Battlefield 2042 devs are surprised you loved the penguins so much
I, however, am not
Blink and you'll miss them, but at around the 1:46 mark in the Battlefield 2042 Breakaway reveal trailer you can spot a waddle of penguins hanging out while futuristic tanks blast past them. There are two things you can learn here: 1) someone at Dice animated some bird pals specifically to put into the game, and 2) a group of penguins is named a "waddle". Naturally, the internet fell for these flightless friends, and now Dice have released a blog post chatting to the developer who decided to put them in.
"When I first started on Breakaway I thought... we’re on Antarctica, I just have to do this! I love adding these little things that add more soul to the game," says 3D artist Joel Zakrisson. "While resource extraction is still at the core of the map, adding these little fellows and adding more life to the environment was a no brainer for me."
I honestly don't know how I feel about putting penguins into War: The Game, but as long as they don't get hurt I'm cool with it. Apparently, adding these beasts wasn't easy either. Zakrisson says that he worked with VFX artist Tobias Ahlgren who helped implement their behaviour… which we don't know much about right now. I hope they remain innocent bystanders and don't start picking up discarded weapons. Having said that, a game about the penguin uprising is one I could get behind.
"While I’ve added Easter Eggs to games before which received attention through reddit etc, nothing blew up like the penguins. That was a total surprise to me! So I feel a bit overwhelmed," Zakrisson adds. "I hope that you like the penguins and will have fun seeing them when you’re playing Battlefield 2042. It really means a lot to me."
He also mentions that he's seen loads of fanart and memes. And yep, it's all absolutely great stuff:
You can find the full penguin dev chat over on EA's beefy new blog post. They go into detail about a few other bits coming in 2042 as well, though Craig wasn't too impressed with the new info about the terrible things you can make your robo-dog do.
For a more in-depth read of what's to come, check out Brendy's Battlefield 2042 preview, during which he found out that the game is set amidst "food shortages, unrest and climate change has collapsed nations everywhere, leaving refugee soldiers fighting for an embattled US or a tired Russia."