‘Battlefield V’ pre-order numbers are "weak", could be next "Titanfall 2" - Sensationalist Headlines

Because they already have two sci-fi shooter franchises in Star Wars Battlefront and Titanfall. Obviously with the power of hindsight we know where both those IP's are now but I'm sure 5 years ago when EA's leadership were planning out their releases they didn't want all of them to step on each others toes.

I thought 2142 was light on its scifi elements like advanced warfare? Besides, they don't give a shit about Titanfall, I'm pretty sure they put it in that position to intentionally fail so that they could say "no-bullshit singleplayer campaign mp games don't work!"

2142 had gigantic hoverships, walker mechs, hovertanks, and energy weapons.

The only reason I haven't preordered it because theres hardly any incentive to do so. I couldn't give a single fuck about the politics surrounding the game, it just looks like a big expansion from BF1, which I've been enjoying recently.

They certainly gave off very contradictory vibes, it was especially funny during the reveal when they talked about historical authenticity and how important making it feel like WW2 was while the footage and images they showed definitely pushed the boundaries of that.

I agree with you, but unfortunately their target demographic doesn't, which is why the game feels the way it does. For authenticity, you are pretty much limited to Verdun, and that's it.

I just want this constant vomit stream of competitive multiplayer-focused tripe to die out

Just ignore the massive positive stride they did with keeping authenticity with bf1. Fans loved that shit, now we have asian women with prosthetic limbs wielding cricket bats saying "OI THEY FUCKIN DOIN ME IN". Its a total 180 in direction and when asked what the hell happened, they say stupid shit like "we are on the right side of history " or "stop being misogynistic" when ignoring minorities that were in BF1 were fucking excellent because they were accurately portrayed. You can't do a massively popular move in the previous game, and flip on a dime and revert it for cosmetic dosh and hide behind misogyny when the fans are annoyed.

Holy shit, you just can see how he's actively grasping at straws to find something to be offended about

Maybe instead of making the big fucking thing for this year and hinging your whole profit margin on this single title that might crash and burn- Why don't you divest all those resources to make multiple, less fatalistically budgeted projects.

The issue comes that when you choose to depict a historical setting in a serious manner, there needs to be some nuance and consideration for the time period and the game should to an extent reflect back on that. It's that the game is based around a historical setting but being depicted in a way that in an attempt to portray the women of WW2, ends up actually obfuscating and misconstruing the situation , along with the other cosmetics resulting in what's ultimately the decision to go against what the rest of the series has adhered to with the previous abstractions of their chosen settings. Going to your example that "gamifying" a historical setting should be disrespectful, no, i don't think so at all; it entirely depends on how it's done, and in this case the issue is the way they've chosen to do it seems to basically come down to "we just don't care". It isn't some relatively small thing like the prototype weapons in previous game, or camouflage/weapon skins, and neither is it a decision that is correct but not quite in that way (As in something like the black soldiers or Indian Soldiers in BF1 being in locations where they probably wouldn't have been, or seemingly more prevelant that would be expected - those situations occured because their inclusion wasn't actually commenting on something like "there were this many here", but rather that they were just a representation of some of that faction's soldiers) - instead it's something that has a big noticeable affect on the setting and the way it's depicted, without any real reason for it. As already said, Women played a quite significant role in WW2. From AA defense crews, Nurses, Messengers/Runners, transport pilots, code breakers, stategic planners, spys and similar roles to vehicle crew, pilots and frontline soldiers for the Soviet Union. Women being on the frontline during WW2 was a rare occurrence, but in some situations it did happen. That isn't what they've gone for however, they've instead decided "Just put women as frontline soldiers for every faction". Purposefully choosing to show an aspect of the setting in a way that has a quite large negative affect on both the overall coherence/verisimilitude of the period in the game, which also downplays the historical context of it by going against how it actually was, is in no way a good thing. I don't really see how you can think the decision to take a somewhat unknown aspect of WW2 that should be handled in a proper way and purposefully deciding to not even show the slightest semblance of care to the subject is anything but a detrimental thing to do. The decision is rendered somewhat meaningless in it's attempts to showcase the role Women played in WW2 because that isn't what it does at all, they've instead gone "We want to show the women of WW2, so lets not put any thought into that, ignore any actual context and just put them anywhere, that'll do" and then claiming what they're doing is respectful and they're in the right.

I'm hoping that the huge negative reception to the reveal trailer will push them to make some of the more ridiculous customization options rare, the golden tanks were in BF1. But the comments from some of the devs are indefensibly bad.

Rising Storm does.

Mmm, yah, totally blame it on timing and not on the fact that A: People are realizing EA is cancer, B: People are realizing pre-ordering isn't necessarily the best of ideas, and C: People are wary itt'l be another SW:BF2.

That's the thing though, if it's not impactful for gameplay, then why not depict it properly? BF1 literally had out of map assets that accurately depicted the events of certain historical operations just for the sake of authenticity. The character models depicted minorities in proper light via proper historical evidence of said minorities serving in sufficient capacities as frontline fighters and could easily be blended into character customization like BFV, except with certain minorities and women being exclusive to certain relevant factions i.e Indians for Wehrmacht, women in resistance groups. It's not that hard to do and would look a hell lot better than seeing a black Asian SS officer flaunting her various war medals and Iron Crosses. People don't mind women at all, what people are getting their panties twisted is how they're fucking over the one thing that made BF1 stand out which is it's wild yet wholly authentic approach to WW1's history.

I think you're utterly missing the problem here and just why it's something that I, and it seems quite a few others, don't like and don't want to support. This is a decision that has no noticeable affect on the gameplay itself - the actual combat in the game and all that looks great, i'm sure that overall it will play well - but what it does affect is the depiction of the setting and the message that gives, along with their motivation/reason behind the decision in the first place. I think you equating the thought of "Video games of WW2 are disrepectful" with this is quite frankly absurd. Those are not anywhere near the same level, making a video game or any form of entertainment out of history is not inherently disrespectful to that thing, but purposefully showing historical aspects in the wrong light for reasons seemingly motived by politics and money? That is. What they've done basically amounts to historical revisionism, sort of. They've chosen to purposefully depict a historical setting in a way that entirely goes against the reality of the time period and misconstrues and misrepresents the truth in order to portray that historical period in a way that ignores applying even the slightest semblance of care and respect for depicting it correctly, by basically going "We want to show that women fought in WW2, so here's something we entirely made up with no historical basis, look how progressive we are; choosing to show a topic that requires being handled with care in an entirely wrong way, that gives completely the wrong impression by making the time period seem far more tolerant and progressive than it was. Either depict it correctly, or at least with some actual thought put into it, rather than just slap something together and say "Doesn't matter to us that we show the time period in a reasonable way, too bad"; taking a somewhat sensitive subject and deciding to just not bother with any nuance or actual effort, all in the name of being 'respectful' does the opposite of that. It isn't just down to whether or not it would have gameplay affects (it doesn't), their intent and reasons behind the decision matter too, and from what the high-profile developers have said about the situation it's fairly evidence what their logic behind the decision was - avoiding sexism by showing the time period as something it's not. It is insulting because they're on some level re-writing history (obviously not literally, but their depiction of it is their own interpretation and view of events is misconstruing it) to perpetuate an absurd logic that past indiscretions need 'fixing' by applying modern viewpoints to them to make them right, rather than simply acknowledging and admitting those mistakes. By over-representing the contributions Women made to WW2, they cheapen the real contributions that were made. It's making a mockery of the time period by shying away from the negative aspects of WW2 it to instead show that horrible conflict as being overall diverse and progressive. As for me not wanting to buy the game and how you don't think this seems "big" enough of a thing for that? When you buy a game, you're telling them "I support everything in this game. There's nothing here that i dislike that'll stop me buying it, so even if i actually don't like all of it, you'll still get exactly what you want - my money". I do not want to support covering up parts of history they don't like to instead implement their own views on how it should have been and do not want to support a game or developer that thinks that is not only perfectly acceptible, but the right thing to do.

It's blatantly obvious that the wacky out of place character customization is place just to sell micro-transactions/loot-boxes.

This game just feels like a "designed by committee" kind of thing. They want all the audiences - Fortnite, Overwatch, CoD, Battlefield etc. with a lazy whale microtransaction revenue stream, ticking all the feminism and minority "checkboxes" while still appealing to dudebros who buy Madden every year. They want all ages and genders to want this game with transparent attempts at pandering to each demographic. The game is spread too thin and they're pissing off their fan base and making something that's too similar to existing products to get people to care, along with a shitty marketing budget. The game just doesn't look like it has any soul.

If they did Battlefield 2143 no one would care about female soldiers

Realism is not binary, it's a matter of degrees. Real combat may be nothing like Battlefield 3/4 depicts, but at least those games weren't trawling the depths of the Internet to find never-actually-fielded prototypes so they could shoehorn a particular gameplay style into a setting ill-suited for it. There's no reason why BF1 couldn't have been a little heavier on the bolt-actions and a little lighter on the fictional automatics- the Standard Issue Rifles game mode works great, and is fun precisely because it still plays like a Battlefield game while still providing a different experience. Heck, they could have even just made bolt-actions available as non-class-specific weapons. But they didn't want to take the risk of deviating from the tried-and-true formula, so in spite of all the artistic work the gameplay is basically a reskinned BF4. Not surprising, but disappointing all the same. DICE seems to have this continuing problem with being unable to maintain any sort of coherent vision on their projects. They made the bold move to create a game set in WW1, and then they made it play like a WW2 game. They decide to return to WW2 with a heavy emphasis on cosmetics and inclusivity, but then rather than set it in, say, Eastern Europe (where rag-tag bands of visually, ethnically, and sexually diverse characters would be perfect), they just shoehorned it into Europe.

1942, Vietnam, 2, 2142, 3, Bad Company 2, 4. Played them all to death, all pretty great. Will forever be one of my favorite franchises of all time and will have fond memories of it for many decades, possibly until the day I die. But the Battlefield series is effectively dead to me. Barring a 2143 (And it had better be damned impressive.) I don't see myself ever getting another battlefield game. I can't bring myself to give EA money anymore.

Cowen predicts EA’s ‘Battlefield V' will be a ‘serious disappoin.. New information. The game is tracking 85% behind Blops 4, which previous titles BF3 and BF4 ranged 20-40% behind the CoD they were releasing near- Battlefield 1 actually beat CoD in its round. Analyst believes their guidance number of 13-14 million units doesn't look achievable.

Oh boy, I can't wait for 'How Racists and Misogynists Killed Battlefield', coming soon to a Kotaku near you.

This kinda proves the point that people valued authenticity since BF1 was the only BF game of the decade to actually beat the CoD it was up against, and this one more than doubled the amount of how behind the ones that were had fallen

But don't you know!? Everyone wants fun things like crippled women on the front line instead! ...Which are there with 99% likelihood to sell microtransactions under the guise of "inclusivity". Pushing for political agendas. Exploiting consumers. Attempting to milk as much money as possible.

When you guys are talking about BF1 authenticity, what are you talking about? As far as I'm concerned, BF1 is not very authentic, but then I never played the single player.

"Authenticity" here actually means "characters that didn't come from Fortnite"

They've taken some liberties but I don't think (from what I've seen from screenshots and videos, I never played the alpha) they're that far off when you compare them to the BF1 models which were hardly super authentic either.

I'd argue it's more because of the uniqueness of it against a title that everyone saw being medoicre. Like literally everyone went, "This Call of Duty is going to suck." But Battlefield One was a time period that rarely sees a focus in gaming, so it had that going well for it. But this, honestly people don't really care about World War 2 games that much any more. Certainly not ones that have a shitshow for marketing and social engagement. And Call of Duty is basically just more of exactly what everyone expects.

I'm sure the sales are noticeably less than what they were from BF1 but 85% is almost too much to believe.