Battlefield 2042’s most recent weekly reward, a smiling skin for a Russian helicopter, has been pulled. Developer DICE announced the decision on Friday, less than 48 hours after Russian forces invaded Ukraine.
Completion of this weekly mission awarded players with a skin, called Grin Reaper, for the Mi-240 Super Hind Russian attack helicopter — Battlefield 2042’s version of a real-life aircraft. The skin paints a sharp-toothed grin onto the front of the helicopter.
“In light of current events,” DICE said in a tweet from the Battlefield Direct Communication Twitter account, “we have disabled the Weekly Missions system for this week, and this weeks reward is no longer available to unlock.” Players who have already unlocked the skin will not be affected by the change, and weekly missions will return next week.
This isn’t the first time that DICE has had to change a cosmetic item in Battlefield 2042 based on Russian hostilities toward Ukraine. Back in November, shortly after the game’s launch, DICE faced criticism over a skin for a Russian Operator in the game called Little Green Man, which was the name given to the masked Russian soldiers in unmarked green uniforms during the conflict in 2014 that led to Russia’s annexation of Crimea. Both DICE and publisher Electronic Arts apologized for the in-game use of the name, and have since changed the skin’s name to Gator.
After stationing troops at its border with Ukraine for the past eight years, Russia invaded the country early Thursday morning local time, on the orders of Russian President Vladimir Putin. Since then, Russian forces have begun occupying areas of Ukraine as well as targeting the country with rocket strikes, including areas near Kyiv, the nation’s capital. Ukrainian foreign affairs minister Dmytro Kuleba called the invasion “a war of aggression” and said that Ukraine would defend itself, in a tweet as the invasion began. The United States and other NATO countries have implemented economic sanctions against Russia and have condemned the invasion.
Source: Polygon
