I was hesitant to post about this, but after seeing this go conspicuously ignored nearly everywhere I thought it deserved a space for people to talk about it.
Fallout 76 has daily missions (called Daily Ops) which can be played in groups of 1-4. Every day the enemy faction, their mutations, and the map are randomized. It's fun content that's worth doing with friends to pick up some good stuff.
The public test server has a preview of upcoming content right now, and they're adding Chinese communists to Daily Ops. If you're motivated to do the daily missions, any given day you might randomly be required to kill a slew of Chinese people.
Now you might say, "but this is the lore of the game! The Fallout universe contains parodies of red scare attitudes and ultra-jingoism, and China helped cause the apocalypse in-game!"
To which I would say...does that matter? Since when is the lore of the game a good excuse for what is at the bare minimum not a good look? The lore argument reminds me of Kojima's defense for Quiet's outfit, or Daniel Vávra's excuse for keeping minorities out of Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Lore accuracy or historical accuracy is no excuse for questionable content...much less adding a minority faction for players to slaughter.
Imagine if they added any other racial group to mow down. Imagine a group of raiders who all happen to be Black. Would that be appropriate just because the lore writers say so?
Also they're all communists, and it's absolutely hilarious to kill as manysocialists communists as you can in the year 2021, am I right guys?
If nothing else, this is indisputably tone deaf in an era when Asian Americans are being attacked on the streets. Just today they put away the shitstain responsible for the spa killings in March, only 4 months ago. I guess people are going to argue this lets gamers get out their sinophobic frustrations in a consequence-free environment?
Of course, as expected, bring this subject up in any gamer circles and prepare to be ridiculed:
On a Youtube video discussing the PTS additions, a Chinese player expresses their misgivings:
Altogether, this just doesn't feel like the sort of content that ought to be encouraged in this day and age.
Fallout 76 has daily missions (called Daily Ops) which can be played in groups of 1-4. Every day the enemy faction, their mutations, and the map are randomized. It's fun content that's worth doing with friends to pick up some good stuff.
The public test server has a preview of upcoming content right now, and they're adding Chinese communists to Daily Ops. If you're motivated to do the daily missions, any given day you might randomly be required to kill a slew of Chinese people.
Now you might say, "but this is the lore of the game! The Fallout universe contains parodies of red scare attitudes and ultra-jingoism, and China helped cause the apocalypse in-game!"
To which I would say...does that matter? Since when is the lore of the game a good excuse for what is at the bare minimum not a good look? The lore argument reminds me of Kojima's defense for Quiet's outfit, or Daniel Vávra's excuse for keeping minorities out of Kingdom Come: Deliverance. Lore accuracy or historical accuracy is no excuse for questionable content...much less adding a minority faction for players to slaughter.
Imagine if they added any other racial group to mow down. Imagine a group of raiders who all happen to be Black. Would that be appropriate just because the lore writers say so?
Also they're all communists, and it's absolutely hilarious to kill as many
If nothing else, this is indisputably tone deaf in an era when Asian Americans are being attacked on the streets. Just today they put away the shitstain responsible for the spa killings in March, only 4 months ago. I guess people are going to argue this lets gamers get out their sinophobic frustrations in a consequence-free environment?
Of course, as expected, bring this subject up in any gamer circles and prepare to be ridiculed:
On a Youtube video discussing the PTS additions, a Chinese player expresses their misgivings:
Altogether, this just doesn't feel like the sort of content that ought to be encouraged in this day and age.
