i dont know much about the series, but i was watching and reading about assassin's creed 3 and the main character is a half red indian who wants revenge because evil white colonialists burned down his tribe's village and the bad guys are racist White colonialists. Also his mother is some grumpy girlboss chick. She's like Pocahontas if Pocahontas had an obnoxious and unpleasent personality and a permanent resting bitch face.
was this series always woke or something?
Plenty were, because it was a short way to describe the problem that took you triple the word count to describe the Markus Fenix version without addressing the Nathan Drakes.
Its also the reason why WW2 could be the only war covered. Because it was white dude on white dude with no controversy and semi-modern technology. Think of how rare you even get to see the Pacific Front covered, and how little it feels representative of the savagery the Japs were documented using.
There was a dearth of creativity at the time, and the talk about it criticized the stale copying of each other to death. While the "boring white guy" talking point was a weak one in retrospect, it was symptomatic of that greater issue of them putting little effort into making something fun or original.
World At War was the only one to even try it, but that's not because of whites or asians, or even generic good or bad. But simply because a true display of the horror is wildly inappropriate for a game. You don't want to make a COD game where the CO yells over the radio, "Rodreguiez! Push over the pile of Jap bodies to clear a field of fire for the machine guns!"
I agree that there's clear cowardice on the developers, but I also think there was clear ignorance too. They could have done better, but I don't think it was about the concept being boring, just inoffensive to corporate sponsors.
This I agree.
Medal of Honor had two games years prior trying, and having played both I can tell you it feels basically indistinguishable from a European front game other than using more boats/planes as set pieces. Its very apparent playing them how scared they are to portray anything.
You say its inappropriate, and you might be right, but I think war itself is horrific and inappropriate to begin with and we only consider something like "stab him in the gut and dome shot him with a shotgun" funny little mechanics of fun because devs were willing to treat them that way.
I've murdered Nazis begging for their life brutally across multiple decades, franchises, and games in a way that would be horror in any other game if it wasn't Nazis, as The Last of Us 2 used the same mechanic to try and guilt people. There is a clear decision made where it isn't the actions and content that is offensive, its that its happening to anyone who isn't completely dehumanized to us. And these games were part of that dehumanization process themselves.
And I think Nazis get that treatment because they are the unquestioned "bad white guys" in our culture. If they weren't White they wouldn't get away with being as dehumanizing to them, as Ghost of Tsushima got shit on for treating the fucking Mongolians badly despite them being even more horrible than the game shows.
Hey, I have repeatedly argued about a proper war-as-horror game. I've actually said the same thing for police games. The issue was that Activision and Infinity Ward were trying to sell games that would be purchased by teenagers.
I don't think you have. This reminds me a lot of Carl Benjamin's video essay regarding Vaush & Destiny's debate over Kyle Rittenhouse. The reason games have no moral issue with killing "bad guys", whatever costume they may be wearing, is critical to the fact that they never stop attacking. It's a critical moral component. The demons in Doom, the Nazis in COD, the terrorists in Rainbow Six, the Russians in Battlefield, the Elites in Halo... once triggered they will never surrender, never retreat, and never stop attacking. Hence the phrase: "If they don't stop attacking: reload." If 100 million communists attempt to stab you, you can shoot 100 million communists for their aggression. That makes it permanently morally clear.
The only games where I've seen different are games where you are allowed to be the Bad Guy morally (like GTA, RDR, and Postal); or games that are tactical sims that use surrender as a dilemma (like SWAT 4).
World At War was probably one of the few ones where the intentionally showed the player character committing war crimes, but as a stark reminder that "Even the 'good war' is bad m'kay?"
Recent games, particularly woke infested games, may differ, but that is because the moral framework of the SJWs is extremely different from all other normal human moral frameworks: like where Concord tried to use a mechanic where you shame people into killing themselves as the hero.
I don't think so. It's just the Boomer Truth Regime that they are permanently the irredeemable bad guys.
I recently did a binge of a lot of the Wolfenstein games, so I can confidently say that I have and am only somewhat playing it up for the sake of argument. Because these are games so deep in their dehumanization game they consider "Nazi begging for life" to be where you stomp the boot harder to mass applause. Or when you brutally "stealth kill" one and you get to watch him gurgle on the ground while BJ quips.
And unfortunately, The New Colussus game made it painfully obvious that the people behind these games see Nazis as a perfect analog for me as just a Right-winger of any sort, which is why something as simple as "kill Nazis" can't just be a simple and fun thing anymore.
You say the SJW moral framework is different than normal people, but I think its the same in many ways. Its just turned up to 12 beyond what people can stomach. Like, most "normal" people cheer happily at people being raped horrifically if its in prison, so its a degree of how/who you paint instead of the action itself being the separation.