Will Battlefield 2042 be apolitical?

@RopeBased on already published material, your second question is the answer.

The political background in the story of Battlefield 2042 is just that, background.

To return to your previous points, I do not recall a time that EA DICE have ever claimed to "hold the answer to all of humanity's issues" and I sincerely doubt they would or that anyone would believe them.

This topic seems to be looking for a problem that does not exist...  to be fair, Battlefield 1 and V did toe the line on political correctness and historical revisionism, but I would argue that it was never too in-your-face and certainly not enough to influence a purchasing decision.

@carsono311  Could you point me to an official statement? I'm asking because I'm aware of the off-the-cuff statements by developers.

I've read EA's Positive Play Charter more times than I'd like and I have a hard time believing that they won't do a 180 once the game has been out for a few months.
Should they in fact do a 180, I can't obtain a refund based on those kind of off-the-cuff statements.

"This topic seems to be looking for a problem that does not exist"
This is factually incorrect. Some of EA's subsidiaries have in fact done what I describe above.
Since it is clearly okay from EA's standpoint to do so, then I see no reason why DICE wouldn't do the same thing.

@RopeLet me first state that the background of this game does include and assume that climate change is a fact and will have global repercussions by the year 2042.

Again, this is set in the future to allow for that kind of storytelling. You can find story elements and background in the published materials on the official website:

https://www.ea.com/games/battlefield/battlefield-2042/the-world-of-battlefield-2042

...

"This topic seems to be looking for a problem that does not exist"
This is factually incorrect. Some of EA's subsidiaries have in fact done what I describe above.
Since it is clearly okay from EA's standpoint to do so, then I see no reason why DICE wouldn't do the same thing.

I did say "seems to be"... I am happy to be wrong about that if so.

I am aware of the background and, in fact, I like the background quite a bit.
As it allows DICE to take it to extremes and introduce some awesome game-play elements.
Elements which I'm very much looking forward to.

What I'm not looking forward to is banners, profile pictures, statements of support for political ideologies and/or organizations of any kind.
I don't care for politics, regardless of which the side of the isle it concerns. As it often reduces a multivariate situation to a uni-variate one so that it fits a particular frame of reference.
Hence my disdain for promoting politics in video-games.

@infantrypeasantI certainly hope so. Well, yes, that would account for the state of the game at release.
Though I've come to find out that this is a poor indicator for the state of a game over time.

@RopeAh okay, I better understand your concern.

No, there is no historical precedent or example of that kind of behavior in any of the Battlefield games. I will try to track down an official statement of some kind for you, if it exists.

@carsono311If at all possible, that would be great.

Hi @Rope ,

Maybe if you referred to some incidences in past BF games as something you found not agreeable, as being political motivated, then we could maybe better relate to what it is that you are worried about here?

Aka in the BF4 game, we could observe some game maps were inspired from Russian/Chinese/Middle Eastern locations?

And in the game, you had team allocations, indicating factions like China/Russia/USA and Europe.

That didnt put me off though as anything specifically politically motivated, aka any hidden agendas...

Or maybe I was just not sensitive enough to pick up any such signals?

As we also observed that in the game you had plenty of alternative loadouts.  Both for your soldier with camos from all sides and weapons and vehicles as well from many different parts of the world.

And none of them gave you any special advantage in the game play over camos/weapons/vehicles from any of the other factions in the game.

I think that EA/DICE have done a fair job in keeping it apolitical in the past also, to the extend it can be done in a game scenario that is supposed to be either a flashback on historical events or if being a futuristic battle based on a fictional stretch 20-40 years out in the future from now.

@CyberDymeIn past BF games I've not experienced anything of the sort. However, I have in other games created by subsidiaries of EA.

Just to re-iterate, what I'm not concerned with is anything that impacts game-play. As this would concern their creative freedom.
Which I'm not just okay with, I would 100% encourage it.

In my previous response to @infantrypeasant I mentioned a few examples of features that do not necessarily impact game-play.
Such as: profile-pictures, banners, public statements etc.

I do not care about people's political preference. In fact, I don't like politics to begin with, for reasons stated above.
Which is why I'd rather not see them actively promoted by the means I stated in this post.
It creates unnecessary conflict, division and polarization. None of which I believe belong in a video-game.

Video-games should be about having fun.
And to me, fun, in and of itself, improves the world more than political statements.