DICE is Considering Female Soldiers for Battlefield 4

[Steven Bogos]

DICE is Considering Female Soldiers for Battlefield 4

Battlefield 4's executive producer Patrick Bach hopes the franchise can one day fully incorporate female characters.

Female characters in shooters seem to be all the rage these days, as publishers extend an olive branch to women, trying to break the stereotype that FPSs are "a man's game." While Natural Selection 2 [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/126864-Call-of-Duty-Ghosts-Lets-You-Play-as-a-Woman] actually did it first.

Regardless of that, it now appears that DICE isn't about to let its competitors one-up it, and is seriously considering adding playable female soldiers to its soon-to-be-released Battlefield 4. He says that he hopes the franchise can one day fully incorporate female characters, but some sacrifices would be have to made to make this happen.

"We have been talking about it quite a lot. We've been looking at how much it's worth, compared to how much we'd have to sacrifice. Because it's quite complicated, It's not just [creating] the actual character models, it's all the voice-over work. We have hundreds of thousands of lines that would need to be duplicated, because even now we're cheating quite a lot - we have random male voices, and then you have to multiply that by two. If we do it, we'll do it right, not just to tick a box or something."

So there you have it. We probably won't be seeing female soldiers in Battlefield 4 any time soon, but when they are added, it will be done right.

Infinity Ward's Mark Rubin previously said that Call of Duty: Ghosts undertook a "massive overhaul" of the game's engine to make female soldiers possible.

Source: Official Xbox Magazine [http://www.oxm.co.uk/64407/dice-battlefield-will-get-female-multiplayer-characters-but-not-just-to-tick-a-box/]

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[weirdee]

waaaaaaaaait

wasn't it quake arena that did it first

(hell if i know any shooters older than that besides goldeneye but i don't even remember if that had women)

 

[schrodinger]

If they're considering putting female soldiers in the game can they PLEASE not go the obvious route and sexualize them. It's not that hard; Just tweak the armour to fit the form more, without being too form fitting, and there's your female soldier. Or just go the realistic route where real female soldier's outfit is basically the same to their male counterparts.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

So long as you don't give the womens' uniforms ridiculous boob-windows and other pointless male-gaze attractors and then try to defend it as "cultural relativism". Because we've already had that done [http://www.escapistmagazine.com/news/view/128500-Warface-Producer-Defends-Female-Designs-as-Cultural-Relativism]....

 

[WouldYouKindly]

Just so long as we manage to avoid the boob windows.

I honestly can't think of a reason not to, just don't make them look, and almost dress, like runway models.

 

[Metalrocks]

well thats good. would be better of course if it would be in bf4 (maybe by dlc)but thats a start. but yes, dress them like male soldiers, like they are in real life.

 

[Thaluikhain]

Rainbow Six: Raven Shield had two female voices and had the soldiers look exactly the same cause they are wrapped head to toe in camouflage and body armour. Also meant you didn't need to do different faces.

 

[MaximumTheHormone]

implying it will make any real deference in a game like battlefield.
Seeing the general snipe-fest Battlefield multiplayer is and the well acknowledged fact that each multiplayer drone as well as single player drone is effectively a soulless vessel (excluding the obvious Blops and bad company 2 shenanigans) I don't think this'll make any sort of difference to anything.
They obviously wont stick massive melons on the chicks otherwise everyone would choose the male model due to the sizeably less vulnerability to bullets they would have. Same goes for skimpy war costumes, a busty war brixen would definately stand out on the battlefield, so it can pretty much be discounted. They wouldn't announce that they had female protagonists in this conservative manner if they were gonna release a sextploitative game, it would piss off the people intriuged and in general it wouldn't make sense (financial sense, the type EA understands).
At best I presume maybe small muffled lumps and a pony tail, which may be fine to advertise on the back of the box but doesen't really matter to anyone who was already interested in the series, particularly seeing as the lack of emphasis on gender in battlefields existing releases. Rather just a nice touch.

tl;dr nice touch, probably not worth leaking unless they haven't thought of any other new things for their game. calm down they wont abuse it, its a multiplayer game.

 

[Kaymish]

i dont see why putting females in the game would need a massive overhaul of the engine there has to be some flexibility to put another kind of character model in there or else you would have a bunch of guys with all the same body running around and saying that sounds like they screwed up making the engine in the first place
but then again i get motion sick playing FPS and don't really understand what the furor is all about or how games that appear to me as just "gun on a stick clone V.3.4" get so popular

 

[Daaaah Whoosh]

For the Aftermath DLC, they completely changed the player models, something they also did in BFBC2 on the snow levels. It truly isn't about the player models, as far as I can tell, and if their only concern is getting the voices, I'm sure there are enough female Battlefield fans to do the necessary work for free to make this happen.

The problem I see is the size difference. I suppose you could make a female player model with a big enough waist to offset the loss of shoulder mass, and breasts to compensate for thinner arms/legs, but then you've got the problem of relative size. I assume the players in BF4 are around 6 feet tall, and women are usually a good half foot shorter than that. You could make them take less damage before dying, but then you have to re-balance the game with that in mind.

 

[Grach]

A masive overhaul of the engine? Whatever.
It'd be cool to see more diverse character models in BF4. After all, the single-player component has a female character. So, as long as the female soldier's models don't have tactical corsets*, it'll be fine.

*Yes, they do exist. But, maybe they could add a "Sexy Warrior" or "Sexyfield" model pack, with the women clad in tactical corsets and bikinis and the men in nothing more than a small mag rig and a thong.

 

[Commander Obvious]

I'm going to assume that DICE is above camo lingerie, so this could be a nice addition.

 

[Sack of Cheese]

I have female friends who play COD and Battlefield, it'd be great news for them to be able to play as their own genders. ^^
Dunno why, but female soldiers always feel more badass in video games. (Like Banshee in Ghost recon: Shadow war)

 

[Creator002]

A massive overhaul of the engine? I mean, maybe because the female body is a little smaller you have to change the hitbox sizes thus you need to balance combat a bit better, but seriously? In any case, I'd love to finally play a female in a modern FPS (bar Halo). I almost always go female characters in any game that offers the choice, so that'd just make my BF experience all the better.

 

[LetalisK]

If they're considering putting female soldiers in the game can they PLEASE not go the obvious route and sexualize them. It's not that hard; Just tweak the armour to fit the form more, without being too form fitting, and there's your female soldier. Or just go the realistic route where real female soldier's outfit is basically the same to their male counterparts.

I don't think you need to worry, as I suspect supposed militaristic "realism" and sexy mean the same thing to these Michael Bay acolytes. "Oooo, full molle-system body armor with twin sappy plates, you saucy little minx. Show me your M203."

 

[MCerberus]

I'm reminded of Tripwire (killing floor) saying that it would be too much work and the animations had to be redone. Then they just randomly slopped together a character, and most of the issues came from just needing the VA. Or Rainbow 6 Vegas 2, where my character was female because the male models ranged from Robocop to Incredible Hulk. It was just an option that let in more customization.

The Vegas games, speaking of which, had an interesting thing about showing skin. Sure, you can run around in a tank top. Oh look you died. Armor would have been nice.

 

[unstabLized]

Oh God the teabags... Not only that, within a few hours someone will figure out how to mod the game to make it look like they're wearing lingerine on your screen. Battlefield rule 34... *puts sunglasses* Bring it on.

 

[Do4600]

Women are just unfair in fpses, I'm having flashbacks to the Masako and Eos character models from Red Faction multiplayer.

 

[octafish]

There was a female resistance member in MOH:AA. I remember because she had a Tommy gun and the female players were always asking to swap foran Enfield.

I can't see it being popular, the last thing an actual female gamer would want to do is declare their gender in game. Multiplayer fans are animals.