It's unsurprising because the ever visible (and ceaselessly vocal) hand of the GamerTM market will always find a new thing to be riled at, according to a recent Twitter post. "In fact, Santa Claus will be coming to town in the form of a Battlefield 2042 skin." Some people are both surprisingly and unsurprisingly mad about this. Surprising because...well, it's Santa, and it's weird to get mad at a kind old man). But it
Battlefield 2042's release has been anything but smooth: from a slew of technical concerns to a widely dissatisfied playerbase, and its complete overshadowing by Halo Infinite, Battlefield has had a difficult go of it these last few weeks, and the hits, sadly, will not stop coming because of the cognitive dissonance inflicted on certain gamers by the presence of Father Winter in their shooty-game.
Halo is a humorous, frequently-funny sandbox. Battlefield has always been a very strange place in the big-budget first-person shooter pantheon. Call of Duty is competitive, bro-y, and a little playful. Battlefield has always been an expressive, often-funny sandbox. There are a lot of GI-Joes throwing themselves out of jets to land sick sniper shots before activating their wingsuits to
The strange tension between the game's explicit themes and framing devices and its moment-to-moment gameplay isn't anything new. It's new: There is a bridge too far, which some gamers perceive as a bridge too far. I'm going to argue this demonstrates a total disconcert not just of Battlefield, but also of the genre's reality.
Battlefield is an action film in video game form that extends not only to combat but also to the unusual bullshit that surrounds it. If you've seen Die Hard, you've already seen this dissonance. Weighty, heavy-handed themes and silly action bullshit are a wonderful, complementary combo. Yes, the film is about a hostage crisis, as well as watching one dude do weird, violent shit to many other men, quipping all the way. "Die Hard is a Christmas
The concept of Santa Claus doesn't include in Battlefield also forgets the importance of emergent comedy in fps multiplayer modes. The mechanics of Battlefield allow you to do stupid, silly shit. The juxtaposition between that stupid, silly shit and the game's overall tone are part of the joy. Ragdolling corpses are ridiculous, funny, and totally unrealistic. Watching someone smack into the side of a building while flying with a wingsuit is funny. Because all
This is why playing video games with your pals can be more enjoyable than shooting the shit. Halo Infinite has left me almost cry-laughing, and Battlefield has done the same for me. Multiplayer video games are tricky and silly because people are awkward and sillythe media we make is no different.
You can repair penguins using repair kits to weld them back together, which leaves you with two options, try to hide your game's emergent comedy (and fail, because gamers will always find it) or simply lean into the irritability of the medium. Battlefield 2042 has clearly chosen the second path, and it isn't the first time the series has done so either.
You'll most likely laugh for the same reason you did when you saw a single Santa Claus on a team composed of 63 normal-ass soldiers in eight months. You'll have a wonderful time.