Aleksander Grondal, the executive producer at DICE, wishes that the developer had been wise enough to include women in Battlefield 1. His statement comes after the studio faced a silly amount of backlash for finally including women in the Battlefield series later, in the upcoming Battlefield 5.
Battlefield 5 will be releasing in October of this year, and has faced a fair amount of criticism surrounding its decision to include a female protagonist. Internet trolls were quick to latch onto claims of historical inaccuracy and a break in the realism they had come to expect from a game series that also lets players drive a tank solo while somehow operating its cannon and conduct pistol duels on top of blimps. To the developers’ credit, DICE has remained committed to its decision to finally include women in a central role in Battlefield 5.
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Interestingly enough, however, Grondal believes that the developer should have included women as prominent figures within its series some time ago. In an interview with GamesRadar, Grondal suggested that he had concerns the decision was being misinterpreted as jumping on the bandwagon of cries for more female representation in gaming:
“I think it’s a shame we didn’t [add women to Battlefield 1], because that perhaps would’ve been better for us. I don’t think it’s a bandwagon thing, I think it’s about gamers wanting to express themselves in different ways. If you take a look at Battlefield historically, it’s been about expressing yourself through gameplay…and these characters fall perfectly in line with that thinking.”
While there has been backlash, it doesn’t appear that Grondal feels it’s nearly as egregious as creating a game with customization that didn’t include women representatives. Battlefield 5 is going to revolve around personalizing and identifying with a character, and Grondal didn’t want players to be as restricted as they were in Battlefield 1:
“You want to create a game that’s the best game for all our players…and we thought it was right that you could be whomever you wanted to be in that context. We stand by that. I still think it’s the right thing to do, and I still think it’s the right thing for us as a franchise.”
Naturally, sales figures will help solidify Grondal’s intuition, which is that the Battlefield series needed to evolve to continue to appeal to the maximum number of players. In a world where there is an increasingly vocal and visible female contingent of gamers looking to end the discrimination and inequality they face, that means creating a more accessible multiplayer environment.
There may be some who choose not to purchase Battlefield 5 because it doesn’t resemble the more homogenized representation of Battlefield 1, but there are likely a number of women who will give Battlefield 5, and the series, a shot for the first time as a result of this decision. That, according to Grondal and DICE, is a valuable thing, and the reason for the company’s wish that it had been more inclusive in years prior as well.
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