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Battlefield 1: No playable female soldiers in multiplayer. Campaign only.

4Tran

Member
A change in direction from the conception of Battlefield 1 to its production seems to make a lot of sense. I don't think that the main issue here is historical accuracy or realism or necessarily even immersion. It seems to be more a question of versimilitude, and having a lot of female characters can seem wrong. We're talking about a war where maybe only a few hundred women fought in European battlefields - compare that to the some 800,000 women who fought in just the Red Army in WWII.
 

hesido

Member
Let the decision be a financial one, the dev time needed to make this vs. how many extra sales this could bring, a blunt but understandable reason... But please let it not be "Boys don't find it realistic!", then we have to talk about the lost sales because of boys not finding this realistic. I don't think including women would end up with BF selling less because of those boys, so the reasoning is very stupid.
 

Instro

Member
Lol. Basically they are keeping the gender options out of the portion of the game that people mostly buy CoD and BF for.
 
Good for them sticking to their guns and not giving in to public pressure for inclusion at the expense of authenticity and realism.

AQcNvDV.gif


Meanwhile, everyone knows soldiers in WW1 had futuristic heads up displays telling them where the nearest capture point was and they got 120 points for hitting an enemy with a bayonet.

It's a video game.
 
Well like I said before they've had character models for Battlefront, they've announced that you play as a female in the campaign, is it such a big deal to not have female characters in a WW1 game? Google WWI soldiers and tell me how many females you see.

Yeah, but Battlefield isn't 100% historically accurate, we've established that already.

If it's not going for 100% accuracy, the argument that you can't have female soldiers in multiplayer but can have one in single player is BS, much like it was for Battlefield 3.

Is it a big deal? Not necessarily, depending on who you ask, but I'm tired of people pretending it doesn't matter because to a lot of people it does.

Hopefully Titanfall 2 has female soldiers, because it was a nice touch in TF1.

Battlefield 1 is looking more like a reskin and less like a different approach to match pacing and strategy, which is kind of meh for me.

Hearing the same BS during production isn't doing it for me either.

It's a video game.

Then why the fuck can't we have female soldiers?
 

cripterion

Member
So you do care? Or is it that you don't understand why other people care...?

Read my edit above.

I don't understand why make it such a big deal for this specific game considering you play as a female in single player, which narratively speaking might be more interesting than just seeing another character model to shoot at in mp.
 
Well like I said before they've had character models for Battlefront, they've announced that you play as a female in the campaign, is it such a big deal to not have female characters in a WW1 game? Google WWI soldiers and tell me how many females you see.

It's not an educational history game.
 
Is there really any immersion or education in a game that explicitly won't show some of the most tragic elements of WW1? Is there any immersion when you're solo-piloting a tank and not needing a crew of people to help? Is there immersion when a bunch of numbers leap onto your screen detailing how badass your kill was?

The immersion argument sucks for a Battlefield game.

Look it's not going to be completely realistic obviously but what they've shown looks immersive to me, but seeing women running around would ruin it for me, sorry. Just my opinion.
 

Nirolak

Mrgrgr
I've got a feeling that if it wasn't for Disney there wouldn't be women stormtroopers in Battlefront.

The project director at DICE on Battlefront is a woman, so I imagine anyone suggesting they not put them in wasn't going to get very far.
 

MikeDown

Banned
At the end of the day, it is a game set in WWI. The vast majority of solders were male and DICE went out of their way to include a main female character in their campaign. It really should be a non-issue.
 

SentryDown

Member
As far as I'm concerned, having no french soldiers in the base game while having french weapons & french vehicles on the french soil is the worst thing about this game. EA/Dice should not get a free pass on rewriting history and denying french implication & sacrifice.

Edit for more accuracy : French are in the campaign but not in MP because "they had such a huge role in WW1 we wanted to make them special and it needs more time, that's why they'll be playable in a dedicated DLC post-launch" (Source in french). Weird priorities.
 
What are you on about? Nothing in the game didn't exist at the time. Yes some of the weapons may have been rare or prototypes but it makes sense from a gameplay perspective to include them.
It's not the individual items.

It's the way they're included.

Having wide access to rare/prototype weapons? Having tanks that don't need large crews? Just parachuting out of the sky? The Zeppelin implementation? The wide appearance of scopes?

These things add up. The game is certainly full of "real" items, but their implementation is a far cry from what I'd call a "realistic" portrayal of their use and of WWI in general.
 
aww man, this game is really going to discourage all those women who want to grow up and fight in ww1.

Okay, I laughed.

Read my edit above.

I don't understand why make it such a big deal for this specific game considering you play as a female in single player, which narratively speaking might be more interesting than just seeing another character model to shoot at in mp.

Basically this:

Shouldn't it be the other way around? Single player can be "historically accurate" and multiplayer can be both genders because who gives a shit.
 

Henkka

Banned
Shouldn't it be the other way around? Single player can be "historically accurate" and multiplayer can be both genders because who gives a shit.

There were some women in WW1, and you play as one at some point during the campaign. I'm assuming there are multiple defined protagonists, and you can't choose who you're playing as.
 
I mean lets be honest, No one is truly going to care when the game comes out.

IF they were to add a DLC of a full female squad from Russia, no one is gonna care after they download.
 

Fantastapotamus

Wrong about commas, wrong about everything
Don't ask me. I think they should, seeing as apparently there were some.

I'm just commenting on the ridiculous addition of complaining about a HUD in a videogame.

That wasn't a complaint though. It was a "Don't argue with realism while this is still a videogame-ass videogame" argument
 
That wasn't a complaint though. It was a "Don't argue with realism while this is still a videogame-ass videogame" argument

It was a bad argument of "if it has a HUD yet you claim realism, it can have women", which isn't a good argument, seeing as most games need a HUD. It comes through as a complaint that you're stating realism yet having floating icons. It's a really old and bad argument.
 

Pizza

Member
Meeeeeeeh Id totally get if they put no females in the campaign but historically accurate multiplayer is fucking dumb


I'm pretty sure World War One didn't have adult males with prepubescent voices telling me all the dirty things they will do to my mother. Or maybe it did, I wasn't there.
 
They want to save money. Not having to record female voice lines for multiple factions+Not having to make female models.
I don't see where they claim that not having females in multiplayer because of historical accuracy tho. Can anyone quote me that?
 

Izuna

Banned
I don't know, I guess. If the campaign is realistic, then I wouldn't care what goes on in the multiplayer. I guess I understand both stances, and think neither are sexist or "SJW". I do think we have to get to a point where we have so many games with both genders that one game having only male characters isn't a problem -- and a game full of female characters (or fuck, 50%) isn't considered progressive.
 
What's the point of doing it only in single player ?

If anything multiplayer should be much less strict when it comes to historical accuracy.

I can't understand their logic.
 

Kathian

Banned
The single player might include those examples given. It's going to be an odd game outside of pure gameplay perspective. I mean I would argue having women in the MP at 50/50 takes away the utter devastating loss of young men across Europe at the same time the game is about shoot bang and basically participating in it actively for fun.

So it's an odd game. Will we have gas? Will we have the beautiful moments in the SP with a game of FIFA in no man's land? Or commaraderie in the trenches? IDK. I hope so.

I just hope this game is more than adrenaline junking as this is not, for me, the conflict to create punch the air moments from.

But also MP is an arcade mode. So I mean why can't you have women just like you can treat the war as a template for the gameplay we all love. Multiplayer is multiplayer - it's not to be taken seriously so no women seems unnecessary if they are in the SP (after all this is the basis for most MP characters right?)

So very mixed. It's probably just how the conversations went and the direction they went in design wise. At the end of the day it was a war which particularly is around men fighting and again particularly dying - women were much more home based. the huge death count of male soldiers really tells the story so Im fine with this.
 

Deadbeat

Banned
I swear I have read so many posts on gaf where people say we need to respect the developer's vision in how they make their game.

Why arent we doing that right now?
 

Kathian

Banned
A change in direction from the conception of Battlefield 1 to its production seems to make a lot of sense. I don't think that the main issue here is historical accuracy or realism or necessarily even immersion. It seems to be more a question of versimilitude, and having a lot of female characters can seem wrong. We're talking about a war where maybe only a few hundred women fought in European battlefields - compare that to the some 800,000 women who fought in just the Red Army in WWII.

Also notable the Red Army believed in women taking these roles in equal measure with men. They had equal roles in the states production economics. Compared to the pre Communist WW1 Russia.
 
Some of them did end up in the front lines after that did they?

Given that only two battalions ever made it to the front lines and saw any action (one battle), it's doubtful that many of them ever saw any form of front-lines war.

I really think using the Women's Battalion is a silly form of argumentation for the issue anyways.
 

Alienfan

Member
I love how when people complained about female soldiers not in BF4(while having 3 big ones in the campaign)
They said they would work to incorporate that in future Battlefield games.

Yet Battlefield Hardline doesn't include females in a game about regular police and criminals.

And the next main game Battlefield 1 gets to cry "historical accuracy!"

To be fair, it's a pretty good excuse
 

cripterion

Member
Right. So why not include female soldiers?



Google "Reviving people after they were being crushed by an exploding tank" and tell me how many survivors you see

Oh c'mon. Surely there's a debate to be had here but if everything can be resumed by "it's a videogame" then how about we get some rabbit costumes and handguns shooting rockets?

Okay, I laughed.



Basically this:

Fair enough, I find the other around more interesting but I guess it's just me.

Do we even know if we can pick "skins" for mp? And is there a third person view like in Battlefront?
 

Doop

Member
Oh c'mon. Surely there's a debate to be had here but if everything can be resumed by "it's a videogame" then how about we get some rabbit costumes and handguns shooting rockets?

I wouldn't quite say that women soldiers are as ridiculous as world war 1 soldiers in rabbit costumes.
 
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