Hey, Maybe Don't Harass Battlefield's Developers

For the second time in two years, things in the Battlefield community—or at least the worst elements of it—have gotten so toxic that it has led to some pretty stern requests for people to get a grip and cut it out.

In early 2022, not long after Battlefield 2042’s disastrous launch, the game’s official subreddit was neatly shut down when mods wrote:

It’s an understatement when we say that this subreddit has grown incredibly toxic. It’s near impossible to have a simple discussion without insults being flung around at each other—and it’s really starting to harm the entire Battlefield community, and each of us that are part of it. […] The mods have an obligation to follow the rules set out by Reddit, and if we are found to be in breach of not enforcing them, or doing a poor job at enforcing them, we risk the community getting banned altogether.

Now, a year later, the developers of the games themselves have taken to social media with a statement—co-signed by all four Battlefield studios—saying “we have witnessed increased harassment towards members of our development team”, and that “we will take appropriate action” against players found to not be adhering to the series’ community guidelines:

Recently we have witnessed increased harassment towards members of our development team.

Across all of our Battlefield Studios we are open to constructive feedback and criticism about our games.

But to maintain a healthy and open dialogue with our community, we will protect our teams and people from toxicity and harassment. We believe this has no place inside our game or within the Battlefield community.

We want to remind our players that through our EA User Agreement and Battlefield Community Guidelines we will take appropriate action to uphold these values.

As a community, we play the objective, together.

I get it, Battlefield fans have been through the wringer in recent years! Every time the series changes direction parts of the fanbase get upset, and I don’t think anyone would say that Battlefield 2042 launched in a fit and proper state.

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But it launched in the middle of a global pandemic, something I don’t think anywhere near enough fans recognise, and has done a pretty recent job in the months and years since to flesh itself out into some kind of actual Battlefield game.

That should be a good thing! But no, this is the internet, and this is the video games corner of the internet, so of course there must be people who are angry, all the time, and like always they’re getting angry at the wrong people. Battlefield 2042 was rushed out the door to hit a fiscal objective in the middle of a pandemic by the people running EA, not the level designers and artists and community managers working at DICE.

I’m glad this statement uses such supportive (of their teams) and forceful language; if someone is dumb and hateful enough to be harassing the developers of a video game, for whatever reason, then that person isn’t going to be fun to play multiplayer video games with, or against.