The good facet of Battlefield V dropping season passes is that everybody will get free maps. The trade-off is that, being a World War 2 game, any beauty gubbins they promote, together with ‘elite’ character skins, goes to incorporate Nazis and Nazi memorabilia, even when the swastikas are painted over. That’s dangerous sufficient, however earlier at the moment, Vice published a piece declaring that premium Nazi Wilhelm Franke shares a reputation with a well-known WW2 resistance fighter who fell foul of the Gestapo. EA have since contacted Vice saying that Wilhelm will be renamed. Also that he’s not a Nazi. Oh. Oh expensive.
Being a World War 2 shooter, and that includes the German military, implies that Nazis are going to be concerned. Unless they’re apparently simply proudly apolitical German troopers wearing red-trimmed black leather-based trenchcoats, emblazoned with iron crosses. EA’s argument is, to cite: “Wilhelm Franke, whose identify we’re altering shouldn’t be a Nazi, however a German solider just like ones we have already got within the game. In Battlefield V, we’re not making any political statements in relation to the true life occasions of WW2 and there are not any swastikas within the game”. Oh, properly, that is smart.
Maybe I’m only a cynic, however this feels about as convincing an argument to me as Ubisoft insisting they make apolitical games whereas developing one set in a dystopian post-Brexit London. I can respect EA’s predicament, in that instead of season passes, they’re promoting these fancy alternate character fashions, so should make them interesting, even when they’re the dangerous guys. If they’d simply apologised, fastened the identify and left it at that, we’d at the least be again on impartial footing. But no, they needed to insist that this man, who ticks each field on the ‘overly dramatic big Nazi villain’ guidelines, isn’t one as a result of there’s no swastikas. Sometimes, I despair.
As terrible as this slow-motion PR practice wreck is, at the least Battlefield V is getting some nice looking free maps soon. No phrase on what Wilhelm Franke can be renamed to, or when the change will come into impact, both.
