Battlefield, Call of Duty And The Paradox of Realistic Video Game War

In 2016, it was announced that the new Battlefield would be set during World War I, and a certain section of the internet exploded. The backlash to the announcement came from a small but very loud section of players who were aghast at what they claimed were large historical inaccuracies in the game’s promotion; mainly the presence of an African-American soldier on the cover art. Some years later, this social media storm was repeated during the release of Battlefield V, this time due to the cover art and trailer centering a British female soldier. 

People complained of DICE and EA attempting to rewrite history to push a “diverse agenda,” and showered vitriol towards the playable Black characters in multiplayer and single player. Others took more issue with their prominence in the game’s publicity claiming that this was an insult to the white European soldiers who fought in World War I. The backlash towards Battlefield V took a similar tone, with people accusing the developers of disregarding history for “woke” politics that insulted the male soldiers of World War II. On Twitter, #Notmybattlefield started trending.

Normally, stupid, unfounded and prejudiced social media storms like this are things I try to ignore, but something about this one stayed on my mind. When I am not writing articles about video games, I study history at university, and so the fact that backlash towards the diversity of the games was based on the idea of “honouring history” really, really irritates me.

The debates around these two games are old ones; however, I believe there is still value in taking a look back every now and then. Diversity in video games and in depictions of European history is still in need of improvement today, and I believe many of the topics relating to these games remain relevant.

In pop culture, both world wars are often depicted and remembered as white male conflicts. While people who do not fit that description may appear, they are usually relegated to side roles, bit parts and anecdotal stories. While it is true that many of the soldiers were white European men, they were not so dominant a presence that a Black soldier on the cover of a video game is “rewriting history.” Besides the Ottoman armies, the major European powers (Britain, Germany, Austria-Hungary, and France) all had extensive Empires and colonies around the world, from which they did not hesitate to draw resources and manpower (volunteered and conscripted). The British forces included soldiers from Sierra Leone, Nigeria, the Gold Coast, the West Indies and India (to name a few) while the French forces included units from Senegal.

Some argued that this doesn’t justify the inclusion of playable Black and Asian soldiers in the British, German and French armies in multiplayer as they would have been separated from white units on the battlefield. While it is true that units from colonies generally fought separately to European ones, this was by no means a hard and fast rule. If the situation necessitated it, they might end up fighting together. Alongside the regiments of soldiers from colonies, the British army included many non-white British citizens who served directly alongside their white counterparts. Black British footballer Walter Tull, for example, served in the British Army during World War I, where he fought in the Somme, rose to the rank of second lieutenant, (one of the first men of mixed heritage to do so) and lost his life in France.

The soldier on the cover of the game is a member of the Harlem Hellfighters, “the most celebrated African-American regiment of world war one” and the focus of the introductory mission in Battlefield 1, Storm of Steel. The fact that anyone would take issue with their presence in the game or its promotion is astounding, as their record is one of the more extraordinary of World War I. They spent more time on the front lines than any other US unit at 191 days, and had the longest deployment - six months - of any World War I unit. 

All of the non-white and non-European soldiers and labourers of World War I were exposed to the horrific conditions of combat just as the white European men were. Their suffering, their deaths and their lives are significant and under-represented in media, and they deserve to have their presence acknowledged, respected and re-told. Having a Harlem Hellfighter on the cover of the game is not rewriting history, and nor is it an insult to white European soldiers. It is recognition of an integral group that took part in World War I.

The British Army did not utilise women in combat on the front lines, and neither did the French or Germans, so the playable female soldiers in the multiplayer of Battlefield V is historically inaccurate. However, despite being less common, female soldiers did exist in World War II and World War I. Russia, Bulgaria, Yugoslavia and Serbia all had units of female troops; like the Russian Women’s Battalion of Death in World War I. Russia also had some of the only female fighter pilots in World War II.

 And just because they were not frontline fighters does not mean British and French women did not have combat roles, or roles that brought them into combat zones. In World War I, many women acted as ambulance drivers, often driving through danger and shelling to bring soldiers to safety. In World War II a large number worked as anti-aircraft gunners. In both wars women were spies and resistance fighters in Poland, France and Italy. And, like the case of Walter Tull, just because certain armies banned women from joining does not mean that none did. British woman Flora Sandes joined the Serbian army in World War I and became a Captain and Sergeant Major. Several others were able to disguise themselves in men’s clothing to join the fighting. So, they were rare but they did exist. If historical accuracy was so integral to a player’s enjoyment, it could be that the multiplayer included playable women in the Russian forces but not the French, British, German or Ottoman. Either way, they should be present. 

So, the history of the games is not flawed. Stretched a little in places, perhaps, but certainly undeserving of the backlash. It is also worth thinking about the different approaches towards realism taken in single player versus multiplayer in Battlefield 1 and V. In both games, the single player campaigns take a more serious, “historically accurate” approach, and generally include characters where it makes historical sense to do so. (e.g.. the Harlem Hellfighters holding ground in France, playing as Zara Ghufran, a female Bedouin rebel in the Arabian peninsula or Solveig, a female resistance fighter in Norway.) 

You, know… Real world history stuff.

It’s the multiplayer that stretches historical accuracy in terms of the diversity of playable characters. But FPS multiplayer has never been accurate to history or real combat experiences. Even games that sold themselves as accurate recreations of real-world events, like the early Medal of Honor and Call of Duty games were about as realistic as most Hollywood blockbuster movies. You can generally die as many times as possible and come straight back, or heal yourself from gunshot wounds so long as you have a medkit. This very year the Call of Duty Vanguard (also set in World War II) developers released a bundle allowing the player to play as Snoop Dogg, as well as an Attack on Titan pack one that allows you to play as an anime character on the front line or equip this extremely historically accurate firearm.

I’ve to ask then; when talking about a video game taking place in a real war, be it modern or historical, is it even possible to respect the reality and history of war at all? Many FPS’s like to advertise themselves as “real.” This is war, they claim in the pre-release promo. The closest you’ll ever come to real war is in this game. Hell, even the next Call of Duty is said to be ripped from the headlines. This claim is, in my opinion, untrue every time. There is no video game on this planet that could ever respectfully and accurately depict a real war. The very act of taking a war and making a game out of it, of taking real people and real deaths and saying “isn’t this fun?” has already put you way beyond the line of respecting reality and history. If you took a bullet in World War I, chances are you were dead. Your body would be left to the dirt of no man’s land, and if you were lucky, someone might put a gravestone up with your name on it. Others were simply forgotten to time. It was not a game, and it was not fun. I don’t say this because I think FPSs based on real wars are inherently bad, or insulting. I’ve enjoyed many of them myself, after all. 

I say it merely to ask, that if you can look past the conversion of making real conflict and death into entertainment? If you can accept the fact that if you die in multiplayer you can simply reload, revive and jump straight back in? If you can look past the fact that a simple press of the healing button will completely cure you of several bullet wounds in seconds? Why is a playable female soldier in the German army in World War II too far? Why is a Black soldier in the British army in World War I where you draw the line? Whether historically accurate or not, these games are fictional and made for entertainment. Even if you don’t say it out loud, you are making a very clear point if you say that the game-ification of war is ok, but the idea of minority groups being represented in a fictionalised version of history goes too far. 

And as for the duty of respecting history; they were called “world wars” for a reason. People from all over the world had their lives drawn into and ruined by these conflicts.  Every kind of person you can possibly think of. Having a diverse cast is respecting history. The people of World War I and World War II led entirely different lives, came from different places, held different values but were all united by one thing.

As the unnamed narrator says at the beginning of Battlefield 1:

“The war is the world, and the world is the war, but behind every gunsight is a human being. We are those people. We are the jaded, and we are the naive. We are the honourable, and the criminal. We are the bound for legend, and the lost to history. We are the sky, the ghost in the desert, and the rats in the mud. These are our stories.”