Battlefield 2042 won't remove its Russian forces anytime soon
'That is very difficult to change in this entertainment game.'
EA's Battlefield 2042 has attracted its fair share of controversy since it launched last November, with players unhappy with the omission of key features at launch as well as some questionable design decisions which resulted in fan backlash.
There have been updates since release that have corrected the course of Battlefield 2042, with the belated launch of its first season earlier this month introducing a new map and features that have gone down well with the game's community.
Despite these updates, however, Battlefield 2042 still has players fighting under a Russian flag as one of the two factions in the game - a decision that sits uncomfortably given the invasion of Ukraine from Russian forces, and in light of EA's decision to remove Russian clubs and the Russian national football team from FIFA 22, FIFA Mobile and FIFA Online.
"First of all, we were here at DICE of course, we were as shocked as everybody else on the 24th of February waking up to see what was happening in Eastern Europe," EA DICE's general manager Rebecka Coutaz told Eurogamer in a recent interview about Battlefield 2042. "We have a lot of team members coming from Eastern Europe and we have had to deal with that, so that they feel comfortable, and we're here and we listen and help them to take care of themselves.
"That was our first concern. Then the second concern is we are a military shooter game, and today on Battlefield 2042 one of the opposing factions is Russian. What we have done is an audit of the game and try to be as sensitive as we can to be with as much respect as we can for everything that we do."
Asked whether that might change, Coutaz said it would be hard to implement. "That is very difficult to change," she said, "in this entertainment game."
EA subsequently supplied an additional response providing an official statement on Russia's continued presence in Battlefield 2042.
"While the premise of Battlefield 2042 and the content recently released for Season 1 remain representative of the game, we did audit and adjust content (across both in-game and marketing) to be sensitive to the situation in Eastern Europe,” an EA spokesperson told Eurogamer. “The Russian and US factions as they are represented today in Battlefield 2042 will continue in our live service Seasons. We continue to monitor it and will adapt when necessary."