Battlefield V‘s trailer has been out for a few days and while it was exciting indeed, it hasn’t gone without its share of controversies.
The controversy in question this time, of course, involves the presence of female characters. Some like to dilute this by saying that it’s about female playable characters, but that’s not the case, the issue seems to be presence of female characters AT ALL. Many have taken to Twitters and Facebooks to voice their concerns, obfuscating blatant misogyny with care for “historicity” and the trailer has been hit by a massive down-vote campaign, presumably utilizing vote-bots.
Now I could go into detail about how about 600 000 women served in the British military during the peak of WW II and yes, some of them in combat roles, but I don’t have to. First, because engaging with this hateful rhetoric in an honest fashion is pointless but second, because it doesn’t matter.
EA responded with the statement that they’d never set out to make a realistic, historically accurate World War II game, but the historical setting is merely a backdrop. Now this should have been obvious to everyone who watched the trailer as what is presented above in no way looks like a realistic depiction of a WW II skirmish scenario, but you know, most people simply don’t even understand how a war fought some 70 years ago looked like.
In any case, Dice’s General Manager Oskar Gabrielson reassured us that female characters are here to stay. Good. Very good. This has become very meta, a game ostensibly about fighting Nazis has come under fire from people with suspiciously ethnocentric mindset. I’m reminded of the “criticism” of the new Wolfenstein.
Oh, and by the way, Battlefield V will not gate player progression behind loot boxes. So that obfuscation is out of the way too.