DICE is Considering Female Soldiers for Battlefield 4

[Kennetic]

Why? Doesn't Battlefield constantly tout itself as realistic and authentic? So surely it should be the case that the game acknowledges that female soldiers aren't placed in front-line infantry roles. Even in the Israeli Defence Forces which does allow women into the infantry, they aren't placed in close quarters environments.

Whatever, though, Battlefield 4 is most certainly not a realistic or authentic game, so I might as well play a female character just for giggles if they add them.

What would be better is if they actually added a limited character customisation, I'd like to recreate my Rainbow 6 Vegas character or something.

^This. Seriously, if you're going to call your game "realistic," do a little research on how the actual military works and you'll notice the infantry and other combat arms jobs don't have women. OTOH this game doesn't have my interest anyways because it's not Bad Company 3.

 

[Someone Depressing]

As long as they don't have windows in their armor just to show off their cleave, ass, face, or lower abdomen, I'm happy about this. Games like this have been totesterone fuelled for long enough. Now I can listen to annoying little girls defending One Direction over the chat.

That, and didn't Battlefield already have some pretty feminine-looking models, too? They always seemed to have baggier clothes and wider hips to me.

 

[Kennetic]

Why? Doesn't Battlefield constantly tout itself as realistic and authentic? So surely it should be the case that the game acknowledges that female soldiers aren't placed in front-line infantry roles. Even in the Israeli Defence Forces which does allow women into the infantry, they aren't placed in close quarters environments.

Whatever, though, Battlefield 4 is most certainly not a realistic or authentic game, so I might as well play a female character just for giggles if they add them.

What would be better is if they actually added a limited character customisation, I'd like to recreate my Rainbow 6 Vegas character or something.

^This. Seriously, if you're going to call your game "realistic," do a little research on how the actual military works and you'll notice the infantry and other combat arms jobs don't have women. OTOH this game doesn't have my interest anyways because it's not Bad Company 3.

That would be true except for all the female MP's, pilots, medics, artillery soldiers, and cultural support soldiers who work with special operations. It's also a fact that just about anyone could come in to direct contact with the enemy in the current conflict, given how it's fought, and females are serving at the company level in combat arms units now with integration in to combat jobs in the army by 2016. I think the Marine Corps is already allowing females to go to infantry school, but none of them have passed yet.

In fact, a female soldier was one of the four just killed in the Ranger Battalion during the American government shutdown that drew some media attention.

Not saying that BF is realistic, or that it should be, but it wouldn't be unrealistic to have females.

MPs and medics have women yes (medics aren't technically combat arms I know since since that's what I am) but they don't go outside the wire. Our female medics work in the aid station and the MP women work on the FOB/COB. Now we did have a human intel female go on mission with us but she didn't carry a weapon and we had to escort her around when she was talking to the locals. BF and COD irked me with they're "realism" a long time ago by making the AT-4 a guided missile (seriously, it's not a rocket or a missile and it drives me crazy when they get it wrong).

 

[Weaver]

I kind of feel like he's lying a little bit.
I'm sure you have hundreds of thousands of lines ... in the Campaign.
In the multiplayer there's like what, a few hundred at most?

 

[Not G. Ivingname]

I have a feeling that this discussion started as soon as Call of Duty: Ghost revealed you can play as a woman. As others have noted already, you wouldn't even need to make different models for women to be in the game, since everyone is covered head to toe in combat gear. Just add woman's voices, change the faces of some classes, and bam you have gender equality.

Why? Doesn't Battlefield constantly tout itself as realistic and authentic? So surely it should be the case that the game acknowledges that female soldiers aren't placed in front-line infantry roles. Even in the Israeli Defence Forces which does allow women into the infantry, they aren't placed in close quarters environments.

Whatever, though, Battlefield 4 is most certainly not a realistic or authentic game, so I might as well play a female character just for giggles if they add them.

What would be better is if they actually added a limited character customisation, I'd like to recreate my Rainbow 6 Vegas character or something.

The Department of Defense has retracted it's ban on women serving in combat, just this year. Women already have served in front line roles, such as army engineer cores. While, the gender ratio is still bent HEAVILY towards men, this is slowly changing.

 

[CriticalMiss]

So the 'sacrifice' they would have to make is getting voice actors to record a few lines? Well clearly we'll have to wait for the PS5 generation to roll around before technology could handle that sort of crazy demand! Or maybe it's because there are absolutely no women anywhere in the world who are professional voice actors? Cripes. If they had decided to put women in the game from day 1 then there wouldn't have been an issue, just cut down the number of lines (seriously, does anyone care what generic grunt #342 says?) and get some women in to record them as well.

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.

And this doesn't suprise me considering they think that fish AI is innovative and ground breaking. If they needed to overhaul their engine to slightly tweak character models they must have had a pretty shit engine.

 

[Daverson]

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)

Pretty sure Quake 2 was the first. It was also the first game where you could choose your character model (Though, back then every multiplayer game had female characters, in fact, I'm pretty sure Call of Duty and Battlefield kicked off the trend of not having female player models =p )

 

[Vazruden]

http://imgur.com/tsob7sV

Im pretty sure Recon is female

 

[rbstewart7263]

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 anyone expects them to sexualize them. o_o

Thing is they do as the kerfuffle over Warface [http://www.wired.co.uk/news/archive/2013-10/07/warface-joshua-howard/viewgallery/308700] recently proves, Crytek added some less covered up female characters but the player feedback basically demanded camo-patterned bikinis. Crytek refused and added cleavage instead.

dont forget there the same people who do mirrors edge and also had sarkeesian come give a lecture on womenz in games stuff.

love her or hate her we all know that she didnt influence them to make the game a titty party.

 

[rbstewart7263]

So the 'sacrifice' they would have to make is getting voice actors to record a few lines? Well clearly we'll have to wait for the PS5 generation to roll around before technology could handle that sort of crazy demand! Or maybe it's because there are absolutely no women anywhere in the world who are professional voice actors? Cripes. If they had decided to put women in the game from day 1 then there wouldn't have been an issue, just cut down the number of lines (seriously, does anyone care what generic grunt #342 says?) and get some women in to record them as well.

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.

And this doesn't suprise me considering they think that fish AI is innovative and ground breaking. If they needed to overhaul their engine to slightly tweak character models they must have had a pretty shit engine.

NEGATIVE! lol Remember what voice acting did to the old republic? yeah imagine if all those resources had went into the game instead of voice acting what might have happened. And yes granted this isnt that big of a project but they do have certain things that must be meet before they can undertake it.

one: its gotta justify the work and money involved and obviously make its money when released. equalities great but doesnt survive in mass media if people dont fork up the cash for it.

two: this one ties into one and is probably there greatest deal breaker or deal maker. can they do all that model and voice work in a timely enough manner to still garner interest? after so long people will be moving on to other games. Oh sure everyone here will raise a toast to them if they do it one or two years down the road but that doesnt help there business and it is a business.

All in all they sound like they want to try why cant we be positive about that? Why be so negative simply because they said it "requires effort to do right?" The fact that there not trying to shoe horn anything in is good. We want sincerity here not shoehorning.

Also unless anyone here is familiar enough with game design and what goes into making a battlefield game particularly models and voice and all that I dont think we need to be making assumptions here? making a model in one game is not the same as in another. sometimes very similar but not always quite the same. Any of you remember how much money and time goes into one skull girls character? yeah now triple all that.

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I'm not terribly surprised. CoD did it, so their competition has to, right?

"Realism" is just an excuse to keep women's representation out of the game, and not necessarily the greatest excuse. At least not anymore.

Isn't Battlefield something near future, anyhow? And didn't women just recently win the right to go into the front lines in the US?

What? Does it burn people like sunlight on vampires to see female avatars in the game?
Does it hurt so very badly to allow women to feel included, and thought about by the industry when they want to game?

Just modify the build a little bit. Keep the height. I doubt most are going to care. The less balancing one has to do, the better, IMO coz someone will complain about that, and it's just more work. Then again people are going to complain no matter what.
I'm not saying be lazy, but I'm saying keep it simple.

Looking at images in this thread I'd say there is already assorted sizes for people.

Armor protects men and women equally doesn't it?
A gun is quite the equalizer isn't it? I don't think a bullet's magically worse because a woman shot it. A woman's quite capable of firing an assault rifle. Youtube videos prove that, don't they?
And modern weapons are being designed for ergonomics, and comfort, and accuracy anyhow, so it's just getitng easier, and easier to use them.

Honestly, just as long as they treat the notion of female soldiers with respect, it shouldn't be a problem.
I'm sure much of their female fan base would adore having representation, and women who stayed away due to lack of representation would be more willing to join in.

When they do add female soldiers, meaning they want my money, I'll look into the series.

Honestly "considering" it is kinda useless until they do it. Coz there's obstacles in the way beyond considering it, for one.

 

[wetfart]

Natural Selection 2 actually did it first.

Really? Perfect Dark and the N64 say hello.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

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)

Goldeneye 64? That definitely did have at least one I can remember, I believe her name was Natasha.

 

[Il_Exile_lI]

Halo 3 had female Spartans in 2007,and that wasn't even the first game to offer that option. So no, Natural Selection 2 wasn't first.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

I'm not terribly surprised. CoD did it, so their competition has to, right?

"Realism" is just an excuse to keep women's representation out of the game, and not necessarily the greatest excuse. At least not anymore.

Isn't Battlefield something near future, anyhow? And didn't women just recently win the right to go into the front lines in the US?

What? Does it burn people like sunlight on vampires to see female avatars in the game?
Does it hurt so very badly to allow women to feel included, and thought about by the industry when they want to game?

Just modify the build a little bit. Keep the height. I doubt most are going to care. The less balancing one has to do, the better, IMO coz someone will complain about that, and it's just more work. Then again people are going to complain no matter what.
I'm not saying be lazy, but I'm saying keep it simple.

Looking at images in this thread I'd say there is already assorted sizes for people.

Armor protects men and women equally doesn't it?
A gun is quite the equalizer isn't it? I don't think a bullet's magically worse because a woman shot it. A woman's quite capable of firing an assault rifle. Youtube videos prove that, don't they?
And modern weapons are being designed for ergonomics, and comfort, and accuracy anyhow, so it's just getitng easier, and easier to use them.

Honestly, just as long as they treat the notion of female soldiers with respect, it shouldn't be a problem.
I'm sure much of their female fan base would adore having representation, and women who stayed away due to lack of representation would be more willing to join in.

When they do add female soldiers, meaning they want my money, I'll look into the series.

Honestly "considering" it is kinda useless until they do it. Coz there's obstacles in the way beyond considering it, for one.

The article said the voice acting would have to be done twice, once each for either sex, meaning paying for more voice actors and more motion capturing, as well as the modelling and animation.

I seriously believe these people when they say that the main reason there aren't women in these games is to simply save money, and has nothing to do with sexism.

I agree that it should change, and we should be able to play as both men and women (unless it's vital to the story), but with games costing as much as they do, and the sheer amount of man power needed to make these games that a company like DICE makes, it must be so tempting to simply not bother adding extra work into it.

 

[kurupt87]

Women can't be frontline troops, right? So why add them to a game that wants to be "realistic"?

 

[Rebel_Raven]

I'm not terribly surprised. CoD did it, so their competition has to, right?

"Realism" is just an excuse to keep women's representation out of the game, and not necessarily the greatest excuse. At least not anymore.

Isn't Battlefield something near future, anyhow? And didn't women just recently win the right to go into the front lines in the US?

What? Does it burn people like sunlight on vampires to see female avatars in the game?
Does it hurt so very badly to allow women to feel included, and thought about by the industry when they want to game?

Just modify the build a little bit. Keep the height. I doubt most are going to care. The less balancing one has to do, the better, IMO coz someone will complain about that, and it's just more work. Then again people are going to complain no matter what.
I'm not saying be lazy, but I'm saying keep it simple.

Looking at images in this thread I'd say there is already assorted sizes for people.

Armor protects men and women equally doesn't it?
A gun is quite the equalizer isn't it? I don't think a bullet's magically worse because a woman shot it. A woman's quite capable of firing an assault rifle. Youtube videos prove that, don't they?
And modern weapons are being designed for ergonomics, and comfort, and accuracy anyhow, so it's just getitng easier, and easier to use them.

Honestly, just as long as they treat the notion of female soldiers with respect, it shouldn't be a problem.
I'm sure much of their female fan base would adore having representation, and women who stayed away due to lack of representation would be more willing to join in.

When they do add female soldiers, meaning they want my money, I'll look into the series.

Honestly "considering" it is kinda useless until they do it. Coz there's obstacles in the way beyond considering it, for one.

The article said the voice acting would have to be done twice, once each for either sex, meaning paying for more voice actors and more motion capturing, as well as the modelling and animation.

I seriously believe these people when they say that the main reason there aren't women in these games is to simply save money, and has nothing to do with sexism.

I agree that it should change, and we should be able to play as both men and women (unless it's vital to the story), but with games costing as much as they do, and the sheer amount of man power needed to make these games that a company like DICE makes, it must be so tempting to simply not bother adding extra work into it.

You can believe what you want, but what about the female models that already exist, the voice actresses for them, and well, until they make a female protagonist only game instead of relying on white male straight default, I'll respectfully disagree.

Seriously, how much more would it cost vs potential new customers, and the generally massive sales they always have?

Also,
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6073-Lets-End-the-FPS-Sausage-fest
it doesn't have to be prohibitively expensive.

 

[CardinalPiggles]

The article said the voice acting would have to be done twice, once each for either sex, meaning paying for more voice actors and more motion capturing, as well as the modelling and animation.

I seriously believe these people when they say that the main reason there aren't women in these games is to simply save money, and has nothing to do with sexism.

I agree that it should change, and we should be able to play as both men and women (unless it's vital to the story), but with games costing as much as they do, and the sheer amount of man power needed to make these games that a company like DICE makes, it must be so tempting to simply not bother adding extra work into it.

You can believe what you want, but what about the female models that already exist, the voice actresses for them, and well, until they make a female protagonist only game instead of relying on white male straight default, I'll respectfully disagree.

Seriously, how much more would it cost vs potential new customers, and the generally massive sales they always have?

Also,
http://www.escapistmagazine.com/videos/view/jimquisition/6073-Lets-End-the-FPS-Sausage-fest
it doesn't have to be prohibitively expensive.

How often do you see females in modern military shooters? Can't remember the last time I saw a female in a Battlefield game at all, maybe Bad Company?

And even then there is absolutely no depth to the female characters. Probably no mo cap, one cheap female voice actor to just make screaming noises. Nowhere near enough resources to properly apply a strong female presence to the game.

I don't personally know what the cost to benefit ratio would be, and I doubt the developers do either, and I'm sure that's what scares them so much.

I'm not saying stop caring about it and just brush it off, but trying to force it into a major issue just seems counter productive. Also, implying that people don't buy their game just because they don't get to be a female seems arrogant on their part in my honest opinion. Just as arrogant as the guys that won't buy a game because it doesn't have "white male straight default".

 

[Spaceman Spiff]

I hope they dress them the same as the male soldiers. It's pretty silly seeing semi-armored, fully covered men and then women with just tight fitting fatigues and a vest, or less. New Vegas had it right with the NCR troops and it looks like other games have too from reading some of these posts. There's no reason for BF4 to fork it up with exposed skin and titties.