An image purportedly from upcoming first-person shooter Battlefield V has leaked prior to the game’s official unveiling today.
The image, which features a soldier in a sort of strange, contorted stance, could be ‘key art’ for the game. That means that this grizzled soldier could be on the game’s box-art, a first for the video game industry, which usually doesn’t feature grizzled dudes with guns on game covers.
Kidding aside, it is an awfully odd image. Over at the Battlefield sub-reddit there are already a few pretty funny spoofs of it. First, here’s the full image:
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My favorite spoof is from reddit user scatush:
Trust me, you won’t be able to un-see this.
In any case, while the leaked image hasn’t been confirmed it certainly matches the color scheme for DICE’s logo image:
It’s also reminiscent of the key art for Battlefield 1:
Finally, a second image has been unearthed that shows off concept art for the game:
Sorry, I realize this is small but the image does help confirm the WWII setting for Battlefield V.
This image would indicate that the game could have a War Story (single-player vignette) devoted to the Filthy Thirteen. Here’s an image of two of those American soldiers:
This group of soldiers were the inspiration for The Dirty Dozen, and were known to be rogue soldiers who did things their own way, orders be damned. According to Wikipedia:
Inspired by Jake McNiece’s leadership style, the unit had a tremendous mission focus but their blatant disregard for those aspects of military discipline that did not contribute to the mission became the bane of their officers. The unit acquired the nickname the Filthy Thirteen while living in Nissen huts in England. A demolition section consisted of thirteen enlisted men and they refused to bathe during the week in order to use their water ration for cooking game poached from the neighboring manor. Photos of the men wearing Indian-style “mohawks” and applying war paint to one another excited the public’s interest in this unit. The inspiration for this came from McNiece, who was part Choctaw. During the Normandy Invasion of Europe in June 1944, the group was airdropped with the 3rd Battalion, 506th Parachute Infantry Regiment by aircraft of the 440th Troop Carrier Group of the United States Army Air Forces. They were ordered to secure or destroy the bridges over the Douve River. Half were either killed, wounded or captured on the jump, but the rest led by Jake McNiece accomplished their mission. Unfortunately, most of the 3rd Battalion leadership had been killed on the initial jump so without any contact with the 3rd Battalion, senior officers assumed the battalion had failed its mission and ordered the Air Force to bomb the bridges. The Filthy Thirteen also participated in the capture of Carentan.
In any case, all will be revealed soon enough. The Battlefield V live-stream reveal, hosted by Trevor Noah of all people, begins at 1 PM PST / 4 PM EST. You can watch it right here.
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