Climate Apocalypse in Battlefield 2042 Apparently "Non-Political"

Battlefield 2042 was announced recently, and as you might expect, theres a lot of guns, shooting, violence, and other such shenanigans on hand. One thing you might not have expected, however, was for the trailer to contain so much weather. Indeed, the plot of Battlefield 2042 appears to be heavily inspired by the seemingly inevitable climate apocalypse in our near future, with refugees, extreme weather, and societal collapse playing central themes in both the story and the multiplayer maps themselves.

One might expect that a game with such themes might have something to say about the current political landscape. One would expect wrong, however, as design director Daniel Berlin claims in an interview with IGN that this game is, apparently, "non-political".

It is definitely purely a multiplayer game for us. The reason we decided to go down this route is so we could create a narrative with this world that we could create through the eyes of the No-Pats (what they call the climate refugees). We wanted to get more spectacle in there, and more massive events happening. The setting fits that perfectly. It fits that scale, and it gives us reasons to go all over the world...Its for gameplay reasons across the board.

There is certainly merit to the idea that setting a game during a climate catastrophe would make it more cinematic: soldiers fighting in howling windstorms, flooded cities, and raging fires sounds intense as all heck. But its also true that this attitude is insensitive to the realities of climate change, and how this bang-bang shoot em up game might unfortunately mirror reality not just in the future, but now, since climate refugees are already very much a thing.

I dont know if this is one of those things that the developers will backtrack on. I wouldnt bet on it, though: somehow, the idea that the world is dying and thats a problem has become political, and commenting on it could risk isolating their audience of dumb people. But still, even if the developers deny its political nature the rest of us know.