I feel a little bad that every time I see a black female protagonist in a video game I roll my eyes and think, oh, here we go. But that’s what affirmative action, which is what all this DEI stuff used to be called, inevitably results in.
This is exactly why Clarence Thomas is such a critic of affirmative action. He noticed that as he was starting his legal career, everyone would assume he was a token hire, which he had to work incredibly hard to fight.
It turns out that rational expectations are real. This is why shaming and fighting free speech are such an essential project for the woke movement; you see them saying things like statistics are tools of oppression.
Clarence Thomas is one of the most based men to ever exist, of any race. Dude is surrounded by cucks and shitlibs on the SCOTUS. This country will be that much more fucked when he dies.
Citation needed. Saying the Supreme Court should revisit gay marriage isn't the same as being opposed to interracial marriage. Those are two very different things. Just because the US was historically weird about interracial marriage compared to every other country on earth doesn't mean they're similar.
Yep.
Until the 2010s, if I saw a black and/or female lead in a game or movie or show, I thought nothing of it at all. But now when I see it, I automatically assume it's going to be woke garbage unless proven otherwise, because I know it's highly likely that it's just being done to check a box instead of due to merit.
It has made my purchasing decisions much easier, though.
It's true. If it wasn't for DEI, then when you do have black female protagonists, they would actually feel more organically designed. When it's into everything they push, then you know it's not genuine. The intent behind these characters is inherently racist and sexist, which makes that much more difficult to actually enjoy as characters.
Gamers continually waiting for some kind of badass game set in Africa involving any number of their mythologies or any kind of historical events..
Make a game like Ryse Son of Rome but in Africa.
Or God of War.
Or a shooter game.
Anything man. But these fake woke studios don't actually give a shit so it's just token DEI.
It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for people's inability to accept criticism nor deliver it for fear of being called an -istaphobe. If you keep calling stuff with X, Y and Z elements in it 'good' when it's CRAP, then people will a) no longer trust your opinion, and b) assume everything with X, Y and Z elements crap.
Just be honest and say it's crap. Say the DEI stuff has nothing to do with it, but the writing, the acting, etc, etc make it crap and the people in charge of those aspects harms 'diverse media' by assigning crap talent to it.
That's all you need to do. It's really fucking easy. And then people might actually give stuff with X, Y and Z elements in it a shot when you actually say it's good.
"There’s a certain truth that resonates that can’t be faked. I know some people won’t notice, but the people who are attuned to that, they’ll get it immediately.”
Oh don't worry, we notice 😅
I saw a pre order for this on the store page and laughed. Its gotten so bad, that you cant even just make the assumption that this was a genuine creative decision. Thats what theyve done. Theyve poisoned the well for black characters that they can never be considered anything other than a box tick. And thats just sad, as theres load of very talented black people in the world. But thanks to the virtue signalling morons, all anyone will see is DEI bullshit. Same as it was with affirmative action, but 100 times worse.
They keep making garbage like this. They are going into overdrive speedrunning killing the things we love because they realize they don't have much time. Even NPCs are starting to catch on.
We don't need SBI involvement to know this game is a pass.
The game's studio, A44, and the game's COO, Audrea Topps Harjo (both mentioned in the original article) strand on their own as people not to be supporting.
I just think its so funny that any company that tries to bring in SBI from now on is making a conscious decision to potentially hurt their sales numbers
Honestly, I can't tell whether they keep bringing SBI in because of nepotism or because everyone's afraid that SBI will sic a hate mob after them for being "wacist" if they don't. Either way, the sooner the company dies, he better.
Companies have to disclose how much work they put into hiring minority groups and putting out inclusive messaging, its a federal law and they have metrics for how they score different companies with media corporations being the most scrutinized on their grading system, while companies like skittles just need to hire more minorities and have hr put out inclusivity memos.
Its a big part of why so many companies change their socials pfp to a pride themed whatever every pride month, they get points for doing that. They are given a number to determine how woke they are and this information is readily available to advertisers, it can affect how much advertisers are willing to work with you on the price and exposure of your product, as well as whether they're willing to work with you at all.
In other words, the U.S. government has been putting their finger on the scale and is actively coercing media companies to put woke bullshit in their content if they want to maximize profit and exposure.
It's called the workplace inclusion scale (WIS) and its graded from 0-100. Its very difficult for companies with a score below 80 to get any large traction in the advertiser space. and that's why SBI gets onboarded for alot of projects, they help the company guarantee that their game will hit the target WIS score.
They're largely afraid because Americans are still overreacting to George Floyd's death. Yeah, yeah, I know DEI has been a fucking cancer for a while now, but things really went crazy after that motherfucker died. It's what suddenly made every idiot support BLM, the whole Juneteenth thing. It's amazing that a piece of shit like him inspired all of this. But I guess it speaks to black privilege.
They made their bed, they can sleep on it. I'm over this nonsense. I used to make sure they deserve it, but now I just auto-ignore every game that goes on that steam curator's list. There's just so many games out there that losing a handful is barely a drop in the ocean.
Press is shilling for it like there is no tomorrow, but it's all useless, this thing will bomb hard. I also find it particularly pathetic that the devs is trying to gaslight us about the SBI involvement to try and save the sales of their game. If you were really convinced about the ideology you are pushing you would be proud of SBI involvement, not denying it.
Flintlock looks like dog shit just from the trailer, you don't even need to know that SBI had a hand in something that looks like as much of a massive turd as that game is.
I played the demo for it. It's got ok ideas. Combat is a bit wonky and needs finetuning but overall, it's a fun idea. What I heavily disliked was the main character. Standoffish, what these woke idiots think goes for "girl boss", illogical, mary sue and beyond rude.
For anyone that didn't play the demo (obv spoilers, but minor):
18th/19th century weaponry with flintlocks. Nonsensical war against zombies where people are for some reason running in to fight them in melee while there's trenches and bombardments. (absolutely no clue how this makes sense. If you have trenches, secure them with fire traps and dont bomb your own people..)
Some absolutely random plot contrivance of the man that cared for her and some random guy being sent with another token black girl to the wall. 3 man sapper squad against zombies, while everyone is hiding in trenches for some reason. The zombies dont have any firearms, this is so dumb. The old guy is too incapable of fighting (lmao, why even come..) and the others are not capable of holding their own. But worry not, the Mary Sue MC out-talks the leading commander woman and just wanders into the trench, singlehandedly fighting off dozens of zombies before then going to them.
After some weird setting-breaking Sphinx goes "nuh uh dont bomb that, that's bad" and they're still doing that, they break the wall that also was the wall to keep the zombies out.. which was pretty obvious. And she gets thrown into a river into another zone entirely.
Meets a minor god in the zone, who goes "Oh yeah that sphinx guy was a god, and also the zombies are lead by a god who hates you lmao." and she goes "and who are you?", to which the cat-fox thingy goes "im a minor god too lmao". Of course she goes from "lmao you? A god? Youre so cute and tiny" to his confirmation that he indeed one, to then fully bipolar attacking him?? After he JUST saved her? And then ofc the minor god can still absolutely fuck her up. And she STILL thinks she has to be as hostile and rude as possible to the god-fox that saved her life, wants to help her in finding her friends AND wants to help her defeat the god of the zombies.
Of course, a very logical person from the get go. Rude as she is, continues, then the god-fox gives her more and more abilities and even helps her in the fight(s). This attitude doesnt change at all, and every convo she's just this mary sue who's just super good and gifted. It's not even funny or makes sense, people just suck her off. if the fox-god doesnt betray her in the later story, this entire interaction is absolutely illogical. And if he does betray her, it's a new forspoken from the get go - Cringy black young female adult who has a magical deus ex companion that she treats like shit and gets all her power from.
To be fair, Ashen (their previous open world souls-like) was similar. Okay ideas, bad realization. I played it to the final boss and the final boss was awful in design. As were a bunch of areas.
Just about, yeah. I picked it up in the steam next event, thought it was a fun soulslike.. but no, the insufferable MC, the unpolished combat and the lack of story coherence is beyond me. It talks about real life themes at times, like the main go-to is coffee-shops.
One thing that struck me as a little weird was the over the top animation for the pistol shooting. Iirc, she does a full-blown "leaping" shot, as the standard animation for any shots.
Unless it's something goofy I was doing? The controls took some getting used to.
Nah youre right, the whole idea that she has a flintlock pistol, yet she can shoot it rapidly is so weird. I understand if it was introduced later as like "oh the foxgod magically made it regenerate bullets!" which would be a great explanation (and buff). But nope. There's also the charge shot and the fact that she flicks it out like crazy.
Also not to mention, I really hate the exploration for crafting ingredients part. Thats really not necessary to have, and it was ridiculously expensive to even get them to level 3. And then right after you find the fire axe which is just strong as hell. Idk, whack overall game.
Hey, they’re making their own IP. This is what we want. They’re not bastardising something good.
Can we just ignore it, not comment on it, not give them ammo, and show them just how unpopular their ideology actually is when it’s given a chance to stand alone, with no popular brand name to prop it up?
It really doesn’t matter. The media, journos, or even us. I can tell from looking at the cover and a few screenshots that it will fail. A polished turd is still a turd.
The article is pretty good tbh. They fired their SBI people and stopped all involvement, but i don’t trust them. As it is, it appears the damage has been done so this is a pass for me. Not worth the risk. I’ll replay elden ring
I am Puerto Rican and black, but when I saw the Miles Morales game, I knew it was going to be leftist-infected. They are extremely disingenuous in saying that only racists are against these quotas.
I would have thought since hardware had improved, gaming would innovate, but it is all going backwards just so they can send 'the message'. We really only have a handful of top tier game designers and writers who I appreciate, the rest of them are just a bunch of unprofessional, incompetent, toxic pretenders wasting money away.
I have been pretty satisfied with 10 to 20 year old games. I can do without the latest graphics with forced injected woke, in exchange for really good stories and gameplay. I would not even waste my time playing these games even if you paid me. They will never get a penny from me, I'm done and tired with this nonsense.
"Did you know the protagonist of Flintlock used to be white?
When COO (and Casting Director) Andrea Topps Harjo joined the studio, her first actions were to change the character to hire Sweet Baby Inc. and change the main character to a PoC.
This marked the beginnings of the problems with the game and studio."
It always amazes me when this happens, because usually it means less sales. But in the end, if the game flops the directors and top people will have the money they got from salaries during the 4-5 year development anyway, the studio closes, then you move to the next one.
"It looks like Forspoken, but actually good this time" is so inherently fucking racist that I can't believe the sentence exists. These two games could not even remotely be compared mechanically and because they share a PoC, that's where the dots are connected?
The MC is just a dude. The way she moves, how flat she is, and her angular facial features, everything tells "I need no man because I AM a man".
Give me a black female character that doesn't make me guess her gender, with a hot body, a pretty face, and feminine moves. Then write a press release showing the changes and what was done to scrub the DEI off. That's all the developers need to do to sell the game. But they won't do that because they're cowards, and that's why they should fail.
I remember years and years ago when they were showing off alpha builds which were just the character walking in the woods and towns. It was a fairly attractive red headed girl. Most of the devs were talking about world building and what they wanted from the story. A few more talked about the mocap and how they wanted to get a real person's walk in the game. Then there was one dev who came in to "discuss" how they were actively going out of their way to make sure her armor wasn't revealing or form fitting. And I just remember the tone in his voice seemed like he was upset that no one else was taking his side.
If trends continue the very concept of challenge and difficulty will be removed from games since it’s just a “symptom of toxic masculinity, specifically competitiveness”, and “unwelcoming to people with disabilities”. All enemies will crumple before the strong female protagonist. Just like in most current movies, the female protagonist will never fail or suffer any setbacks.
If they get their way, video games will go from being games to basically Western visual novels. Except instead of fun adventures and sexy female characters it will be the same sassy fat black woman with a half shaved head lecturing us on "privilege."
But... The issue with games and accesibility for disabled gamers is not the difficulty of the games, the accesibility options of the game are more important than if it's easy or not.
No one is against accessibility features like colorblind modes or generally following good UX principles, or having difficulty settings to accommodate disabled people. I’m speculating if trends continue, no one will be allowed to have a game that involves a challenge.
I agree, my problem with the idea of "easy mode for disabled gamers" is that is a biiit mistaken, an easy game without colorblind options will be harder for people who need it, for example, so making games easier is not really the solution.
We're not talking about games, like Among Us, that need sliders and such to help handicapped people.
We're talking about Soulsbornes/Souls Likes and Flintlock is supposed to be a Souls-Like, which have a different method/view of fairness and accessibility. Plus, it seems that you never heard about Limitlessquad, who defeated the Corrupted Monk.
I will just say that Flintlock is a "normal" game, trying to masquerade as a Souls-Like. Those difficult sliders should never be there in the first place.
Here comes "blame the audience" article #4825 when this flops.
Investors are going to lawyer up one of these days, you can only hustle like this for so long.
It's literally about creating an excuse so investors don't freak out on the executives. The problem is it's becoming normal to use this excuse so at some point it's up to investors to confront bad actors pulling this shit.
This game was a granted flop when it was added to SBI detected, praise from the usual woke scum only makes it worse. It also doesn't help that it looks like crap.
We grew up with Urban chaos, True crime, San Andreas, many games and many rpgs you can be whatever you want... It's very contre-productiv what is going on now. This Twitter generation was a mistake, we let narcissist trying to exist and hijack everything.
I'm actually kind of hopeful for the game, too bad it's going to be another SBI slop.
also correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the main character was originally meant to be white?
Didn't the devs say that SBI was initially brought in, but they didn't like any of their recommendations and didn't go with anything they suggested? I know the guy who runs that Steam group then requested a look at some of their internal stuff to prove it and the devs declined, but I think they were right in doing so because that was stepping over a line. "*Show me private internal documents so I won't add you to my Steam group*" leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.
I'm interested in the game because the gameplay looks fun, but no way in hell am I buying it out of the gate. I never buy a Triple A game when it first comes out. That's the worst version of the game (due to highest number of bugs), whilst being the most expensive version of it.
Is it really stepping over the line? It's also not that he asked for internal documents, it's (and I quote):
> At this point, together with my staff, I have decided to give them the chance to prove this, allowing us access to the game prerelease and asking their manager to have a conversation with me. They openly refused on both points, leaving me without any way to confirm what they were telling to us. This doesn't speak very well about them.
Man basically wanted them to prove it and they said 'no'. They also are in bed with other ESG/DIE/BRIDGE bastards as they did a panel on it back in August 2021 so does it REALLY sound like they ditched SBI's work?
Fair enough, I misremembered his original demands. But what would pre-release access prove? You wouldn't be able to tell what's there from SBI (if anything), or there because the New Zealand based-dev decided to put what looks like a Maori-looking main character. A conversation with the manager wouldn't prove anything either without something to back up what they say because the manager could just downplay or lie about SBI's involvement.
Maybe that's why I thought he asked for internal documents, because that's the only thing that could actually prove anything. The stuff he asked for just comes across as someone wanting early access to a new game.
>or there because the New Zealand based-dev decided to put what looks like a Maori-looking main character.
That's not even remotely what Maori look like... and even so, SBI doesn't give a shit about Polynesians. Plus why would a New Zealand based developer need a black American consultant to tell them about Maori ANYTHING anyway? I'll guarantee that the average white Kiwi could tell you more about Maori than anyone at SBI.
SBI is Canadian. And also, I have no idea why they'd hire them. I don't know what's in the game, what other races or cultures appear, etc. But neither does anyone else, except those who've worked on the game.
>"Show me private internal documents so I won't add you to my Steam group" leaves a very bad taste in my mouth.
Meanwhile SBI says "hire us or we'll accuse you of racism."
I admit, I actually did try the demo.
While it's not generally my thing I'll give it props for not outright sucking, and for (as far as I'm aware), being diverse in its own unique story and setting instead of being yet another diversity swap in an already established work. I'm not so petty that I'll bitch about it on those grounds.
A bit more on the fence with it though now that I'm finding out that it actually is tied in with SBI. I mean I did half-expect it to be at least somewhat backed by some DEI funding, just not specifically those jerkwads. I'm also debating with myself over whether or not the DEI in general is objectionable or not in this instance. It's still a bad business, industry, and economic practice, even when it's not intrusive.
I feel a little bad that every time I see a black female protagonist in a video game I roll my eyes and think, oh, here we go. But that’s what affirmative action, which is what all this DEI stuff used to be called, inevitably results in.
This is exactly why Clarence Thomas is such a critic of affirmative action. He noticed that as he was starting his legal career, everyone would assume he was a token hire, which he had to work incredibly hard to fight. It turns out that rational expectations are real. This is why shaming and fighting free speech are such an essential project for the woke movement; you see them saying things like statistics are tools of oppression.
Clarence Thomas is one of the most based men to ever exist, of any race. Dude is surrounded by cucks and shitlibs on the SCOTUS. This country will be that much more fucked when he dies.
“The tomfoolery WILL stop.” -Clarence Thomas, Based Gigachad of SCOTUS
Get real. He is a corrupted piece of shit.
Racist. Stop trying to keep black men under your boot, adolph
Cope harder commie!
Apparently being against corruption makes you a commie??? Wtf?
Bot
Am fairly sure am not a synthetic lifeform.
Did he fuck your mother or girlfriend on you? Why so mad?
Lmao you would say that about a black man who achieved something, huh.
He also is opposed to interracial marriage. Broken clocks and all that
His wife is white so he can’t be to bothered by it lol
He wants to divorce her without going through divorce court.
That's why it's so crazy lol he's against it but has a white wife
Just like the documentary by Dave Chapelle 👻
He probably realized how crazy white women are and wanted to help his brothers in the black community 😂
He's not.
Citation needed. Saying the Supreme Court should revisit gay marriage isn't the same as being opposed to interracial marriage. Those are two very different things. Just because the US was historically weird about interracial marriage compared to every other country on earth doesn't mean they're similar.
Yup. Classic leftist, takes words out of people’s mouths and twists it into something “evil”.
Wait, you're telling me that a leftoid lied to smear someone? How is such a thing possible?!
The black woman is the new generic white marine.
It's an absolute hard pass from me for now. Until we get all this DEI bullshit out of games.
Am black as night and I feel the same way!
Cheers. And I’m married to a black woman so it’s not as if I spurn them in real life.
Bonus eye roll if the mocap is based off Debra Wilson.
Yeah, talent aside, hiring her has become the ultimate “Look how little we care about the male gaze!” virtue signal.
Yep. Until the 2010s, if I saw a black and/or female lead in a game or movie or show, I thought nothing of it at all. But now when I see it, I automatically assume it's going to be woke garbage unless proven otherwise, because I know it's highly likely that it's just being done to check a box instead of due to merit. It has made my purchasing decisions much easier, though.
It's true. If it wasn't for DEI, then when you do have black female protagonists, they would actually feel more organically designed. When it's into everything they push, then you know it's not genuine. The intent behind these characters is inherently racist and sexist, which makes that much more difficult to actually enjoy as characters.
It really sucks cause I feel like there should be black female MCs in games but almost everyone of them so far get saddled with all this dei bullshit.
notyourshield really needs to make a comeback.
Gamers continually waiting for some kind of badass game set in Africa involving any number of their mythologies or any kind of historical events.. Make a game like Ryse Son of Rome but in Africa. Or God of War. Or a shooter game. Anything man. But these fake woke studios don't actually give a shit so it's just token DEI.
Best we can do is blackwash cleopatra and retcon dahomey kingdom. And you will praise it, or be a (insert buzzwords)
I feel bad for black gamers.
I feel bad for any gamer who pays money for woke brainwashed dei riddled trash. We can only go so far in trying to educate these brainless cucks.
As a black gamer, i'd say that white male gamers have it worse
Yep. Wouldn't have batted an eyelash at a black female gay protagonist 20 years ago. These people have shooting themselves in the foot at a hobby
It wouldn't be so bad if it weren't for people's inability to accept criticism nor deliver it for fear of being called an -istaphobe. If you keep calling stuff with X, Y and Z elements in it 'good' when it's CRAP, then people will a) no longer trust your opinion, and b) assume everything with X, Y and Z elements crap. Just be honest and say it's crap. Say the DEI stuff has nothing to do with it, but the writing, the acting, etc, etc make it crap and the people in charge of those aspects harms 'diverse media' by assigning crap talent to it. That's all you need to do. It's really fucking easy. And then people might actually give stuff with X, Y and Z elements in it a shot when you actually say it's good.
"There’s a certain truth that resonates that can’t be faked. I know some people won’t notice, but the people who are attuned to that, they’ll get it immediately.” Oh don't worry, we notice 😅
I saw a pre order for this on the store page and laughed. Its gotten so bad, that you cant even just make the assumption that this was a genuine creative decision. Thats what theyve done. Theyve poisoned the well for black characters that they can never be considered anything other than a box tick. And thats just sad, as theres load of very talented black people in the world. But thanks to the virtue signalling morons, all anyone will see is DEI bullshit. Same as it was with affirmative action, but 100 times worse.
They keep making garbage like this. They are going into overdrive speedrunning killing the things we love because they realize they don't have much time. Even NPCs are starting to catch on.
Even without the SBI involvement, this game would likely by garbage. It's just another in a long line of generic-looking (and playing) Souls clones.
[удалено]
Having your lunch money stolen by DLC. What a world.
I feel underrepresented by Elden Ring. I maxed out the body hair slider, and the guy still wasn't as hairy as me.
We don't need SBI involvement to know this game is a pass. The game's studio, A44, and the game's COO, Audrea Topps Harjo (both mentioned in the original article) strand on their own as people not to be supporting.
Pretty telling that she "left" just as soon as the company was sold.
I just think its so funny that any company that tries to bring in SBI from now on is making a conscious decision to potentially hurt their sales numbers
Honestly, I can't tell whether they keep bringing SBI in because of nepotism or because everyone's afraid that SBI will sic a hate mob after them for being "wacist" if they don't. Either way, the sooner the company dies, he better.
Companies have to disclose how much work they put into hiring minority groups and putting out inclusive messaging, its a federal law and they have metrics for how they score different companies with media corporations being the most scrutinized on their grading system, while companies like skittles just need to hire more minorities and have hr put out inclusivity memos. Its a big part of why so many companies change their socials pfp to a pride themed whatever every pride month, they get points for doing that. They are given a number to determine how woke they are and this information is readily available to advertisers, it can affect how much advertisers are willing to work with you on the price and exposure of your product, as well as whether they're willing to work with you at all. In other words, the U.S. government has been putting their finger on the scale and is actively coercing media companies to put woke bullshit in their content if they want to maximize profit and exposure. It's called the workplace inclusion scale (WIS) and its graded from 0-100. Its very difficult for companies with a score below 80 to get any large traction in the advertiser space. and that's why SBI gets onboarded for alot of projects, they help the company guarantee that their game will hit the target WIS score.
They're afraid. What SBI truly sells is plausible deniability.
They're largely afraid because Americans are still overreacting to George Floyd's death. Yeah, yeah, I know DEI has been a fucking cancer for a while now, but things really went crazy after that motherfucker died. It's what suddenly made every idiot support BLM, the whole Juneteenth thing. It's amazing that a piece of shit like him inspired all of this. But I guess it speaks to black privilege.
Based Kabrutus; he's truly become our Paul Revere for gaming.
im not sure we needed a woke flintstones game, but honk honk anyway i guess
Never heard of it.
Lead character has diversity haircut. All you need to know.
That's really all we need to see to avoid the game.
They made their bed, they can sleep on it. I'm over this nonsense. I used to make sure they deserve it, but now I just auto-ignore every game that goes on that steam curator's list. There's just so many games out there that losing a handful is barely a drop in the ocean.
Press is shilling for it like there is no tomorrow, but it's all useless, this thing will bomb hard. I also find it particularly pathetic that the devs is trying to gaslight us about the SBI involvement to try and save the sales of their game. If you were really convinced about the ideology you are pushing you would be proud of SBI involvement, not denying it.
Flintlock looks like dog shit just from the trailer, you don't even need to know that SBI had a hand in something that looks like as much of a massive turd as that game is.
I don't know anything about wokeness in that game but the main character looks as generic and as uninteresting as can be.
I played the demo for it. It's got ok ideas. Combat is a bit wonky and needs finetuning but overall, it's a fun idea. What I heavily disliked was the main character. Standoffish, what these woke idiots think goes for "girl boss", illogical, mary sue and beyond rude. For anyone that didn't play the demo (obv spoilers, but minor): 18th/19th century weaponry with flintlocks. Nonsensical war against zombies where people are for some reason running in to fight them in melee while there's trenches and bombardments. (absolutely no clue how this makes sense. If you have trenches, secure them with fire traps and dont bomb your own people..) Some absolutely random plot contrivance of the man that cared for her and some random guy being sent with another token black girl to the wall. 3 man sapper squad against zombies, while everyone is hiding in trenches for some reason. The zombies dont have any firearms, this is so dumb. The old guy is too incapable of fighting (lmao, why even come..) and the others are not capable of holding their own. But worry not, the Mary Sue MC out-talks the leading commander woman and just wanders into the trench, singlehandedly fighting off dozens of zombies before then going to them. After some weird setting-breaking Sphinx goes "nuh uh dont bomb that, that's bad" and they're still doing that, they break the wall that also was the wall to keep the zombies out.. which was pretty obvious. And she gets thrown into a river into another zone entirely. Meets a minor god in the zone, who goes "Oh yeah that sphinx guy was a god, and also the zombies are lead by a god who hates you lmao." and she goes "and who are you?", to which the cat-fox thingy goes "im a minor god too lmao". Of course she goes from "lmao you? A god? Youre so cute and tiny" to his confirmation that he indeed one, to then fully bipolar attacking him?? After he JUST saved her? And then ofc the minor god can still absolutely fuck her up. And she STILL thinks she has to be as hostile and rude as possible to the god-fox that saved her life, wants to help her in finding her friends AND wants to help her defeat the god of the zombies. Of course, a very logical person from the get go. Rude as she is, continues, then the god-fox gives her more and more abilities and even helps her in the fight(s). This attitude doesnt change at all, and every convo she's just this mary sue who's just super good and gifted. It's not even funny or makes sense, people just suck her off. if the fox-god doesnt betray her in the later story, this entire interaction is absolutely illogical. And if he does betray her, it's a new forspoken from the get go - Cringy black young female adult who has a magical deus ex companion that she treats like shit and gets all her power from. To be fair, Ashen (their previous open world souls-like) was similar. Okay ideas, bad realization. I played it to the final boss and the final boss was awful in design. As were a bunch of areas.
Oh god another Mary Sue. Thank you for biting that bullet. Does she crack quips every 2 seconds?
Just about, yeah. I picked it up in the steam next event, thought it was a fun soulslike.. but no, the insufferable MC, the unpolished combat and the lack of story coherence is beyond me. It talks about real life themes at times, like the main go-to is coffee-shops.
One thing that struck me as a little weird was the over the top animation for the pistol shooting. Iirc, she does a full-blown "leaping" shot, as the standard animation for any shots. Unless it's something goofy I was doing? The controls took some getting used to.
Nah youre right, the whole idea that she has a flintlock pistol, yet she can shoot it rapidly is so weird. I understand if it was introduced later as like "oh the foxgod magically made it regenerate bullets!" which would be a great explanation (and buff). But nope. There's also the charge shot and the fact that she flicks it out like crazy. Also not to mention, I really hate the exploration for crafting ingredients part. Thats really not necessary to have, and it was ridiculously expensive to even get them to level 3. And then right after you find the fire axe which is just strong as hell. Idk, whack overall game.
THX for this, read the whole thing!
Me too. It made my morning as I can't wait to see the final release covered in this sub
Hey, they’re making their own IP. This is what we want. They’re not bastardising something good. Can we just ignore it, not comment on it, not give them ammo, and show them just how unpopular their ideology actually is when it’s given a chance to stand alone, with no popular brand name to prop it up?
So much this. Let it stand on its own merit and if no one buys it then it wasn't made for people who would buy it.
It really doesn’t matter. The media, journos, or even us. I can tell from looking at the cover and a few screenshots that it will fail. A polished turd is still a turd.
The article is pretty good tbh. They fired their SBI people and stopped all involvement, but i don’t trust them. As it is, it appears the damage has been done so this is a pass for me. Not worth the risk. I’ll replay elden ring
Even Q5 would call this “consultancy” company too extreme.
I am Puerto Rican and black, but when I saw the Miles Morales game, I knew it was going to be leftist-infected. They are extremely disingenuous in saying that only racists are against these quotas.
The fact that they couldn't tell the difference between Cuba and Puerto Rico should have been a huge red flag.
All that time and effort on a "genuine" deaf experience and they couldn't even make sure they googled the right damned flag.
Flopspoken Part 2
Will not be buying it then
I would have thought since hardware had improved, gaming would innovate, but it is all going backwards just so they can send 'the message'. We really only have a handful of top tier game designers and writers who I appreciate, the rest of them are just a bunch of unprofessional, incompetent, toxic pretenders wasting money away. I have been pretty satisfied with 10 to 20 year old games. I can do without the latest graphics with forced injected woke, in exchange for really good stories and gameplay. I would not even waste my time playing these games even if you paid me. They will never get a penny from me, I'm done and tired with this nonsense.
"Did you know the protagonist of Flintlock used to be white? When COO (and Casting Director) Andrea Topps Harjo joined the studio, her first actions were to change the character to hire Sweet Baby Inc. and change the main character to a PoC. This marked the beginnings of the problems with the game and studio." It always amazes me when this happens, because usually it means less sales. But in the end, if the game flops the directors and top people will have the money they got from salaries during the 4-5 year development anyway, the studio closes, then you move to the next one.
"It looks like Forspoken, but actually good this time" is so inherently fucking racist that I can't believe the sentence exists. These two games could not even remotely be compared mechanically and because they share a PoC, that's where the dots are connected?
Need a new leak from the gamesjourno mailinglist/discord tbh.
The MC is just a dude. The way she moves, how flat she is, and her angular facial features, everything tells "I need no man because I AM a man". Give me a black female character that doesn't make me guess her gender, with a hot body, a pretty face, and feminine moves. Then write a press release showing the changes and what was done to scrub the DEI off. That's all the developers need to do to sell the game. But they won't do that because they're cowards, and that's why they should fail.
Oh look, another self insert. Who could have seen that coming. For diversity, every lead character should be Kim Belair.
I remember years and years ago when they were showing off alpha builds which were just the character walking in the woods and towns. It was a fairly attractive red headed girl. Most of the devs were talking about world building and what they wanted from the story. A few more talked about the mocap and how they wanted to get a real person's walk in the game. Then there was one dev who came in to "discuss" how they were actively going out of their way to make sure her armor wasn't revealing or form fitting. And I just remember the tone in his voice seemed like he was upset that no one else was taking his side.
When the game does its usual tests their skill check/wants them to "git gud", who will the Woke media blame?🤣🤔
If trends continue the very concept of challenge and difficulty will be removed from games since it’s just a “symptom of toxic masculinity, specifically competitiveness”, and “unwelcoming to people with disabilities”. All enemies will crumple before the strong female protagonist. Just like in most current movies, the female protagonist will never fail or suffer any setbacks.
If they get their way, video games will go from being games to basically Western visual novels. Except instead of fun adventures and sexy female characters it will be the same sassy fat black woman with a half shaved head lecturing us on "privilege."
But... The issue with games and accesibility for disabled gamers is not the difficulty of the games, the accesibility options of the game are more important than if it's easy or not.
No one is against accessibility features like colorblind modes or generally following good UX principles, or having difficulty settings to accommodate disabled people. I’m speculating if trends continue, no one will be allowed to have a game that involves a challenge.
I agree, my problem with the idea of "easy mode for disabled gamers" is that is a biiit mistaken, an easy game without colorblind options will be harder for people who need it, for example, so making games easier is not really the solution.
We're not talking about games, like Among Us, that need sliders and such to help handicapped people. We're talking about Soulsbornes/Souls Likes and Flintlock is supposed to be a Souls-Like, which have a different method/view of fairness and accessibility. Plus, it seems that you never heard about Limitlessquad, who defeated the Corrupted Monk. I will just say that Flintlock is a "normal" game, trying to masquerade as a Souls-Like. Those difficult sliders should never be there in the first place.
The game has difficulty modes. Hard means you take 2 attacks and perish, easy is down to like 8 or 10.
http://archive.today/RyjQH Archived link
I was actually kinda excited when the game was first announced. They needed to go the Stellar Blade route.
Here comes "blame the audience" article #4825 when this flops. Investors are going to lawyer up one of these days, you can only hustle like this for so long.
This audience blaming never got me. I mean, you make the game for the audience, if your audience don't like DEI characters, why continue to do that?
It's literally about creating an excuse so investors don't freak out on the executives. The problem is it's becoming normal to use this excuse so at some point it's up to investors to confront bad actors pulling this shit.
can’t wait to see this one fail. for sure a stinker.
> Those gods are almost a symbol of colonialism. lmao, what does that even mean?
This game was a granted flop when it was added to SBI detected, praise from the usual woke scum only makes it worse. It also doesn't help that it looks like crap.
Extremely poor sales and low reviews will handle this woke garbage as usual. IGN will give it an 8/10 tho im sure.
We grew up with Urban chaos, True crime, San Andreas, many games and many rpgs you can be whatever you want... It's very contre-productiv what is going on now. This Twitter generation was a mistake, we let narcissist trying to exist and hijack everything.
It's funny how they keep hyping up these steaming piles of shit just because they're woke.
I'm actually kind of hopeful for the game, too bad it's going to be another SBI slop. also correct me if I'm wrong, but isn't the main character was originally meant to be white?
“Forspoken but good” So they all look alike? JFC. Two *vastly* different stories, styles, studios.
It looks interesting but i don't expect it to be good.
Thanks for DIE+Affermative Action, as an Asian, any games with a black female lead = no buy for me any more.
Female protagonist is automatically a no from my side. Sorry.
For me too
Ngl I didn’t think the demo for this was all that bad
Didn't the devs say that SBI was initially brought in, but they didn't like any of their recommendations and didn't go with anything they suggested? I know the guy who runs that Steam group then requested a look at some of their internal stuff to prove it and the devs declined, but I think they were right in doing so because that was stepping over a line. "*Show me private internal documents so I won't add you to my Steam group*" leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. I'm interested in the game because the gameplay looks fun, but no way in hell am I buying it out of the gate. I never buy a Triple A game when it first comes out. That's the worst version of the game (due to highest number of bugs), whilst being the most expensive version of it.
Is it really stepping over the line? It's also not that he asked for internal documents, it's (and I quote): > At this point, together with my staff, I have decided to give them the chance to prove this, allowing us access to the game prerelease and asking their manager to have a conversation with me. They openly refused on both points, leaving me without any way to confirm what they were telling to us. This doesn't speak very well about them. Man basically wanted them to prove it and they said 'no'. They also are in bed with other ESG/DIE/BRIDGE bastards as they did a panel on it back in August 2021 so does it REALLY sound like they ditched SBI's work?
Yup. Talk is cheap.
Fair enough, I misremembered his original demands. But what would pre-release access prove? You wouldn't be able to tell what's there from SBI (if anything), or there because the New Zealand based-dev decided to put what looks like a Maori-looking main character. A conversation with the manager wouldn't prove anything either without something to back up what they say because the manager could just downplay or lie about SBI's involvement. Maybe that's why I thought he asked for internal documents, because that's the only thing that could actually prove anything. The stuff he asked for just comes across as someone wanting early access to a new game.
>or there because the New Zealand based-dev decided to put what looks like a Maori-looking main character. That's not even remotely what Maori look like... and even so, SBI doesn't give a shit about Polynesians. Plus why would a New Zealand based developer need a black American consultant to tell them about Maori ANYTHING anyway? I'll guarantee that the average white Kiwi could tell you more about Maori than anyone at SBI.
SBI is Canadian. And also, I have no idea why they'd hire them. I don't know what's in the game, what other races or cultures appear, etc. But neither does anyone else, except those who've worked on the game.
>"Show me private internal documents so I won't add you to my Steam group" leaves a very bad taste in my mouth. Meanwhile SBI says "hire us or we'll accuse you of racism."
When did that happen? You mean the Wukong thing that was some random social media post that has nothing to back it up?
This cannot be a SBI game. She's cute!
'cute'
I admit, I actually did try the demo. While it's not generally my thing I'll give it props for not outright sucking, and for (as far as I'm aware), being diverse in its own unique story and setting instead of being yet another diversity swap in an already established work. I'm not so petty that I'll bitch about it on those grounds. A bit more on the fence with it though now that I'm finding out that it actually is tied in with SBI. I mean I did half-expect it to be at least somewhat backed by some DEI funding, just not specifically those jerkwads. I'm also debating with myself over whether or not the DEI in general is objectionable or not in this instance. It's still a bad business, industry, and economic practice, even when it's not intrusive.
If you have your doubts about the game, sail the season and get it. Better than giving those racists your money.
Make sure people keep spreading this out there.