It’s nuanced and complicated. I definitely think there are racist people on one side of this debate that are taking issue because they don’t want to play as a black character. I also think there’s racists on the other side, I’ve seen in the commentary on X etc a lot of the people describing Asians as a “white adjacent” privileged class etc.
Then we have older gamers like myself that have been told for many many years, long before things became as hyper partisan and divided as they are these days, that what Ubisoft is doing now is racist/cultural appropriation. It was a plaque in the early 2000’s/2010’s in western adaptations of Japanese media, with things like ghost in the shell etc…which was rightly called out for this sort of stuff back then. We seemed to have move passed all that, and then now when people seeing it happening with this game, and call it out, they get called racist for calling it out, it’s bizarre to me.
Game looks cool tho, I’m looking forward to it.
This is the sort of stuff I remember reading and agreeing with:
From Scarlett Johansson’s heroine in the remake of the anime classic to Tilda Swinton as a Himalayan high priest in Doctor Strange, the film industry stands accused of whitewashing Asian characters and culture. Does it have a defence?
amp.theguardian.com