfilled many combat roles), but DICE says that’s beside the point. Over on Twitter, general manager Oskar Gabrielson said: “the Battlefield sandbox has always been about playing the way you want.” But the first response came from DICE Executive Producer Aleksander Grøndal, who said: “We will always put fun over authentic (smiley face).”
In the end, as Söderlund says, there are “a lot of female people who want to play, and male players who want to play as a badass [woman].” Battlefield V is promoting the sandbox experience over total simulation, which may have been the point of the franchise. Either way, EA DICE are reiterating an age-old maxim: if you don’t like it, don’t buy it.
SOURCE: The Verge