Game Over for ‘Wokeism’ in Video Games
In the manner of administrative forms that no longer feature the terms “father” and “mother,” certain video game character creation tools do not allow choosing between a male or female avatar, but between a “body type A” or a “body type B.” Following the film industry, a portion of the video game industry is attempting to surf the wave of inclusion. Rather than being mere spectators, however, gamers are expressing their rejection and seem determined to vote with their wallets.
For many years now, the vast majority of American and European film production has submitted to the imperatives of a progressive agenda. Disguised as a knight of moraline, what is nothing more than a mercantile reflex – “everyone on screen, everyone a customer!” – has recently imposed itself as an official and binding roadmap. Since 2024, the American film industry has been marching forcefully toward the egalitarian utopia. By drawing up a list that thinks itself exhaustive, the Academy Awards has imposed respect for quotas to be eligible for the Best Picture statuette.
Despite less broad media coverage, the video game sector has long surpassed cinema in terms of global revenue (184 billion dollars versus 33.2 in 2023). Unsurprisingly, this economic locomotive of entertainment has not been spared by the obsession with diversity, equity, and inclusion, now abbreviated as “DEI.”
However, at a time when ideological hammering seems to be reaching its commercial limits in cinema, there is reason to wonder if the bell might not toll even louder for “wokeism” in the video game domain. While the politically correct retelling of Snow White and the Seven Dwarfs flopped at the global box office and Disney’s streaming platform is easing off on cultural revisionism, there are indeed signs showing a growing rejection of artificially inclusive video games by the gaming community. Hit in the wallet, major development studios are reacting, because progressivism is good, but especially when it brings in money.
Inclusive to the point of absurdity and failure
The year 2024 was marked by two major fiascos. First, in August, the Americans at Firewalk Studios released Concord with great fanfare. With its budget estimated between 200 and 400 million dollars, this first-person shooter financed by Sony aimed to compete with the giant Fortnite. The game’s promotional campaign highlighted a major asset: the possibility of embodying a trans Black woman, a first in a video game. Swift and unprecedented, Concord‘s commercial failure forced Sony to shut down the dedicated servers and refund all players two weeks after release. Shortly after, Firewalk Studios closed its doors.
Then, in October, the Canadians at BioWare released the medieval fantasy role-playing game Dragon Age: The Veilguard, also expected to leave its mark on the year. The fourth episode of a successful franchise and the fruit of almost ten years of work, the title nevertheless did not reach half of the commercial objectives expected. Deserted by players, bombarded with negative reviews, the game was already moldering in bargain bins just a few weeks after its release.
The reason? An invasive inclusive policy taken to the point of absurdity. Beyond the array of characters that would make a United Colors of Benetton ad look like supremacist propaganda, players are invited to choose a pronoun from character creation and can then declare their avatar’s non-binary status to unlock dialogue options. The height of ridicule is reached when characters deliver moral lessons after being “misgendered,” while they are supposed to be fighting against elven gods and dragons threatening the world. Talk about priorities!
BioWare seems to have quickly found its priorities again, as the two game directors, Corinne Busche, openly transsexual and activist, and John Epler left the ship barely three months after Veilguard‘s release. These are just two examples among dozens, and naturally, France is also concerned. The Parisian studio Don’t Nod Entertainment would almost seem like the class valedictorian. Almost, because despite their games dripping with benevolence systematically featuring more fluid-than-water adolescents, the studio has been mired for a year in accusations of toxic management.
The less amusing case is that of Ubisoft. Founded in 1986 by a Breton brotherhood, the five Guillemot brothers, Ubisoft has long been a jewel of the video game industry. The studio even stood out as an exception by preserving its status as a completely independent company in an environment where giants like Microsoft, EA Interactive or Sony are buying up everything in sight. A persistent rumor even suggests that Ubisoft means “Union of Independent Breton Software.” Whatever the case, Ubisoft prospered for years and made its mark on the industry with games such as Rayman, Far Cry, Prince of Persia or the historical fiction Assassin’s Creed series.
However, starting in 2018, its stock price has been steadily declining. Since then, the company has been running around like a headless chicken. It threw itself headlong into all the worst traps trying to right the ship, NFT-based games and inclusive strategy at the forefront. As an example, Ubisoft transformed its multiplayer shooter Rainbow Six Siege (based on the work of the very conservative Tom Clancy and in which players embody elite police members) into a diversity bingo. In 2021, the developers proudly announced the arrival of the first transgender playable character. Last year, it was the first elite operator in a wheelchair who made her appearance. The terrorists better watch out!
“AN ARRAY OF CHARACTERS THAT WOULD MAKE A UNITED COLORS OF BENETTON AD LOOK LIKE SUPREMACIST PROPAGANDA”
On the edge of the precipice, Ubisoft was betting very heavily on the latest episode of Assassin’s Creed, their famous franchise that has allowed players to successively relive the Third Crusade, the Italian Renaissance, the French Revolution, the Viking age or even explore ancient Egypt and Greece. Subtitled Shadows, this opus was supposed to realize the fantasy of many players by deploying for the first time the theater of feudal Japan, during the Sengoku period.
It is in this context that the development teams made a bold choice, not to say suicidal. In Assassin’s Creed Shadows, players embody two protagonists: a female ninja, and Yasuke, a Black man who arrived in Japan as a slave in 1579. While the character really existed and he did indeed take up arms to serve a daimyo, Ubisoft settles the historical debate on its subject and decides to make him a samurai. You dreamed of controlling a sort of Toshiro Mifune? The only samurai the franchise will have allowed you to embody will be Yasuke. This choice, accompanied by an accumulation of blunders in communication, was enough to alienate all the players of the Japanese archipelago and trigger university debates there on the very definition of the samurai. Result: a disappointing start and only 17,000 copies of the game sold in Japan. By way of comparison, the (American) game Ghost of Tsushima, which had us embody a 13th-century Japanese samurai, sold more than 210,000 copies there.
A more disastrous consequence for Ubisoft: a few weeks after the game’s release, the studio announced an association with Chinese giant Tencent to shelter its flagship franchises, including Rainbow Six and Assassin’s Creed. Thanks to an investment of 1.16 billion euros, 25% of this new subsidiary now belongs to China. There goes the mystery around the acronym solved, Ubisoft no longer means “Union of Independent Bretons” at all.
The Far Eastern counter-example and French hope
As in cinema, Far Eastern video game production is almost spared by DEI policy. The Chinese game Black Myth: Wukong even represents a magnificent counter-example. By adapting a cultural monument (the famous Chinese novel Journey to the West [La pérégrination vers l’Ouest]) and allowing players to embody an iconic hero (the Monkey King), the Chinese at Game Science scored a hit and walked away with the public award at the Game Awards (the equivalent of the Oscars). In another register, the immense success of Japanese games from FromSoftware studio (Elden Ring, Dark Souls) is partly explained by their ability to tell stories that reconnect with the breath and figures of great myths, as well as their refusal of the trivially political.
At the end of April, the first game from a studio based in Montpellier, Sandfall Interactive, was unanimously praised. Influenced by Japanese role-playing games (JRPG), Clair Obscur: Expedition 33 deploys a fantasy world very strongly inspired by Belle Époque aestheticism. In the city of Lumière, a sort of fictional Paris where the adventure begins, there is no trace of artificially egalitarian constraint. The characters we meet there are dressed in French style and are named Gustave, Maëlle, Sophie, Lucien or Renoir. In three days, one million copies were sold, and the game now figures among the highest rated. In an irony of fate, Sandfall Interactive was founded by former Ubisoft employees.
https://www.arktosjournal.com/p/game-over-for-wokeism-in-video-games