Having a sensible discussion about the pros and cons of Battlefield V's campaign has become impossible in most corners of the internet. I find this incredibly depressing. Imagine living in world where a discussion about Battlefield V's campaign was met with thoughtful critique about the mixture of linear and open sandbox-driven game design that calls to mind the likes of Project IGI, trying to keep both stealth and action as viable playstyles. Imagine being able to meaningfully discuss the writing in each War Story, how, much like classic WWII films such as The Great Escape and The Dirty Dozen, they use a real war paired with semi-fictional individuals to examine the human condition in the context of war. What did the game do right? How could the next game improve?
Nope. We live in the world where a few key factors completely derail discussion.
Some people refuse to play the game, and parrot the opinions of controversy seeking youtubers who always go for a "the writing is shit, the gameplay is shit, everything about the game is shit" angle. Mixed in with some "the developers attacked their audience" whining for good measure. Consider that in 2015, the exact same thing happened with Battlefield Hardline. There were even Breitbart articles claiming Hardline was a politically motivated piece of anti-conservative propaganda.
Some people do play the game, but they hate the genre. This is surprisingly common. With a series like Battlefield, most of the MP audience does not give a shit about story-driven singleplayer FPS games. Ever since Hardline, the series has responded to negativity towards BF3's absurd linearity by embracing sandbox level design. Allowing the player to solve problems using stealth if they wish to. They've dialed back cinematic spectacle in favor of player agency. This approach to design was what made the likes of Far Cry and Crysis popular back in the day. Player freedom. Player agency. It turns out some people HATE this type of design. They want the singleplayer to be like the multiplayer. Endless bombastic battles where you mindlessly shoot hundreds of enemies in a glorified MP tutorial. Instead of recognising that "it's not for me", they decide it's not for anyone. They resent its inclusion. The inability to recognise that not everything is aimed at you is a core fault in the mainstreaming gaming psyche. "I don't care about this thing, so why do developers include it? Why do they put so much effort into something I wish didn't exist?"
I mentioned Hardline. Lovely game. Visceral's swan song. It had a diverse cast, some sharp writing, and mechanically it paired linear gameplay with sandbox gameplay. You could complete huge sections of the game without killing anyone. The arresting mechanic was a bit overpowered, true, but it worked really well with the theme of the game. And the Battlefield fanbase flipped out. "This isn't what I want from a Battlefield game." They wanted mindless slaughter on battlefields, not a game where players were in the shoes of a Cuban American police officer trying to kill as few people as possible.
Another key problem is how many people know jack shit about game design. About how to craft a fun videogame. Once a game has a target painted on its back, people will run around claiming the AI is "shit". Happens every time. And their usual examples are nothing more than the game having competent stealth mechanics that allow players to complete missions without setting off an alarm every 30 seconds. Mafia III comes to mind. Game had a target on its back because it pissed off people who didn't believe a Mafia game should be about anything except Italians. M3's AI was pretty damn good. It flanked, took cover, worked in groups, and generally put up a stiff fight. But it was also designed to allow players to infiltrate buildings using cover mechanics and such. People spread gifs saying, "Oh, look at this idiotic AI that walks past the player as they're beside the wall." Of course it walks past the player. Otherwise the stealth wouldn't work. How else could you grab them from behind, knock them out, and drag them behind cover?
Notice how often EA pops up? It's depressing. Syndicate 2012 had really cool encounter design. It had smart AI. It had awesome gunplay, great music, incredible visual design (bloom excepted). Instead of being judged on its merits, all people would talk about was the dubstep in the trailer, how EA had ruined the original Syndicate (which they'd never played, BTW), and how the game was only six hours long and a massive ripoff by the greedy Electronic Arts. Its FEAR-inspired gameplay was dismssed as a "Call of Duty clone" for some vague reason.
Crysis 2 was released in 2011. It is an amazing game with some truly special encounter design. Incredibly tight gunplay. Amazing music. It's a smart FPS game. It did so much stuff incredibly well. But outside of professional reviews, you rarely heard about that back in the day. Instead, you heard Crysis 1 fans throwing a tantrum because the game was different. "This isn't what I wanted from a Crysis game." The evil EA had ruined Crysis with their greed. People who praised the game's design were just "shills" and "not real Crysis fans". The whole "PC Master Race" prejudice was taking root about this point. A hate for consoles, a hate for "casual" gamers, and that still-common denial about the realities of game development.
Before Crysis 2 was released, Crytek explained the decisions behind the game. The compromises, the creative choices, and so on. They explained that games were becoming very expensive to make, and making the game multiplatform was necessary. There was no way to recoup their money without consoles. They pointed to rising budgets. To PC piracy.
And instead of listening, gamers fell back on this blind rage that has become so common. Any developer that says "piracy is an issue for us" gets screamed at. I'm sorry, but piracy is an issue for developers making 6-12 hour long FPS games. Maybe it's less of an issue for developers making gigantic open world games. (Notice CDPR are always wheeled out in a defense.) Crytek explaining that games were becoming expensive to make and how their games were being hurt by piracy was met with, "Just make them cheaper." And paranoid accusations that anyone who brings up piracy is "attacking gamers". Plus the outrage over the developers "betraying" their fans -- a new familiar chorus.
There's this obsession with throwing a tantrum any time any developer or publisher says anything less than glowing about any part of their audience.
It's frustrating how unbelievably dense and obstinate and ignorant gamers can be. So willing to bandwagon. So willing to buy into conspiracy theories instead of trying to understand basic business logic. Millions of people will just parrot whatever a youtuber told them. I am getting a little tired of people parroting the claim that EA said singleplayer games are dying. They never said that. Yet it keeps popping up. It's all the more galling to me that the same people who spread the lie about EA claiming singleplayer games don't sell and using that to claim EA are "out of touch" are often the same people shitting on modern Battlefield campaigns that are way better than they get given credit. There's no nuance. There's no appreciation. Just people having their little tantrums and wallowing in their "worst game of 201X" lists. It's just endless hate, distortion, and people attempting to blackmail developers through weaponized outrage. And it just seems to be getting worse. We saw the first inklings of it around 2010. Lest we forget Dragon Age 2, which was also paired with people getting angry that professional critics held different opinions to them about a flawed game that to its credit has an almost Obsidian-esque charm. But now it is happening on an unprecedented scale. It's happening with increased frequency.
I'm tired of it. Gaming culture is horrible. It masks bitterness and small mindedness behind "passion". People genuinely care more about the name on the box than the contents of the box when evaluating a game. And they act as if their bitterness towards not getting what they expected is somehow justified because they were conditioned to be coddled, pandered to, and told how amazing they are all these years.
