DICE GM pushes back against Battlefield V anger
"Player choice and female playable characters are here to stay," says Oskar Gabrielson after complaints over game's inclusion of women
When Electronic Arts unveiled Battlefield V this week, a portion of the audience was unimpressed, and rallied around the #NotMyBattlefield hashtag on Twitter to let EA and developer DICE know.
One of the most common complaints about the game had to do with its inclusion of women. The standard edition box art in particular featured a woman, and a reveal trailer showed off another fighting with a prosthetic hand. Today, DICE GM Oskar Gabrielson responded to the complaints on Twitter, conceding no ground to the people angry over the women in the game.
"First, let me be clear about one thing. Player choice and female playable characters are here to stay," Gabrielson said in a thread of tweets. "We want Battlefield V to represent all those who were a part of the greatest drama in human history, and give players choice to choose and customize the characters they play with.
"Our commitment as a studio is to do everything we can to create games that are inclusive and diverse. We always set out to push boundaries and deliver unexpected experiences. But above all, our games must be fun! The Battlefield sandbox has always been about playing the way you want. Like attempting to fit three players on a galloping horse, with flamethrowers. With BFV you also get the chance to play as who you want. This is #everyonesbattlefield."
Despite the recent controversy, women aren't entirely new to the Battlefield series. 2016's Battlefield 1 featured a female protagonist in one of its "war story" single-player campaigns, and added women to the multiplayer mode for the first time in the series' history.