Alright, honest question for others aside from Etiolet, Jaydubya and Spieler etc. Am i wrong to feel it's pretty fucked up how Reera whines about diversity in games like The Witcher and Kingdom Come? And im not talking about historical accuracy but the fact that these games are made by and in ethnically different regions than the typical AAA product.
For example, the portrayal of Slavic cultural nuances and authenticity in games like The Witcher and Metro is miles apart from the typical Hollywood and other mass media stuff. As far as im concerned, they pretty much tick the boxes for ethnic diversity compared to anything a typical American might consume.
I’m sure you won’t care about my particular opinion on this, but for me honestly, the rabidness with which my allies criticize those specific games can be annoying.
Personally I love Witcher 3, like a lot, but I still do get feelings of something’s missing, until the DLC which does have brown-skinned characters, even if it’s in supporting or background roles. They give you alternate culture. You can shit on me all you want for this, but sorry not sorry. I’ve lived in a diverse area my whole life, I’m biracial, and basically an all-white story has to work harder, be better, have a unique angle for me to get excited these days. If you want to call that racist to make some kind of point at me, you can skip it. I get it. I’m just telling the truth. I live diversity, and I get excited when it’s represented in my games.
But I still love the Witcher. I think Kingdom Come wasn’t fun to play, so it already was losing me there. And while I see that unique culture, it wasn’t winning me over in spite of the gameplay.
Unfortunately I think with a good chunk, most, of my allies in America can’t help but approach things from an American lens. We’ve kind of degraded the meaning of unique European culture. Yes, there are Italians, Irish, Germans, Russians, etc. but for a lot of reasons, these groups are seen as “white”. And unfortunately that can color people’s judgements and make it harder to see the unique cultural differences between an authentically Slav story or authentically Irish story.
I think Vavra is a racist piece of shit. But I don’t fault the game for its culture. I just recognize it’s not for me, the game that is, not the culture.
I love Metro! And the uniqueness of polish fantasy in Witcher is consistently interesting. I agree with you that it is miles apart.
I mean, truly. This is me being honest about it. They still just see them as white, mostly. That’s the box not ticked. It’s a shame, sincerely.
