Battlefield 5: The Plot Thickens

This is getting out of hand, I'm spending too much time shitting on Battlefield 5 these days, but it's just so easy, and it needs to be done. a while ago I did a second post on the disaster that is Battlefield 5 in which I talked the stepping down/firing of alpha mong Patrick Soderlund and the games pre-orders being about as impressive as Soderlund's parenting skills, but there was also the little detail that the game comes out in a very crowded release window, and that, with the competition it's up against as well as the controversy, Red Dead Redemption 2 and Call of Duty Trash Ops 4 were going to wipe the floor with it. Well, fast forward only a week and there's another event in this story of tragedy, Battlefield 5 has been delayed, meaning that it's now dodging Red Dead and Trash Ops' release gangbang, but is it enough to save this failure of a game, I highly doubt it, not with the controversy already surrounding it and with yet another controversy crawling out of the game's beta, so let's break out the paddles and beat this dead horse, again.

For the uninitiated in my apparent crusade against this insult of a game, let me give you a little recap; in May Battlefield 5 got its first trailer, which currently sits at twelve million views and four hundred and eighty thousand dislikes to just three hundred and thirty thousand likes. The trailer was bad, very bad, it was an ugly, poorly put together and jarring mess, and featured things that didn't make sense, like racially diverse British soldiers with Katanas and blue war paint, and of course, a woman with a fake arm, in the British army on the front lines in World War 2. This went completely counter to DICE's claims that Battlefield 5 was going to be authentic and "the most immersive Battlefield yet", a claim they backpaddled hard on after the trailer dropped, and it wasn't helped by a dull and confusing live show hosted by Trevor Noah, of all people.

Needless to say, this didn't go over so well with a fair few people, including yours truly, who thought that Battlefield 5's reveal was a shit show and that the game seemed to be pandering to Social Justice, an impression that was confirmed when EA and DICE went on the offensive, with DICE dev Alan Kertz boldly proclaiming that he is "on the right side of history" like a demented zealot, and EA Chief Design Officer Patrick Soderlund calling the game's detractors "uneducated" and giving them the ultimatum to "either accept it or don't buy the game," while both of them demonstrate how terrible they are at parenting by trying to hide behind their daughters and using them to justify their blatant agenda pushing and pandering. This battle between gamers and the cult of Social Justice continued, and intensified again after Soderlund rather suddenly stepped down from his position in EA, which prompted many a conspiracy theory as the next day word started to spread that Battlefield 5's pre order numbers were falling behind the competition by as much as eighty five percent, leading many, including myself, to believe that Soderlund was forced to resign by EA because of the damage he's done to Battlefield 5's and EA's reputation. This wasn't looking good for Battlefield 5 because being that far behind, and coming out a week behind Trash Ops and a week ahead of Red Dead, and having EA's battered and mauled reputation as well as its own controversy hanging over it, all made it look like Battlefield 5 was going to bomb upon release, a failure I personally couldn't wait to see, because EA and DICE still have a lot of learning to do, and they can seemingly only do it the hard way.

Well, I think we're all caught up, now let's get to the news. New developments in this saga of sadness seem, at least on the surface, to indicate that EA has learned, but I still have my doubts, in fact this new development only makes me more confident in Battlefield 5's failure. The news is that Battlefield 5 has been delayed by a whole month, now releasing on November 20th instead of October 19th, which EA claim is to further polish the game and make sure it's in tip top condition for the launch, but that's a lie, shocking, I know, EA lying. It doesn't take a genius to know why EA has pushed back Battlefield 5, it's because of Red Dead and Trash Ops, like every other bugger did, they clicked in that the original release date, sandwiched between the two most anticipated games of the year, was going to lead to lower sales, lower still thanks to those hideously low pre order numbers, so they made the decision to run like little babies, moving their game into competition with Fallout 76 instead.

On the surface, this seems like a smart move, and to an extent it is, sure the controversy was a gun in Battlefield 5's mouth, but it would have been Red Dead Redemption who pulled the trigger, not for EA's own lack of trying. So why am I so sceptical of this change in release date, I mean, I just said it's a good idea to avoid competing with Red Dead, how could I be suspicious. The answer is we are dealing with Battlefield; Titanfall 2's failure can easily be attributed to its going up against Infinite Warfare and Battlefield 1, but what Battlefield 5 has that Titanfall 2 lacked is brand recognition, Titanfall 2 was only the second instalment in a series that hasn't had the best start with the first Titanfall, since it underperformed and was criticised for its lack of content, and while Titanfall 2 fixed that issue, that shaky foundation gave it a disadvantage when going up against the FPS giants it was pitted against, which was sad, because Titanfall 2 is awesome. Meanwhile Battlefield 5 is the twelfth release in a series that's been around for sixteen years, and the next release following Battlefield 1, which sold stupidly well upon release, even being bought and enjoyed by yours truly, while still being beaten by Infinite Warfare, of course. In a world where Battlefield 5 didn't declare war on its own audience, it should have been able to hold its own against Trash Ops 4 at least, but we're not in that world, and Battlefield 5 did start that war, right before immediately losing it.

What this looks like to a cynic like me is EA going into damage control; they're not going back to make the game better, they're trying to get away from Red Dead and Trash Ops because those pre order numbers have put the fear of God in them, and because they know, as does everyone with a brain, that the competition will demolish Battlefield 5. This, however, really isn't going to be enough to save the game in my opinion, because the damage has already been done, and EA's efforts at damage control will only help so much. We're not just on about Battlefield 5 at this point, EA's biggest issue here is its own reputation; EA is loathed far and wide by gamers for their anti consumer practices and their habit of running beloved studios and franchises into the ground.

The most recent examples include their bastardisation of Command & Conquer and Mass Effect, their killing of Dead Space developer Visceral Games and their Star Wars game, and perhaps the most high profile debacle, the shit show surrounding Battlefront II, which did irreparable damage to EA and DICE, contributed to the current and on-going downfall of the Star Wars brand, and laid bare the extent and toxic nature of loot boxes for all to see, sparking endless debate as to their legality. therefore I said in my last post that simply booting Soderlund was never going to fix their problem, because this is just the latest in EA's long history of fuckups, and that distrust hangs over every new fuckup they make, making any effort EA makes to clean up its act pointless, because the scars are deep and that distrust will never fade. It's not just that Red Dead and Trash Ops are on its flanks, it's that the game is pandering to Social Justice and the company making it told its customers to get lost, and no amount of delaying will make that go away, it'll follow Battlefield 5 forever, not just because of EA's bloody hands, but because of Social Justice.

Social Justice is unpopular, it may have hegemony in all the major companies, political parties and amongst Twitter verified journalists, but the people on the ground, the people who buy the games, watch the films and TV, read the comics and cast the votes find it annoying, insulting and invasive. The reasons for this are numerous and a lot of them apply to Battlefield 5. First of all, among other things, Social Justice has no concept of satire, humour or subtlety, stemming from their oversensitivity, make a joke that's a bit spicy or takes the piss out of SJW's or, heaven forbid, do both of those things and they'll try to bring the hammer down on you because their ideology is flawed and weak, making it vulnerable to the slightest hit, even just a joke is too dangerous to be left alive.

And as for subtlety, well, that's the funny thing, you don't really have to look far for it, just look at Star Wars, Doctor Who, Ghostbusters, Marvel Comics, The Last of Us 2, the Arrowverse, WWII and now Battlefield 5, wherever it goes, Social Justice has to hog the limelight, it has to draw attention to itself, giving us things like the terrible writing in the Arrowverse and Star Wars, the forced diversity and inclusion of Doctor Who, Ghostbusters and Battlefield 5, and whatever the fuck the first half of the Last of Us 2 demo was. Not only has it infected and mutilated beloved franchises though, it's cast a shadow of doubt over everything that stars a woman or a black person, it's at the point where films like Wonder Woman and Black Panther not being SJW trash is a surprise, because Social justice is so invasive that it's made people paranoid that it's literally everywhere, a paranoia that's sadly very well-founded, even more so in the past couple of years because ideologues never learn and their faith in the cause cannot and will not be allowed to falter.

Particularly of issue in Battlefield 5 is the social justice commitment to representation and diversity, the belief that women and racial minorities, the eternal victims that they are, have been historically stopped from being represented in media by the oppressive white supremacist patriarchy, and must therefore be forced into that media to compensate for the historical domination of media by privileged, racist, sexist hwhite men. But the obvious issue here is that this is a World War 2 shooter, one supposedly depicting the war accurately, despite the little detail that minorities in the British Army were incredibly minimal and women weren't even allowed in front line combat. This gender and racial diversity does not reflect reality, in fact it spits in the face of reality by ignoring the reality of both the makeup of the British Army that fought and died fighting the Nazis, and the racial tensions in society at the time, but it does reflect social justice, hence the huge backlash and boycott.

 I chose the title of my first post on this subject very carefully; originally it was going be "Battlefield 5 and the Distortion of History", in reference to the reveal trailer's portrayal of World War 2, and my assumption as to the reasons for it, but when I found the Sodurlund quotes and my assumption was confirmed, I changed the title, "Battlefield 5 and the Vandalization of History," because vandalization is exactly what it is, it's an attempt to rewrite history to make it more contemporary and progressive with no fucks given as to what the millions of people who died in the war actually looked like or, more importantly, what they died for. And then they attempted to justify this blatant ignorance and ideological peddling by screaming 'think of the children,' in the context of a PEGI18 game, apparently completely unaware, or more likely, completely aware and banking on how children don't know a thing about history these days and are more likely to buy their revisionist cancer. But the one good thing about social justice is how easy it is to milk it for comedy, because the Battlefield 5 batshit train has no brakes, and it seems that just as it looks to have hit rock bottom, it manages to find a way to go even lower.

This was originally just going to be about the delay, but while I was delaying myself by playing Tomb Raider and Doom, there was yet another development in the saga, and it might be the funniest one yet, though given how slow I am at this game, by the time I get to the end of this, there'll already be something new. At some point in the past few weeks, the Beta happened, I don't know or care about the details of this beta because I have no desire to financially support Battlefield 5, but the Beta's chat seemed to have a very strange habit of censoring certain words and phrases, the kind of words and phrases that give me a raised brow. First off, the more innocuous ones; 'dlc' and 'lag' were apparently blocked by the chat filter, with an exception being that 'dlc' was allowed if it was prefaced with 'free'. This is already shady enough on its own; think about it, not allowed to discuss lag, despite what the git gudders like to claim, lag is an issue in online games from time to time, and EA, surprise surprise, has a history with dodgy or outright broken servers, it stands to reason then, as shady as it would be, that EA wants the topic of lag to be off the table in that game chat, no doubt in the hopes that the topic will just be forgotten or ignored.

DLC is the much more interesting one however; I said in my first post on this game that the free DLC will garner some degree of good will, what EA does with that good will is their own business I guess, but it seems that they really want to hold onto it, so much so in fact that you're only allowed to talk about it in the chat if you're talking about how free it is, how ironic. As sloppy and obvious as this is, it's clear that EA is actively trying in their Beta chat to engineer and control what I said about DLC and lag, presumably because in their minds if you ignore it, it goes away. But that's the tip of the iceberg muh dudes, because then they went and censored 'white man' and 'Nazi' like proper retards. 'Nazi,' censoring the word Nazi in the chat of a World War 2 shooter might be the dumbest thing I've ever heard, behind censoring Nazi iconography in a world war 2 game that is, it's like talking about the Bible and not bringing up God, or talking about feminism and not bringing up unattractiveness, bite me. If you were still not of the belief that Battlefield 5 is a vandalization of history, I can't help you, because the war was fought against the Nazis, their role in history is major because they were a primary catalyst in the largest conflict in human history, and the atrocities committed by them have shaped the world into what it is now and forever discredited entire political and philosophical ideologies, but let's ignore the immeasurable importance of the Nazis in World War 2, in this World War 2 shooter, because the word has some nasty connotations.

Ironic isn't it, it's those very negative connotations that make the Nazis so significant in history, but EA thinks that those connotations are too negative for people to be exposed to, like EA thinks we're only allowed to see and discuss the nice things that happened in history in a game depicting its darkest hour. Double ironic given how the Left uses the word Nazi and its nasty connotations like they were going out of style, trying to persuade everyone that anyone who opposes them, from the lowly internet shit poster all the way up to Leader of the Free World, the God Emperor himself are Nazis. Triple ironic since it was the Nazis themselves who engaged in control and censorship of language, as well as tried to rewrite history to shut down ideas that opposed theirs, so well done acting like Nazis while trying to stop us talking about Nazis while trying to convince us that Trump is a Nazi, idiots. But then there's the cherry on top, the pot of gold, the spoils, the climactic facial, they're censoring the phrase 'white man.'

As stupid as they appear, they know full well that the discussion about Battlefield 5 prominently features its forced representation; that its inclusion of women and racial minorities is dishonest and disrespectful by belittling the sacrifice of the white men that fought in the war, an opinion that's been dismissed in some corners of the internet as, you guessed it, white supremacy and bigotry. But then they go and try to take that shit down in the game chat by filtering it out, by censoring it, while other phrases like 'black man' and 'Asian man' are allowed, similar to 'dlc' needing to be prefaced with 'free' to be allowed. This is a blatant attempt to engineer the chat, though rather than the goal of retaining good will, the goal here is purely ideological, though the method of thinking is the same, ignore it and it will go away. The progressive left hate white people, a statement that's very bold and hard to sell to anyone who hasn't spent the past few years with their finger on the pulse of the culture war, but their belief in the progressive stack and historical oppression is the bedrock on which they justify their racism, the last acceptable from of racism it seems, as discrimination against white people, particularly men, is observable in several big companies and parties, from Google to the BBC to the British Labour Party.

All this does of course is pour jet fuel on the fire, which makes me again question my belief that there's method to this madness and that they're actually not completely retarded, I don't know anymore. No situation or argument about race and racism can ever be resolved by trying to control and censor it, but if you're neck deep in it and there's no way you can win, you would, at least in the moment, have the upper hand by shutting up your opponent, but all it ultimately does is make you look cowardly and censorious, which you would be by trying to silence people who can run your religion through the wringer. Moreover, it speaks volumes to how weak your religion is, or for that matter, how emotionally weak you are, that a simple descriptive phrase like 'white man' that's completely inoffensive to someone who isn't racist needs to be censored, but remember, the progressive left are racist, if you don't believe me, just think back to the mass triggering a while back that came from those "it's okay to be white" posters, a genius campaign in that it's only racist if you think it's not okay to be white, if you, yourself, are a racist.

This is, of course, yet another piece of evidence that the reasons behind the game's forced diversity are wholly ideological, it was already impossible to deny if you'd read Soderlund's interview, but now it's even more impossible, somehow. But again, all censoring people will do is pour jet fuel on the fire, because in trying to cover up the truth, all they've done is make that very truth plain for all to see, again. I genuinely do question what they're doing at this point, granted, I was questioning from the second I saw that trailer, but at least then you could argue that they were trying to escape the wrath of Twitter by flying into the storm of Battlefield fans and history enthusiasts instead. But then Soderlund called everyone stupid and told them not to buy the game, a stance the universe took note of in some beautiful karma. But, like we didn't already know, are they actually believers or are they just pandering, this decision to censor 'white man' makes the former an undeniable certainty, because only a true cultist is that stupid and censorious.

The Battlefield 5 disaster is a show that just keeps going and going and going, and while I was mad when it began, now I've sat back, beer in hand, and just decided to enjoy it. It really does baffle me just how firm in their path not just DICE or even EA, but large chucks of the entertainment industry are, how determined they are to cling to their beautiful tower of progressivism and diversity even as the tower burns and crumbles around them. Think of it as a cautionary tale about the dangers of dogmatism, that eventually you'll reach a point that you and your ideas are monolithic and all opposition comes from a place of malice and evil. Add onto that how no one ever seems to want to take responsibility, just look at AE's former CDO, the man who's such a good parent that he'll contort reality and lie to his daughter about the truth, then use her as a shield from criticism, clearly very responsible. Not to mention his former fellows are, themselves, a gaggle of idiots motivated by the power of greed and a head scrambling devotion to a backwards cause. So to probably not bring an end to this stirring tale, I'm still not getting Battlefield 5, the volume of shit surrounding it is just too much, and I have way less incentive to buy it to begin with since I was always a CoD player rather than Battlefield, but with that franchise now dead to me, it looks like I'm shit out of luck. I'd still strongly advise against giving these cock gobblers a penny come November, but I still have no right or power to stop you, only myself, and my money's already safe and sound in Square Enix's wallet because unlike EA, the product they offer is actually worth my time and not determined to insult me.