While Electronic Arts and DICE are currently very busy with the production of the next Battlefield, the studio’s flagship franchise finds itself at the heart of news that the studio would surely have wanted to avoid. The cause? The concept Art of the game which is causing a lot of reaction on social networks, because it contains a real photo of an explosion that occurred in Gaza.
Quite disturbing similarities to an explosion in Battlefield
When we know the current context and the agreement to cease fire which came into force on January 19, we say to ourselves that this concept art came rather badly. Although DICE and Electronic Arts have not yet commented on the subject, this promotional image has already been the subject of an analysis showing that it is indeed a real explosion that occurred in Gaza on May 12, 2021.
In a post published on X this weekend, freelance artist Emad Alden said he spotted an explosion that looked familiar to him in this concept artthis one would simply have taken place in a real city.
The photo was then found elsewhere by user
Our colleagues at TheGamer wanted to verify the information and discovered a watermarked version on the press agency’s website. As for why this explosion would have ended up in this Concept Art, Emad Alden has a theory.
-Sometimes designers need to finish images quickly, so it’s likely they were just looking for an explosion with the right perspective.
Separately, another user noted that designers sometimes use asset packs that include realistic explosions, but they often don’t give context about where these images come from.
Incidentally, War Thunder developer Gaijin Entertainment found itself in a similar situation last year. The person concerned, through his community manager, then had to apologize after an explosion from the Challenger disaster in 1986 was used in key images of the game, he then explained that all this “was part of of a set of aerial explosion references used by our artists and that the context had been lost.” The explosion was then removed.
If we take this story as an example, we can imagine that the artist was not aware of the source of the explosion in the concept art of Battlefield, the extremely delicate situation surrounding the Gaza conflict should encourage EA to take steps to remedy the situation.
