Ex Battlefield 5 Design Director Says It’s Hard to Salvage Game Since It Was “So Divided Internally"

Former Battlefield 5 Design Director says the game was hard to salvage given it was "so divided internally," wanted to adopt Firestorm armor in base game.

[Kaii]

so the whole team didn't attend that party mocking the criticism it received?
What was BF 5 trying to do? Trying to appease certain audiences backfired, EA's chief design officer Patrick Soderlund said it himself, don't like it, don't buy it.

[Darkborn]

And I never bought it. They shot themselves in both feet on this one.

[DEEHULK88]

I can't believe that people were pissed because women were in the game.🤦🏼

[Teflon02]

The hate for BF5 is possibly one of the biggest wtf consumer moments.

After all the nonsense about censorship and it being about artistic freedom. They really didn't allow DICE that same freedom they be crying about lmao. Imo EA had every right to call people out because when you actually fact checked EA and DICE were correct. They only make creative choices to give customization options and people acted like they knew more than people who spent years traveling and talking to vets etc.

People should not be proud of that moment at all. Bet BFV would have came out better if they weren't changing things to make babies happy. Which is the main reason I laugh when people cry about censorship. Consumers legit censored customization and suppressed the stories of living vets because something that made no sense as BF5 is a game not a simulator

[Ninver]

More to it than just females. For once their not the center of attention.

[DEEHULK88]

Seems like a lot of fans hate women in games and they were hiding it by pretending that they care about the historical accuracy of a video game. Seems like selective caring because there are many game that you could raise the question the historical accuracy, but you don't really hear it.

[DEEHULK88]

"For those who don't want to play with women, we have a game and it's called Battlefield 4"

D. Mattrick

[SIdepocket]

@DEEHULK88

I don't mind if game developers try and be more inclusive with their games; historical accuracy isn't a big deal as far as I'm concerned.

Having said that, the attitudes expressed by DICE and the gaming press (that if you don't like the changes you're a misogynist and a bigot) is a huge turnoff for me. As far as I'm concerned, if DICE wants to lecture their users on how to think, I'm fine playing something else.

There are plenty of ways to promote inclusivity in games without being a-holes about it.

[DEEHULK88]

SIDE POCKET
it seems like they were giving off the same energy they were getting from fans who are in reverse telling the developers what they should've done.

[frostypants]

I was pissed because the gameplay was just awful. Only Hardline challenges it for worst of the series. Saying this is about women is just helping EA make excuses for a bad game.

[jeromeface]

people were pissed because women in ww2 on the front line wasn't historically accurate. Not to mention anyone with prosthetics.

[PS-Gamer-1986]

Alot of People are probably just fed up with media trying to influence them with social politics. But the main reason it flopped was because they tried to release a barebone battlefield game at full price.

If it was solely about "hating wamen", a game like the last of us 2, which received its fair share or criticism, should also have flopped, but it turned out to be a well crafted game so alot of people bought it.

Sounds like a excuse to me

[UnholyLight]

Just because there were women in the game wasn't the problem....

It was the "our take on WW2" basically was NOTHING like WW2. Also there were a lot of dumb issues with the game that shouldn't happen. Coming in on a C47 that is marked with GERMAN crosses?! How about the times the plane was marked as German and yet here you were a British soldier. How about having a character selection EXCEPT for vehicles where you were forced to listen to a ridiculously overdone and almost troll-like female scream every time you died. How about a game that consistently had issues with TTK and overly CoD like gunplay? How about the team constantly fiddling and then when it seemed like they got it right, they changed something else about TTK AGAIN.

There were a ton of problems with this game. This isn't about the core BF audience "Hating women". The game "failed" because it was an absolute poor excuse of a BF game that literally regressed the series after riding a high of BF3/4/1 (although 1 was already not for some at that point).

To conclude, people like my friends and I were angry at DICE because they couldn't just make a decent WW2 game, and instead will use this as a reason to NOT ever make another "WW2" game because of how bad this one turned out.

[Redemption-64]

Honest question, was it the woman with a metal arm that triggered people this much? And is that what you consider appease certain audience? Am just curious.

[Atomicjuicer]

Why are you trying to defend this? You either dont know what youre talking about or youre a troll. They mismarketed the game.

[Redemption-64]

Can you please point out where I am defending this? It will be nice to know how you arrived at such a claim from a question. I am literally asking what triggered you people? Was it because they had a woman with a metal arm? I don't fully recall all the details, but I recall some people literally being very hurt, when the first trailer was released and they showed the woman with the metal arm.

[CorndogBurglar]

I remember the same thing. People are here talking about the game being bad and releasing in a bare bones state, which is true. But that just solidified that the game itself was not good.

But people had already made up their mind when the first trailer dropped, and the main complaint was about "historical inaccuracy" based on women on the front lines and fighting with a prosthetic arm. At that point, thats all we had. A trailer. And I get it to an extent. Battlefield was almost always previously historically accurate for the most part, and was never viewed as an arcade-like, online shooter. It was always considered a step above games like CoD when it comes to realism with none of the flashy and colorful upgrade stuff.

So when people saw that you could be a woman, and have crazy upgrades like prosthetics and bright and colorful skins for clothes and guns, it started feeling a little less like battlefield and more like they were dumbing it down for the CoD crowd.

Thats how I viewed it anyway.

[Yi-Long]

It just wasn't FUN for me to play. I play Battlefield for the Conquest, but the maps were just a bit too large, the squads were a bit too large, and worst of all, matches just take up far too much time, so where normally you get 2-3 matches in an hour, here the big Conquest matches could last 40+ minutes, maybe longer, and that's a big investment of time when you're just not having a lot of fun or on a mediocre team or map.

It just never really clicked for me. They seem to tear this franchise into 3 different directions;
1: They want to be more like Call of Duty.
2: They want to be Battlefield, but bigger and more, justnfor.the sake of it being bigger (maps) and more (players).
3: They want to tap into that Battle Royale market.

IMO, they should go back to the basics of Battlefield, so medium-sized maps and squads, well-balanced classes (no perks), and matches which only last 15-25 minutes max.

[senorfartcushion]

I finally started the single player last night. I stopped after attempting two levels. The hit markers were weird and it told me where every bad guy was in the horribly laid out levels, and it was buggy as hell.

[Teflon02]

Map size and battle time was pretty normal tbh. But you're definitely right. If you don't enjoy it, battles that long become hell.

Personally didn't have issues with it. But I do think it had a very heavy focus on having a squad that was friends and the big issue is because the response. People didn't buy making it impossible to try it the way it should have been played. But that's why you gotta find a good spot.

[CorndogBurglar]

It all depends though. Classic BF games weren't all medium sized maps. It always depended on what kind of vehicles were available. Small maps had no vehicles except maybe a buggy. Some didn't even have that. Medium maps had armor like armored cars, tanks, buggies, and helos. large maps had all of that plus jets. This was the formula going all the way back to BF2. BF1 and BF5 is where all that started changing, and not for the better.

[AnotherGamer]

Still baffles me how they went from BF1 to BFV in terms of quality and historical accuracy. Its like they wanted to butcher everything they did for BF1.

[Ninver]

When trying new things fails.

[Sieg]

BF1 had talents working on it. The direction of the game was clear. BF5 was divided and fresh unexperienced talents wasn't enough to save it.

[frostypants]

BF1s gameplay was classic Battlefield, even if the zeppelins were annoying. BF5 felt like it was made by a completely different (and inept) team. And by the sound of it, it was.

[BenRC01]

Its ea. They have no idea what they want any more, they want loot box services but get panned for doing it.
Make a good game and people will flock to it (bf2/3/4/1)

[gold_drake]

how does that even happen, having half of the dev team liking it and the other not liking what they're making lol. of course the games gonna bomb

[MetroidFREAK21]

I bought it, hated it... tried the BR when it came out, thought it was okay... they abandoned it and so did I shortly afterwards. It damaged my opinion on the franchise and unless the new game pushes the franchise forward, I'm done with BF games

[Father__Merrin]

Bf5 was a good game ones all patches was in but it really was bf1 ot 2

[XxINFERNUSxX]

They need to remake BF1942 and the 2 expansions in the new engine, it's the one that started it all and one of my fav Battlefield games after BF3 I stopped, turned to shit after.

[Sieg]

From Patrick Söderlund calling your fanbase/customer ‘uneducated‘ to ‘Accept it or don’t buy the game’. BF5 "untold WW2" concept backfired. The game was barebone with launch content. Firestorm was a failure. The Pacific brought some life back but it was too late. The game was dying and CoD MW/WZ killed it in 2019.

DICE Stockholm failed to deliver a good BF product. Let this be a lesson and don't try to pull this crap again with the next BF.

[kryteris]

BFV was mostly a dlc for BF1.

[Mithan]

I refunded it after a few hours on Origin's. It just wasn't fun initially. I really enjoyed Battlefield 1, Bad Company, 2142, BF2 and BF3 and this one just fell flat, not as bad as BF4 for me, but flat.

The controversy with the woman in the game was a waste of time personally, who cares? I don't like SJW's pushing their crap on me, but this was a huge over reach by brainless gamers who wanted to bitch about something.

That being said, the game just didn't feel that good.

[IcedOmega13]

Please god just let BF6 not suck