Battlefield 5 will have women. When this was revealed during the game’s announcement stream last month, most people said “oh neat” and got on with their lives. A vocal handful, however, found this offensively out of place in their “historically accurate” series about ramping tanks over horses. Weeks later, they still haven’t stopped complaining about it.
Now, the Battlefield subreddit has had enough.
The moderators of the Battlefield subreddit – one of the series’ largest single discussion forums, with nearly 130,000 users – posted a particularly pointed thread yesterday putting a stop to conversations on the game series and historical accuracy.
“We’re done, its over,” a mod wrote in an announcement thread. “New rule: No more bitching about historical accuracy, it’s a game, not a history book. Violations will have consequences.”
The moderator added that threads about historical accuracy – which usually centre around the presence of women and black people and have recently featured greatest hits such as a guy lying about being a historian and another person suggesting that it’d be fine for marginalised people to be in the game so long as they stayed in their place – have resulted in toxic mobs of people who aren’t even part of the community repeatedly going to war against the subreddit.
“This issue has been discussed in a million fucking threads, but we’ve never been brigaded more than we have in the past months,” the mod wrote. “Admins can only keep up with so much. We’re done wasting our time on this, every point has been made, no you’re not sexists or whatever, but this shit is just repetitive now.”
It’s important to note that the Battlefield subreddit is not controlled by, affiliated with, or paid by EA. Earlier this week, however, EA chief creative officer Patrick Soderlund also told the ceaselessly pedantic (but definitely not sexist) mobs to just deal with it.
“We don’t take any flak,” Soderlund said in an interview with Gamasutra, referring to the backlash surrounding the inclusion of women in Battlefield 5.
“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. I’m fine with either or. It’s just not OK.”
Comments
110 responses to “The Battlefield Subreddit Has Officially Had It With ‘Historical Accuracy’ Complaints”
Who knew setting a game against the backdrop of a historical event would draw people complaining about historical accuracy?
B1 featured many guns and vehicles that were not of the era, and girls running around is a step too far in this? Hilarious.
Oh they complained about that too. That’s why this stuff isn’t new. It’s just that the inclusion of women has caught the eyes of journalists
It’s true, folks have always commented on the accuracy, but it’s not just the journos who are focusing on this, the accuracy threads have never hit this level of argument and saturation.
Oh definitely, but I think that the games generally haven’t had this level of an inaccurate inclusion to the franchise before. Personally, I don’t mind that you can pick your gender, it should have been done in BF4 and Hardline first.
It also probably didn’t help that the SubReddit was also being brigaded by people just wanting to troll which inflated the appearance of outrage.
“level of inaccuracy” A woman has won the Medal of Honour & that was in a era where women & black men were largely denied recognition, Most successful snipers were Russian women, French resistance had alot of women, The battle of Berlin had women, Female combatants is historically accurate, Having American combatants being center stage in wars they did little in is less so.
Yeah sure, I’m not disagreeing with you that women had a big impact on the war and participated in it.
The inaccurate portrayal I’m referring to is women serving in the British and Germany armies as front line combat troops. That’s what a lot of this outrage seems to stem from.
Fair enough.
Exactly this. If that chick had had a Russian or French accent, we would not be having this convo. Simple as that.
The prosthetics on the other hand…
Walkers medal was rescinded in 1917 as well as over 900 others as they didn’t meet the criteria.
It was given back posthumously by Carter in the 70s, Carter was a vocal proponent of equality so it’s debatable if the move was politically motivated.
Ya know just being the reason Germany had to fight a split front, but yeah they did nothing. Also you’re full of shit, In WWII the best group of marksman were a Canadian brigade, please look up the facts.Also the battle of Berlin did not have women on the front lines, they are what’s called communication officers but whatever. Or the fact that the campaign LITERALLY rewrote history.
Women are the huge inaccuracy? I’d argue the fact that BF1 featured everyone running around shooting machine guns from the hip was far more inaccurate but ok. I can’t recall fully but i believe some campaigns like the gallipoli one were hugely inaccurate too and the italian one greatly exaggerated things when it comes to those armored troops. It’s a game, they do things like this but the people being vocal now aren’t the same people who were vocal about previous inaccuracies they are largely misogynists and trolls jumping on this as some feminist 4chan crap.
I would argue that outside the usual cesspool of the internet, the outrage hasn’t been about women in the game being inaccurate, but the complete and utter contempt the events are being treated with.
– the guy is somewhat retentive in what constitutes accuracy and what is has been ‘faux accuracy’ in BF games, but its an example of the laundry list of sins committed by EA to command a buck.
I also think its disingenuous from all of those white knighting this shit to make it a debate about misogyny as well. Anyone who cared about plausible reality in the game is being painted as some form of troglodyte.
We’re playing people who didn’t exist, either in battles that never happened or “rewriting history” by not following what the exact course of events might have been. (Or we are playing as real people, in ways they probably wouldn’t have acted.)
Disregarding game mechanics or what the characters look like, a game is never going to be historically accurate.
Don’t think that people are angry about this because it isn’t realistic – Battlefield has never been. However we are at the point that DICE’s stretching of the faux reality of the games is becoming immersion breaking.
I’m shameless, I’ll still play it, as I have with every BF game ever made. But lets be honest, it is much more Battlefield Heroes than Battlefield 1942.
The backlash from bf1 to this one isn’t on a comparable level. I complained about bf1s lack of historical accuracy i know some people complained about that but this one has spread further to people who likely never even played an earlier bf game.
because have you seen the absolute cess pool of misogynistic gamers on youtube screaming about in ever cringeworthy ways acting like they are somehow the speakers of wisdom and intelligent thought?
have you read the constant stream of comments on those things, it is truly a scary mirror of what part of society has become. Star Wars is even feeling the wraith of that currently. Of course it has caught the eye of journalists, it should catch the eye of everyone. One only needs to listen to voice chat in any game with a female playing to hear the childish disdain for woman.
I think sometimes you confuse “criticism” with misogyny, and lump the two together to suit their own narrative.
Saying “women in combat in a WW2 game makes no sense because for the most part they didn’t fight” isn’t misogyny – it’s fact. Of course it’s a moot point here because BF V has long abandoned any hope of historical grounding by being a fucking Fortnite clone, but it still isn’t misogyny.
People screeching into their mics when they hear a female voice is a different issue.
why not? a certain cess pool of youtube content creators do every day, even you often here join dots that may not make sense, to sell your opinion. we all do it to a degree. At least I am willing to admit it. but here’s the thing just because (for example) you dont understand the dots I am connecting, that doesnt mean they arent connecting, it just means you dont agree or havent seen what I am referring to. Vice verse when you say something.
things like this is no different than the hate Kathleen Kennedy gets for Star Wars from a CERTAIN subset of people. Just like some racists have no idea they are being racist, so too are so many of these critical youtubers selling misogynistic hate and calling it wisdom. Or in the case of this game, anti political correctness diatribes in place of intelligent and complicated discourse.
What. Completely different issue. Kennedy doesn’t get hate because she’s a women, and any that she may get for that reason vastly pales in comparison to that of the actual reason: under her reign, she has not only allowed but advocated for Star Wars, the most popular media franchise for several decades, to become riddled with political leanings, terrible writing and even worse character design, and a blatantly deliberate disdain for the established lore and characters. And then, when confronted by the fans, she, the directors, and the actors all accuse the fans of being racist and misogynist as a means to disregard their statements. This is the entire reason people hate Kennedy and her cronies.
No one complains that Leia was a strong female character.
No one complains that the original trilogy turned out so well because the lead editors who kept Lucas in line were women.
And no one complains that Kennedy is a woman; it’s simply because she’s shit at her job, and the ticket sales are proving it.
You honestly think star wars never had political leanings or bad writing in the past?
What the actual fuck are you talking about?
Bad writing, have you seen the originals, have you seen the prequels? Star Wars became as huge as it is in spite of bad writing. (which in itself is personal taste). Also, at the core of it is a story about do goody knights who protect people who cant protect themselves, and you are wondered that only now political correctness is taking over. the good guys in Star Wars were political correct before some losers on internet ever started losing their nut over it.
I have seen so many diatribes about her as a woman, and that because there was Leia it has a rich history of strong women. Nope ONE strong woman. Maybe two if you count Mon and that is it. Hell the original trilogy only had three main women in the whole thing. Three in three films. I have seen so many of these losers males complain that all the news films have a lot of woman in main parts and that is it in part do to some Feminist conspiracy led by Kathleen (and that is complaining about her being a woman, roll eyes)
What are you talking about with ticket sales.
The latest trilogy has to date been far more successful than the previous prequel trilogy
@Pokedad: Look at episode 2 or 3 (I can’t remember which now) where they spent too long in the galactic senate trying to build intrigue and turn what was a fairly lightweight action series into a political thriller. That said I thought the last couple (other than Last Jedi since I haven’t seen it yet) were getting back on track action wise.
@Tigerion: Ticket sales are definitely going down.
2. Force Awakens: $936 million (US) $2.07 Billion (worldwide)
6. Last Jedi: $620 Million (US) $1.33 Billion (worldwide)
7. Rogue One: $532 Million (US) $1.06 Billion (worldwide)
11. Solo: $182 Million (US) $319 Million (worldwide)
Original trilogy adjusted for inflation:
1. Star Wars: $1.3 Billion (US)
4. Return of the Jedi $741
5. Empire Strikes Back $722
Prequel Trilogy (which lots of people hated) adjusted for inflation:
3. Phantom Menace $777 Million (US)
8. Revenge of the Sith $543 (US)
9. Attack of the Clones $476 (US)
The number in front of each of the films listed above is their ranking (money wise adjusted for inflation). There are some interesting points to take from it.
Firstly, the first movie in a trilogy always seems to perform better. This is likely because there’s been a longish break between films and fans are clamouring for more. Similarly, the final film in each trilogy performs better than the 2nd. Likely because fans “want to see how it ends”.
2. the prequel trilogy was the least profitable (and likely) least liked of the lot. Which stands to reason, it got a lot of hate.
3. The original trilogy was most popular with the 1st, 4th and 5th most profitable of the series.
4. The “stories” are less popular than the core saga. And Solo is by far the least profitable of the movies. It’s actually made less money than the Star Wars Special Edition. Granted it’s still in cinemas, but unless something drastic happens it appears to be doomed to be considered a flop (at least in Star Wars terms).
5. Looking at drops from 1st movie in a trilogy to second;
SW-Emp: 45% drop
PM-AotC: 39% drop
FA-LJ: 38% Drop
Interestingly, the latest trilogy is the smallest drop profit wise of all three. Though it’s starting from a lower “base” than the original trilogy. It’s pretty close to the drop experienced in the prequel trilogy.
Note: Unfortunately I wasn’t able to find the worldwide adjusted ticket sales so I had to just use US sales.
I don’t understand the ‘dots’ you’re connecting because the dots keep getting moved to support your assertions. It’s far too easy to discount someone’s criticisms today by hiding behind the ‘misogyny’ accusation – especially because it’s an immediate attempt to claim the moral high ground in any argument.
No doubt there are people who sling hate purely based on gender and find other reasons to disguise that, but what you seem to suggest is that any criticism of women (or whatever) must be misogyny because of a ‘certain cesspool of people.’ Which is complete bullshit, and seeks to ignore what may (or may not) be valid criticism.
Not everyone who didn’t like the last Star Wars movie is a misogynist. People criticising it are not automatically misogynist. If they say something clearly misogynist then call them out on it, but don’t use it as a shield to discount or deflect arguments.
I never said they did. Nor did I say the same about BV. You are drawing in your own biases or need for me to be wrong. And making connections where none exist.
There are so very clear misogynistic people on youtube hiding behind the political correct arguments. Now maybe you havent seen the ones I mean, hell there is a LOT of them. Jujst because you havent seen them that does not make me wrong, it just means you have been lucky enough not to have seen them.
See like racist, misogynists tend not to know they are one, because in their opinion they are justified, even thought technically according to a dictionary they are one. Sure they are always grey areas, but the things I have seen clearly and they most clearly cross the line, considering we are talking about a computer game.
So to clarify, so it clear even to you I have not refer said it was the whole basis for this issue, but it is clearly part of it. if you havent seen you are lucky, very lucky.
Oh puh-lease. You think the vast majority of the backlash is from history nerds who just want a historically accurate FPS from EA and they are being misrepresented??? Have you read the discourse around this? A lot of the comments aren’t even from gamers, it’s from far right incels who just see another platform to attack women. So no, the context-less statement “women in combat in a WW2 game makes no sense because for the most part they didn’t fight” isn’t misogyny, but that is far from what is happening here.
Your assumption is that its criticism.
Nobody cares about historical accuracy in these games, because if they did they wouldn’t be buying it in the first place.
It is misogyny because it is the inclusion of women that they consider a step too far.
Not, say, the completely historically accurate persistent progression system that carried through multiple deaths that was such a key mechanism of World War 2.
If you’re not demanding a PTSD mechanic then you don’t care about accuracy, you just hate women.
Tell me, have you ever heard of “reductio ad absurdum”?
I have now. I like it.
You are missing the point that misogynists (or other people who discriminate) very rarely will say “screw women, they objectively suck!” Rather, they’ll find plausible excuses and push them exaggeratedly. Is it true that women in the front lines of the British army in WWII is technically inaccurate? Yes. But the fact that the myriad other inaccuracies of the game and the franchise at large are not bellyached this much shows a clear bias.
I do not doubt that there are people genuinely bothered by historical inaccuracies, all of them. But they need to be aware that their little campaign is being coopted by people who care very little for them.
I actually don’t disagree that the ‘historical inaccuracies’ are irrelevant for this iteration of BF V, because it looks and appears to play very different from the other games. But there is a difference between making concessions for gameplay and being historically grounded. Even Arma, a milsim, has concessions for gameplay. So I also don’t buy the “but it has respawning and magic syringes” line because it’s just a game – a game previously dressed up in a WW2 period setting.
As for ‘co-opting’ – the problem is that the default assumption is misogyny as opposed to criticism. It becomes a sword and a shield against criticism. It’s like saying “I didn’t like TLJ because the story seemed pointless” and getting told that you don’t actually care about that, you only hate it because you apparently hate women.
Your first argument is fair. I argue, though, that if we’re talking about “gamefying” a historical event, taking the necessary liberties to turn what has been described as “hell on Earth” into an enjoyable and entertaining pastime, little nods to increase players’ immersion (such as being able to choose your gender) are acceptable parts of it as well.
Also, I can agree that blanket statements such as implying that everybody who cries aloud about historical inaccuracies is a misogynist are counterproductive. However, the problem is that not mentioning misogyny as a plausible motivation for some of the most toxic and loud elements, is giving a free pass to those who are actually misogynistic, disguising themselves as other. There needs to be a balance but the internet, as a sum, is pretty bad at reaching that.
That’s actually a really good point.
I remember all the complaints about SMG’s etc in BF1.
So magic defibs that can revive a headshot squadmates are fine and accurate?
Don’t see anyone complaining about that inaccuracy.
People understand the difference between concessions for gameplay and attempting to claim historical grounding, right? I mean you might as well say Arma is unrealistic garbage because you don’t get wet when it rains…
So they could put a jet pack and laser gun into Battlefield V and you would think that was ok?
Only if they styled it like to rocketeer. You know to keep the time periods correct.
BF1942 had a jetpack, so the precedent is there.
Were these same people complaining as much about BF1 with its magical reviving syringes and miraculous healing boxes and bulletproof horses and spanners that could completely repair damaged vehicles and field guns in mere seconds? This series is not historically accurate and never has been.
I csnt answer that. Chalk it up to Gameplay and Story Segregation
I don’t remember whether those were showcased in the teaser videos though. Maybe they were, I don’t remember. I feel like there’d have been a lot less hate if players were able to chose gender and race in character selection, but it hadn’t been placed front and centre in the teaser video.
That’s something I don’t really see brought up much. You’d think that by bringing it to the forefront kinda gives the impression that they’re sending a message with it, that it’s a “big deal” and yet they’re not really keen on the response.
Seems a bit weird.
Honestly they just need to market is as an alternate retelling of history elseworlds style, otherwise these people have legitimate complaints, especially if these characters show up in the “war stories” campaigns. EA/DICE need to realise you can’t have it both ways – stop trying to market the games as realistic war games if you are going to have things like this.
It also really bugs me that people cop flack for complaining about this sort of stuff – sure there are people out there who are just racist/sexist scumbags who will complain because of this and these people will also be quite vulgar about it – but there are MANY others who simply would like the characters to match the games theme.
One of th ebest snipers who ever lived was a woman who fought in WW2. There are plenty of women who could turn up in the campaign and it would be historically accurate. Not that it matters, because Battlefield has never been about historical accuracy.
Except the women in the video is clearly British, who basically didn’t use female soldiers. And you can’t say the female character in the video (regardless of country of origin) is a sniper. She’s like a crazy parkour, soldier-something.
Make her French or Italian and your argument works better. Use the video to actually make her a more realistic and believable character.
But all that fails to address the more glaring problem – she has a super cool (but stupidly inaccurate) mechanical arm. Not a chance a soldier would be on the front lines like that.
http://thefemalesoldier.com/blog/ack-ack-girls
From the article you linked;
They were in BRITAIN, not fighting in mainland Europe shooting enemy soldiers with a shotgun and throwing grenades.
Not saying they weren’t brave, weren’t soldiers, don’t deserve recognition. But they’re not the scenario we’re discussing.
No point talking facts with these people – you aren’t allowed to point out factual history as it upsets them.
Also no criticism of this game is valid.
I believe that the girl in the trailers is Norwegian Resistance, chaps.
No! You’re clearly a MISOGYNIST!
Russia used women as front-line troops in WW2. As much as 8% of the total Russian armed force was female. Given that the penal regiment alone was about half a million people, that’s a lot of women getting dirty in the trenches. They also worked as tank crew, bomber pilots, and (famously) snipers.
England had a special forces squad consisting of 50 women with specialty training in explosives and sabotage. They were parachuted behind enemy lines in Europe. They primarily performed sabotage and assassinations.
All major powers employed women as AA emplacement operators and other indirect combat roles.
India had an all female regiment with about a thousand soldiers.
About one third of the Italian anti-fascist resistance was female and all were trained and expected to perform sabotage and combat missions. There was also a contingent of the Yugoslav and French resistance movements who were female and saw active combat.
Women fought in WW2. This isn’t even up for debate.
To be fair, the Indian women didn’t fight in Europe where the trailer is set. And she’s obviously not an AA crew, since the female AA crews were “home crews”. ie: A British women in AA would have been stationed in Britain not mainland Europe. And obviously other indirect combat roles should be excluded from the argument for the same reason.
As for the special forces squads, they were purposely trying to be stealthy and avoid the crazy fire-fights like the trailer showcases. So yeah I suppose you could argue that she’s a spy or saboteur but in that case she did a shit job by winding up in front line fighting when she should have been sneaking around blowing shit up, or assassinating people or gathering intel. Same argument applies to special forces regardless of gender btw. They were about surgical strikes not ridiculous fire fights.
https://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/386800/Churchill-s-heroines-How-Britain-s-female-secret-agents-changed-the-course-of-WWII
I don’t think anyone (well anyone with a reasonable argument) is saying the women didn’t fight. But the trailer makes her (1) British and (2) seems to be part of front line troops. That’s the anachronism.
Dice/EA could have made her Russian or Italian or French then they’d have short-circuited a lot of the arguments before they happened. I’m honestly not sure why they didn’t, maybe they thought a British accent seemed more real, or maybe they just thought it sounded cooler, who knows?
BTW, that article does have one good possibility for a believable link to the trailer.
CECILE PEARL WITHERINGTON, code name Marie or Pauline
If Dice/EA based the character on her they could have actually said “Here, we based it on Cecille. She did stuff like this”. Unfortunately I don’t think they based her on anyone, they just said ‘what will look cool in a teaser’.
I feel like you’re nitpicking, here. Battles in real life don’t work the way they do in a game. It was never accurate and using that argument to say “no women allowed in my historically accurate simulation of the time a soldier died 14 times trying to raise the flag in the courtyard of a village by teleporting out of the empty transport plane he was flying and pulling his chute teen feet from the ground” is utterly stupid.
I find it a little ironic that your reply was to my one post that actually backs up the reality of a British woman in an active combat role. But anyway…
Firstly, I don’t have a problem with players being able to play as a woman, or pick a different race. I have a small problem with them putting a woman front and centre in what looks like a front line combat role in the trailer.
Why? Because I’m honestly, not sure where the BF series is supposed to be going. Back in the day it felt like it was aiming for something at least somewhat realistic. Sure, gameplay took precedence but they set it in real world battlefields. I guess the big problem I personally have is that I feel like the publisher is sending out mixed messages with the series, like it can’t decide whether it wants to be (semi) realistic or just balls out crazy action.
Again this is just my take, but I always felt that the died 14 times thing was not actually one soldier. I took it to be more like the meat grinder of war, you run in as Private Jones, get shot and die. Then you run in as Private Smith, get shot and die, then you run in as Private Brown and so on.
I also took the “raising flags” as a metaphor for holding a point until support arrived. Lots of *real* battles took place that were actually like that. A group of soldiers holding a point of tactical significance like a bridge, or a town or a hill and another group trying to take that over. That really happened. There was often fierce fighting for days to gain control of a hill because it aided with artillery spotting and viewing troop movements. So “planting the flag” in the game is effectively just holding the spot long enough that your support troops have arrived.
But yeah, some gameplay like pulling a chute 10 foot above the ground, or jumping out of a plane then back into it or wing surfing or jeep stacking was nonsense. In some cases I’d actually prefer it was removed too. I think the problem though is enough people like it that Dice would be yelled at for removing it.
There are plenty of realistic war games. They aren’t mainstream popular for a reason. ARMA 3 didn’t sell 40 million copies because it depicts war with as little metaphor as a game can reasonably achieve. Sure, wars are fought by capturing and reinforcing territory, but that’s not what the minute-to-minute game experience is. It’s all highly entertaining metaphor for real battles, but those emplacements were never defended by 13 snipers and one medic with infinite magic defibs. Nor were they taken by one dude intentionally crashing a helicopter and knifing all the people who were afk or never bothering to descope. It’s all nonsense. It always has been. The reason why this particular piece of nonsense is the one people are fired up about should be obvious.
The reason they’re putting a woman front and centre in the new trailer is the same reason they’re putting the uniforms, guns, planes, pretty explosions and structural deformation front and centre: They are easily seen and talked about visual features used to show how much new content there is. There’s no SJW agenda. There’s no deeper meaning here. They like money and they want people to buy. If they can show a potential market who has never bought their games a new feature that entices them, they’re going to do it. Because all of this wacky shit has always been about making a profit.
Even as a milsim Arma has concessions for gameplay – because it’s still a game.
I’d like to point out that gamers have a “realism spectrum”. Lets say casual through to hardcore. Different games obviously appeal *primarily* to different points in that spectrum. So yep, ARMA appeals to the hardcore end since it’s closer to a sim than BF. Conversely a game like Fortnite or Team Fortress appeals more to the casual end. Now, I’d say BF sits sorta in the middle of that spectrum. So it winds up capturing some of the hardcore people, some of the casuals as well as the majority who are “moderates”. It’s the people who are on the hardcore edge of the spectrum who are most offended.
I’d also argue that if you’re playing BF as a team of 13 snipers and one medic that’s ‘playing wrong’. Teams were meant to be more balanced groups. But what you’re talking about are choices that PLAYERS make not developers.
You can also argue that real battles were won by individuals doing crazy things. Look at Kamekazi pilots for a real world example. And like I said, before if you crash the helicopter and jump out unscratched and keep killing people well, I don’t like that. I feel like that’s gone too far and is setting off my BS-meter. So personally I’d rather not see that in the game.
I’m not sure about the agenda for putting a woman front and centre. I wouldn’t be at all surprised if they anticipated it’d stir up at least some outrage and thought “any publicity is good publicity” in much the same way the publishers of games like GTA thrive on the bad publicity. But to be fair, that’s my reading of it. It could genuinely be that they’re allowing females avatars so they said “whats the quickest way we can show that you can play as a woman”. Without having been party to their meetings/discussions its impossible for either of us to know.
Just to clarify that this is multiplayer. That mode where you can be an immortal pilot, gunner, spec ops, tank driver, sniper who won the war by running flags up a pole in random villages.
All perfectly fine. But a character that reskinned to look like a woman is just too damn far!
Not sure anyone ever said not a single woman fought in WW2 dude. My own grandmother enlisted.
It’s fine to have a low general knowledge regarding western culture around the time of WW2 and events during the war itself. Googling for ‘confirmation bias’ proof isn’t going to help your cause.
There are FACTS in play that physically occurred during this time period. This is what’s not debatable.
HOWEVER we will have to wait for more trailers or the game to see where exactly these characters fit into the games world.
i have no idea what your point is, here.
You’re accusing me of confirmation bias? You’re accusing me of having a low level of general knowledge around WW2? You’re trying to tell me that the facts that I put forward are not facts because you have the FACTS that are more FACTIER than regular facts?
Brass tacks: Anyone making the argument that female playable characters shouldn’t be in Battlefield 5 are doing so based on two incorrect assumptions. The first is that Battlefield is realistic and the second is that women didn’t fight in WW2. Both are utterly untrue. Proven, cold, hard, fact. So either they are wrong, or arguing in bad faith.
Jesus Christ ppl are dumb, Read a history book before opening your mouth, You think your talking wisdom but you are part of the problem, There were women combatants, Their “War stories” Have never been mainstream knowledge because of ppl like you making it hard to actually tell them because you don’t want to hear them.
I find your statement offensive. Mostly because you don’t seem to have read the books you’re saying “the dumb” people should read. If you read the books a bit deeper than just a cursory glance you’d see that there were very few female soldiers (talking British here). And the few there were, were actually covert forces rather than front line troops who took action in fire fights.
There was more than five thousand women combatants in the Warsaw Uprising directly engaged in firefights against the Nazi’s.
And now you’re not reading what I wrote. Quoted from my previous message.
Two things that you can take from this, I’m talking about BRITISH females not Polish (or Italian, or French, or Russian, or Indian…). And I didn’t say NONE, I said very few. Comparatively speaking 5000 female soldiers actually is few. Britain alone had 3.5 million soldiers mobilised during the course of the whole war.
There were other combatants, You don’t even know if the soldiers you saw in the battlefield V trailer are even characters in game or just for the trailer, Ww2 had women combatants, Maybe not Britain but there were female combatants, Why even compare British forces to the polish resistance forces? My point was that women fought in combat roles, 5000 did in the Warsaw Uprising, Were the women fighting the majority? No but that doesn’t mean a war story depiction of their role would be historically inaccurate because majority of combatants were men in Ww2. This was my point, Would a made up fictional character depicting a female special forces general etc. Charging Normandy beach be historically inaccurate, Yes absolutely, Does Battlefield v have that? We don’t know, The trailer was a bad representation of ww2 for both sexes , It was a Michael Bay transformers but ppl are stuck on the fact that a woman was in it.
It’s simple, the trailer doesn’t show Polish forces, or Indian forces or… well you get the idea. We’re discussing the issues *WITH THE TRAILER*. We’re not discussing general preconceptions about the war, we’re JUST discussing the trailer and flaws in it. And again, we’re not discussing playable characters in game (which I have less problem with) we’re discussing the trailer since that’s what people have seen and have issues with
I do however, agree with you that the trailer was a horrible Bey-esque extravaganza. I know a lot of crazy stuff happened during the war, but trying to jam all of it into a 2 minute video was a terrible idea.
Has there actually been any claim from EA/DICE that they make realistic war games? I don’t believe I’ve ever seen the tag ‘Battlefield – Play the most realistic war simulator around’ in a long time, if at all.
Good on them. The mods not the annoying gamers or misogniosts or trolls or gamer gaters who still think it is a thing. Whichever camp they fall into. Yeah and a small camp might actually people who care about the topic.
here’s the thing: between CoD ww2 and B1 historical accuracy is not very real anyway. How many diggers found joy by running in circles collecting collecting others tags, capturing points on endless rotations, in a same confined place. Where in a real world could you find yourself on the ground, then jumping in a plane, then a tank or having their arses save (constantly and predictably) by a mega train or Blimp, because the God of Warfare think you needed the odds to be evened.Then there are the silly paint jobs, then there are the even silly ornaments/dangles in CoD. To say nothing of all the dick pics and swastikas in the calling cards emblems in B1, or the crazy stupid ones celebrating guns and killing in CoD. To say nothing of all the XXhiltersiscoolXx gamers names. Or in B1 where a lot of the guns and weapons werent even of the era!!!!
but nooooo none of that is even remotely a concern, people are scared seeing woman running around is going to break historical accuracy. Rubbish. Do you know how many times seeing a woman run around in CoD took me out of the era? Never. Because lets face it, if you are too busy caring the person shooting at you is a female avatar, your dead. I was never in era in the first place because it is a game and if you listen to the stories of the REAL soldiers of the era war is nothing like what it is shown to be in film (a few exceptions) and games.
I just wanna run around in a game and have fun. I care more about server stability and launch woes that tend to come from these games in their first month, anything else is just background noise.
I’m actually noticing more and more developers cracking it at players/perspective players these days. I can’t say I blame them with the toxicity going around these days.
Honestly, these fans take ownership of a brand and franchise and think they can dictate what changes can and can’t be made by a studio. Feedback can be great to resolve issues in current games, and provide suggestions to future titles but this sort of toxicity is frankly dumb. The studio and the devs are the ones to make the decisions, end of story. What people forget is they don’t need to buy the game. Same thing goes for movie franchises, tv series etc. If you don’t like the way something is, you don’t need to put your money towards it. I’ve gotten burnt out on a lot of films and so I’m interested in seeing the han solo movie or the new jurassic world film.
If you can separate Han Solo from Harrison Ford in your mind you’ll probably enjoy Solo. It’s pretty fun, reasonable story with a few flaws but nothing super bad. If however Harrison Ford IS Han Solo in your mind you may struggle with it (I know I did).
Looking forward to JW2 as well.
Okay yeah British women fighting in WW2 I can understand that being historically inaccurate (to my knowledge, enlighten me if there were British women on the front lines. I do love history) but Russian women served on the Eastern front on the front lines of combat, French women in the Resistance and plenty of other women of all nations served in some capacity during WW2.
It’s a game. A game is gong to do what it wants regardless of how a minority of “fans” feel about it. I’m all for historical accuracy but you can’t have that in a game without losing balance. Look at World of Tanks historical battles, they axed that after it became clear that Tiger 1s fighting Churchills and Matildas didn’t work (and historically they did fight in Africa)
Exactly.
http://libguides.mnhs.org/wwii_women
American women
https://www.world-at-war.co.uk/?p=358
British Women
Neither of those links invalidated his comment. In fact they kind of supported it. You might want to read into them.
Team of 50 British women operated in Continental Europe performing demolition and assassinations. Other than that, mostly non-frontline combat roles like AA fun operators or flying new planes from factories to airfields to provide reinforcements.
Just to clarify, it wasn’t a “team of 50 women”. There were 50 women trained and sent on missions as solo infiltrators. There wasn’t a single regiment of 50 deployed as a group.
I never said they all went together in a big bus. There was a team. A regiment. They saw active combat. Ok, they never stood on the wing of a plane throwing medkits at each other’s faces and resurrecting 5 feet from their magical squad leaders, but that’s also not historical accuracy and I’m pretty sure I’ve been doing that shit in BF games for years.
Historical accuracy is about as good an argument for a pure, brotastic BF game as girl germs. You’re dying on the hill of a non-argument.
Sure, but the way you worded your previous post “team of 50 British women operated in…” reads like they were deployed as a group and operated *together*. You understand what you wrote, but not everyone will.
And actually a lot of them didn’t see active combat in the “shooting at other people” sense. They saw combat in the sense that they were behind enemy lines doing dangerous stuff, like delivering explosives and munitions, training people, sabotaging stuff and gathering intelligence. The battlefield games don’t look at that, they’re all about shooting people and blowing shit up (usually while shooting people).
You’re also making the assumption that I like the wing surfing in BF – I don’t. It bugs me as much, if not more than having a woman in the trailer. Sure it’s cool, but it frustrated me when people do it, I want to yell at Dice that “Come on physics don’t work that way”.
As for the resurrecting, I addressed that in a different post, but I don’t believe they’re resurrecting. My take is that when the soldier dies you’re effectively jumping into the body of a replacement, a new, different soldier.
As for the medkits, yeah their effectiveness is exaggerated but you know what, my grand-dad fought it WW2 and was wounded twice. Once from a bullet and once shrapnel from an explosion. He got basic medical treatment at the time and survived (I wouldn’t be typing this otherwise). So yeah I can believe in medkits. Yeah got shot, got bandaged continued to fight. It actually happened. It’s just shorthand for removing the bullet, closing the wound, applying antiseptic and bandaging it.
The only issue I’d take is a medkit restoring you to full health. I’d prefer a “stabilising mechanic”. Where you get wounded and you continue to lose health until treated. At which point your health loss stops, and it may gain a little but not back to 100%. From memory Day of Defeat played like that.
I feel like you’re missing my point. What I’m saying is that none of this matters because Battlefield was never, ever meant to be chasing realism. ARMA does. Red Orchestra kinda does. Battlefield was always WW2 through the Michael Bay lens. All the way back to 1942 and Vietnam. Things got more “realistic” as they got closer to photorealism. But it was never mechanically designed to even try for realism in a gamer experience sense. Because that’s not fun to most people.
No I do see your point. And from your perspective it’s certainly valid.
However, I feel like there’s two types of realism, and maybe this where the problem lies for a lot of people. You’ve got mechanical realism, and like you say BF is shit at that (though some of that also hinges on players exploiting bugs). And second, you’ve got stylistic realism or situational realism. Does it *feel* like you’re part of the battle of Kursk or a firefight in Vietnam or wherever?
I felt like a few of the BF games were aiming for the latter. It should look and feel like its realistic even if mechanically it’s not. So for me the argument about whether a woman should be on the cover hinges on whether that’s stylistic or mechanical realism.
I see allowing players to choose a woman as their avatar as being mechanical realism whereas I see putting her into the trailer and on the box is stylistic realism. And I think that’s why it’s such a problem for people.
sure, there are different focuses for what games tend to parse as realism and BF hasn’t exactly been perfectly focused on one or the other. They had an entire game about exploding giant robots in fictional wars set in Future Ice. But I don’t think the dev team dealing with the mechanics have much at all to do with the marketing team who decide what goes on the box or how the cinematic trailer looks. That’s a team who are specifically tasked with slamming all the features directly into people’s eye sockets. They sure did that.
@pokedad; I’m not concerned about games that are obviously not “real world” (ie: BF2142). By it’s very nature it’s impossible to criticise because it’s literally sci-fi. I’m only concerned with the games that are set in real world settings, because that implies at least some degree of realism.
I think you might have something there about the dev team compared to the marketing team. I wonder how much influence the different teams (lets include the management team too) have over decisions? I can imagine the devs just want to make something that’s fun to play. They probably have a specific vision and are aiming for that. Then management says “we want blah” and later marketing spins the whole amalgam however they think will sell most games.
It’d be very interesting to have a candid discussion with a dev to see whether they like what management have asked for, and what marketing have spun.
side note: Been a good discussion, and it’s refreshing to see something contentious discussed without namecalling and insults.
It’s a tough balancing act for a game with a real world setting. Like you say most of the German tanks were ridiculously overpowered compared to the allied ones. So a tank battle against a tiger or panther was a brutal one sided affair. And yeah I can’t really imagine a game that *simulated* trench warfare being fun no matter how you look at it.
And if you start simulating real world battles in the game then it becomes even more problematic. How do you balance a game when the reality was one side had overwhelming numbers, or tactical advantages, or better weapons and so on.
So yeah, true realism is put aside in order to try to balance gameplay and make it interesting and “fun”.
Honestly, if you don’t want to fight Nazi’s in WW2 as a sexy ,red headed, robo-armed Scottish lass wielding a katana, why are you even playing video games? I for one am super fucking keen on BF V
Disappointing that they are doing this, they should be moderating the insults, sure, but this is exactly the sort of conversation that needs to be had within society.
I’d also expect it is the sort of conversation DICE were trying to spark with their inclusion. You can’t change peoples minds with a one way discussion.
Ahh the early 2000’s when people were content to just enjoy things instead of getting on their 56k modems to complain about shit.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Medal_of_Honor:_Underground
If you finished the game you could watch interviews with real women who fought in the french resistance.
Viva Le Resistance!
What are the odds they’re bitching about historical accuracy in one thread, then switching over to the new Assassin’s Creed page to complain about “forcing gays into video games” not understanding how commonplace man-on-man Ancient Greece was.
They don’t care about accuracy… they just don’t like anyone who doesn’t look like them
It has become a circle jerk, but honestly the way people responded to the complaints was very bad. It is not unreasonable to questions changes done to the historical accuracy and yet people were attacked for it. Labelled horrible things to intimidate them to shut up.
If someone knew or were to discuss inaccurate weapons, they would not be attacked. They’d get a response about game play, variety and so forth.
It does look weird in the game play footage to see the Nazi’s represented as a multi-racial, mixed gender fighting force. It doesn’t look like WWII. That should be fine to express. So many people have bought into the narrative that there’s a seething mass of racist misogynist men behind everything online. So it’s inconceivable anyone could comment or have an opinion that isn’t totally onboard without being one of them.
I personally just think it looks bad for the setting, but I have pre-ordered it’s not a big deal. The only thing that I find fascinating is that changing such a well known aspect of the historical setting. Such as the makeup of those that fought. It can be completely justifiable in a game. Why can’t it be discussed? We’re told this is a game, they take liberties and it’s fine if it’s not accurate. Why can’t that accuracy be discussed?
There’s an underlying current of current politically correct and progressive ideologies that is manifesting itself in a way to deliberately misrepresent history. It’s not a sinister plot, it’s the result of these ideologies. That is why people are attacked for having anything but a totally onboard opinion.
This is the real story here, but it’s missed. The game is not trying to accurate depict history, yet the real history can’t be discussed. So it actually is kind of trying to misrepresent history. If it wasn’t, if the ideologies weren’t manifesting themselves in a way to misrepresent history. Then you could discuss it with out being attacked.
You know, one of their slogans or whatever for Battlefield V was “Forget everything you learned in history class” so I think the gamers are in the wrong here, because they should have taken that at face value.
It’s still ambiguous though – they could be saying:
– What you are about to experience is not real history
– What you are about to experience is what REALLY happened
?
I’m gonna make my own battle field and it’ll be realistic.
Here is a run down of the quests.
1. Survive long enough to get into the trenches.
2. Take 5 in game days to expand such trench. There will be a threat of cave ins at any point.
3. If you can’t keep your feet dry, you get trench foot.
4. if you get trench foot, well, ouch.
5. Dig more trench.
4. Avoid more trench foot
5. try not to die.
If you end up surviving, you can download the post game DLC “shell shock” where you struggle with your every day life.
This game doesn’t sound like fun, because actual war isn’t fun.
Any excuse for misogynists to rear their dumb ugly heads.
Whilst I understand your frustration, resorting to insulting their intelligence and appearance just hurts your own argument. Be better than that. Be better than them.
It was more a metaphorical statement. I’ve known enough far right loonies to be comfortable making this statement. Their views are usually dump, fraught with hypocrisy and ugly because they make any excuse to argue their superiority with little regard for reality and fact.
Did this article just become an invitation to discuss these inaccuracies here?
I’m not bitching about it. I’m just not going to purchase the game at all. If you have an issue show them with your wallets. Demand more of your developers. Eventually someone somewhere will make a game that is appealing.
In the meantime looking forward to the spectacular downfall of Battlefield series. Peace.
This sounds like ‘bitching about it’.
Oh not at all. I have at least 20 games on my PS4 dashboard that I haven’t even touched yet. Games that I actually WANT to play. Battlefield V is hardly a thought in my mind. Sales will prove the devs wrong. Good luck bros.
The developer already stated that if you don’t like it, don’t buy it, so your statement seemed like a declaration of your stance. I cant think of a reason to comment that is big enough to type it out but small enough not to matter? Good luck with your backlog, peace bro.
If women were or weren’t on the front-lines of various armies to me is moot. The games have embellished for ages. This isn’t the first time a medium has used an actual historical event and altered it for their own story. It just is what it is.
For me, the thing in the trailer that got me riled up the most was the prosthetic arm, as well as how low those planes were flying (like seriously?). As for a female on the front-lines? Why would I care when we’ve already had black women fighting for Nazi Germany in the previous?
So magically after 5 mainstream BF games people start saying things like: “Well the game was never meant to be historically accurate anyways!”
Reminds me of how after 40 years people magically say: “Well Luke was a Mary Sue too!”
Seems awfully convenient to me.
From the clips I have seen from EA Play all the comestic, gender and race options were randomized for both teams. I would be very interested to see what players would choose to look like when given the options. Will players want to stand out as much as possible, create a character that represents themselves or go for a historically accurate design.
Personally I’m just fuming because they didn’t include the giant crabs. Historical accuracy indeed…
The funniest thing i find about all those people complaining is that they dont even have the balls to boycott or anything. Its exactly the same people that complained about Battlefront Lootbox yet still bought it. Those people are forever slave to the developers – slaves to EA. EA knows this all too well. They have those basement dwelling keyboard warriors with nothing else to do in life by the balls hence those complaints mean nothing. Those people will buy the game even if they no longer include any playable males in the game
Came to see a garbage fire. Was not disappointed.
I don’t mind the presence of female soldiers, when given the option I play as female characters. But the statement “BF has never been historically accurate” just rings hollow to me. First things first: I believe Dice has always placed gameplay above any level of accuracy, But outside of that I always thought they pursue accuracy in the details. For Pete’s sake they apparently found a working V1 engine so the sound of it in game is accurate.
So if Dice has decided to insert more fiction into their games that’s their choice and I honestly don’t care, I’m hyped for BFV regardless. But I feel the blanket, catch-all statement “BF has never been historically accurate” is a straight up lie to deny the people who do object to the decision to increase the amount of fiction in the game.
Random thought in closing: I wonder what would have happened if the trailer was the same but they gave the prosthetic arm to one of the male soldiers…
If in BF1 when they had the runner story but he had a prosthetic robot arm.