The game has just been nominated for two Gayming Magazine Awards due to its (optional) gay romance.
“TRIGGER WARNING,” the post begins. “Among all the various awards and nominations we’ve received, we’ve also just been nominated for the @gaymingmag GAYMING AWARDS! I’m really proud of that, because I absolutely stand by the fact that the way we did it is exactly how something like this should be done. Non-coercively, naturally, and educationally (because we show how things really were in the Middle Ages without idealizing them)–and without shoving it down anyone’s throat or trying to re-educate them like so many titles that are rightfully called ‘woke’ these days. We made the gay community happy and gave them the CHOICE to be themselves, just like we did for others in other choices and quests, and anyone who isn’t interested probably didn’t even notice. Except, of course, for [a] very small and very loud minority.”
Bro… You literally had to say nothing and you failed at that. And to use the word “woke” is stupid. The amount of flak they are gonna get for this just for saying that word will be immense. This would blow over by Tuesday if you said that entire thing but left out the work “woke”
In the first game everyone is assumed to be straight, and your character receives a stat boost from having sex, which sometimes happens in the story, but mostly will happen at “bathhouses”, i.e. with prostitutes.
The exclusively female bathhouses, and the stat boost, persist in the second game, but there is an option relatively early in the game for your (male) character to start a gay romance with an important, recurring character.
I didn’t follow through with that, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see it - both characters are sort of supposed to be womanizers, but it makes sense in the context of the story that they could discover feelings for eachother. It’s up to you whether your character has a childhood sweetheart feminine love interest at home or not (from the previous game), but other than this relatively unimportant detail (beyond the roleplaying of it), the gay romance appears to be arguably the most significant romance in the game.
All that said, the game director who speaks is an asshole. Given that, I was pleasantly surprised at how “woke” KCD2 actually is. Guess he might has a different idea of “woke” than the rest of us, e.g. more “female ghost busters movie”, less “gay representation”.
I agree with your comment except to say that Henry (the playable character) is a pretty blank slate. It’s been a little while since I’ve played it but I wouldn’t call him a womanizer though Hans definitely is
The game has a gay romance option, which is something that you can unlock over the course of the game with the right dialogue options and is fairly tastefully done. The game is very intent on being a 1403 simulator and the characters are all written with that in mind, but it’s nice that the game recognises that gay people would have existed regardless of the cultural attitudes at the time.
I think his comments refer to the implementation of the romance in the way that it doesn’t feel like it was put there so the studio could boast about how progressive they are.
but it’s nice that the game recognises that gay people would have existed regardless of the cultural attitudes at the time.
The late mediaeval period was actually fairly accepting of gay relationships, with a legal doctrine of Brotherment being practiced in several countries, where two men would legally join their lives and assets, and which often included declarations of affection.
I think his comments refer to the implementation of the romance in the way that it doesn’t feel like it was put there so the studio could boast about how progressive they are.
Big “I’m doing the thing I complain about, but it’s different when I do it” energy from his statement.
It looks like he’s really commenting on the way these relationships are portrayed in KCD2 compared to other games, but he doesn’t specify which other games he’s on about so it’s hard to say exactly what he’s referring to other than a general perception of modern media lazily inserting LGBT characters without integrating them more deeply into the setting or narrative.
a general perception of modern media lazily inserting LGBT characters without integrating them more deeply into the setting or narrative.
And that complaint is an example of the issue. You’re effectively complaining about normalization of LGBT+ characters and relationships, so you see it as lazy, expecting them to be tokenized and making them some kind of not-just-a-normal-person character.
No, you’ve misread my comment: the tokenisation is lazy, having characters whose sole defining characteristic is their gender or sexuality (or race, disability, etc.) is lazy, failing to make them fully rounded characters beyond their superficial traits is lazy.
What Daniel is talking about is presenting these issues in a modern framing, in a time period which understood them in a very different way.
This is exactly what KCD2 has done well with this particular romance option, having the characters be rounded individuals first with ambitions and flaws, and also give them the opportunity to explore their sexuality in a way that occurs naturally through the game (depending on choices you make).
I have a feeling he held up hand quotes, and spoke this in an ironic or mocking tone, and expected it to come through in a print interview. From the context it seems like it’s not a focus in the story, it’s just another option. There’s nothing wrong with that, it just sounds like he’s just bad with interviews.
The word has been absurdly corrupted by right wing though. It was just slang for being aware of the world, and promoting equality, and now it’s used for social justice enforcer.
How hard is it to just not say stuff? Is this prat trying to calm pushed outraged right wingers? I hadn’t heard any outrage. And if there is outrage, so fuckin what. Just shut up, idiot, and let the game speak for itself.
Seriously tho, what in the actual fuck is this guy trying to say, other than trying to appeal to rightoids while doing the same thing the games he is bitching about do. They constantly cry about ThE wOkE aGeNdA when you can select pronouns that LITERALLY have 0 impact on gaming, but apparently including WoKe content in the actual game is ok if you’re on their side.
Completely not transparent or shameless, as is tradition.
They constantly cry about ThE wOkE aGeNdA when you can select pronouns that LITERALLY have 0 impact on gaming, but apparently including WoKe content in the actual game is ok if you’re on their side.
I don’t like that those ‘woke’ settings don’t have any impact in historic games. Because that ‘woke-washes’ history.
That was one of my gripes with Hogwarts Legacy. The wizarding world in Victorian times where certainly not egalitarian when it came to race or sexual identity. And if they where, it should be explained why they are so different from the muggle world at that time.
It’s the exact same thing as right-wing weirdos associating the term “feminist” strictly with with the most extreme, fundamentalist, fringe elements of the movement, “feminazis” if you will, that went way over the equality hill and ended up in “all men are bad, m’kay” forest.
The fact that public media often reinforces that view does not help.
In short: the game is woke, because it showcases a gay romance with historical accuracy. Vavra thinks it’s not woke, because it doesn’t allow the player character to be a black lesbian with “them” pronouns.
Using the word “woke” disqualified him of any notion this was a rational thought. He wanted to accept the award to promote his game and make money, but slyly wink at those who are a part of his in-group.
“We did it right by not forcing it on players” just plays to a bullshit fallacy that acknowledging same-sex relationships == forcing people into same-sex relationships. This narrative is right wing outrage bullshit. It exists to allow the people who absolutely do not want same-sex marriage to exist in any form insist they are actually just very worried that heterosexual people are being forced into homo- bi- trans- sexually etc (which is actually not a thing).
This dickwad is trying to pat himself on the back for successfully navigating a moral outrage that he and his right wing pals invented. This is part of the ongoing narrative to normalise intolerance and to insist that being intolerant is actually the right moral choice.
The first KCD faced criticism for having exclusively white characters in it, and Vávra saying that was historically accurate (spoiler: people from Africa and Asia were in the Roman Empire at that time; generally as merchants or slaves). Vávra supported gamergate, and has always been vocally “anti woke”.
There was a surge in purchases of KCD2 when Vávra claimed Dragon Age Veilguard failed solely because of involving “gender politics” in the game, which gives you a pretty good idea of a large portion of the gamerbase for the KCD games.
You’ve made a good choice in not supporting this dipshit.
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Bro… You literally had to say nothing and you failed at that. And to use the word “woke” is stupid. The amount of flak they are gonna get for this just for saying that word will be immense. This would blow over by Tuesday if you said that entire thing but left out the work “woke”
Can anyone who has actually played the game elaborate and give their thoughts?
In the first game everyone is assumed to be straight, and your character receives a stat boost from having sex, which sometimes happens in the story, but mostly will happen at “bathhouses”, i.e. with prostitutes.
The exclusively female bathhouses, and the stat boost, persist in the second game, but there is an option relatively early in the game for your (male) character to start a gay romance with an important, recurring character.
I didn’t follow through with that, but I was very pleasantly surprised to see it - both characters are sort of supposed to be womanizers, but it makes sense in the context of the story that they could discover feelings for eachother. It’s up to you whether your character has a childhood sweetheart feminine love interest at home or not (from the previous game), but other than this relatively unimportant detail (beyond the roleplaying of it), the gay romance appears to be arguably the most significant romance in the game.
All that said, the game director who speaks is an asshole. Given that, I was pleasantly surprised at how “woke” KCD2 actually is. Guess he might has a different idea of “woke” than the rest of us, e.g. more “female ghost busters movie”, less “gay representation”.
I agree with your comment except to say that Henry (the playable character) is a pretty blank slate. It’s been a little while since I’ve played it but I wouldn’t call him a womanizer though Hans definitely is
True, fair point. I guess that mission where you get drunk with the priest and have group sex(?) got stuck in my head.
Based upon the comments here it looks like no one here has played it.
The game has a gay romance option, which is something that you can unlock over the course of the game with the right dialogue options and is fairly tastefully done. The game is very intent on being a 1403 simulator and the characters are all written with that in mind, but it’s nice that the game recognises that gay people would have existed regardless of the cultural attitudes at the time.
I think his comments refer to the implementation of the romance in the way that it doesn’t feel like it was put there so the studio could boast about how progressive they are.
The late mediaeval period was actually fairly accepting of gay relationships, with a legal doctrine of Brotherment being practiced in several countries, where two men would legally join their lives and assets, and which often included declarations of affection.
Big “I’m doing the thing I complain about, but it’s different when I do it” energy from his statement.
It looks like he’s really commenting on the way these relationships are portrayed in KCD2 compared to other games, but he doesn’t specify which other games he’s on about so it’s hard to say exactly what he’s referring to other than a general perception of modern media lazily inserting LGBT characters without integrating them more deeply into the setting or narrative.
And that complaint is an example of the issue. You’re effectively complaining about normalization of LGBT+ characters and relationships, so you see it as lazy, expecting them to be tokenized and making them some kind of not-just-a-normal-person character.
No, you’ve misread my comment: the tokenisation is lazy, having characters whose sole defining characteristic is their gender or sexuality (or race, disability, etc.) is lazy, failing to make them fully rounded characters beyond their superficial traits is lazy.
What Daniel is talking about is presenting these issues in a modern framing, in a time period which understood them in a very different way.
This is exactly what KCD2 has done well with this particular romance option, having the characters be rounded individuals first with ambitions and flaws, and also give them the opportunity to explore their sexuality in a way that occurs naturally through the game (depending on choices you make).
The games are great, if only he could, like, not open his mouth…
I have a feeling he held up hand quotes, and spoke this in an ironic or mocking tone, and expected it to come through in a print interview. From the context it seems like it’s not a focus in the story, it’s just another option. There’s nothing wrong with that, it just sounds like he’s just bad with interviews.
The word has been absurdly corrupted by right wing though. It was just slang for being aware of the world, and promoting equality, and now it’s used for social justice enforcer.
This is the guy you’re making excuses for: https://lemmy.ca/pictrs/image/2814c61f-f3a2-43f6-a9d4-f07ab171b2ce.png
Ok yeah, you make a strong argument.
How hard is it to just not say stuff? Is this prat trying to calm pushed outraged right wingers? I hadn’t heard any outrage. And if there is outrage, so fuckin what. Just shut up, idiot, and let the game speak for itself.
Dan Vavra is simply a king of dickheads, and cannot pass a single oportunity to show everyone.
That game was good until they added that gay shit. Nothing against gay people but the first game was legit.
Seriously tho, what in the actual fuck is this guy trying to say, other than trying to appeal to rightoids while doing the same thing the games he is bitching about do. They constantly cry about ThE wOkE aGeNdA when you can select pronouns that LITERALLY have 0 impact on gaming, but apparently including WoKe content in the actual game is ok if you’re on their side.
Completely not transparent or shameless, as is tradition.
I don’t like that those ‘woke’ settings don’t have any impact in historic games. Because that ‘woke-washes’ history.
That was one of my gripes with Hogwarts Legacy. The wizarding world in Victorian times where certainly not egalitarian when it came to race or sexual identity. And if they where, it should be explained why they are so different from the muggle world at that time.
Sounds like he wants to have his cake and eat it too.
It’s the exact same thing as right-wing weirdos associating the term “feminist” strictly with with the most extreme, fundamentalist, fringe elements of the movement, “feminazis” if you will, that went way over the equality hill and ended up in “all men are bad, m’kay” forest.
The fact that public media often reinforces that view does not help.
In short: the game is woke, because it showcases a gay romance with historical accuracy. Vavra thinks it’s not woke, because it doesn’t allow the player character to be a black lesbian with “them” pronouns.
Fucking shithead
Using the word “woke” disqualified him of any notion this was a rational thought. He wanted to accept the award to promote his game and make money, but slyly wink at those who are a part of his in-group.
Well, that sours me enough to the game that its no longer on the wishlist.
The guy has always been a piece of shit so I’m glad more people are learning this.
He even needed ChatGPT to write his own shitty opinion for him, what a loser.
Based
This is total bullshit.
“We did it right by not forcing it on players” just plays to a bullshit fallacy that acknowledging same-sex relationships == forcing people into same-sex relationships. This narrative is right wing outrage bullshit. It exists to allow the people who absolutely do not want same-sex marriage to exist in any form insist they are actually just very worried that heterosexual people are being forced into homo- bi- trans- sexually etc (which is actually not a thing).
This dickwad is trying to pat himself on the back for successfully navigating a moral outrage that he and his right wing pals invented. This is part of the ongoing narrative to normalise intolerance and to insist that being intolerant is actually the right moral choice.
Fuck him, fuck his game, fuck them all.
That’s a shame. I was thinking of buying the KCD games soon, now I won’t.
The first KCD faced criticism for having exclusively white characters in it, and Vávra saying that was historically accurate (spoiler: people from Africa and Asia were in the Roman Empire at that time; generally as merchants or slaves). Vávra supported gamergate, and has always been vocally “anti woke”.
There was a surge in purchases of KCD2 when Vávra claimed Dragon Age Veilguard failed solely because of involving “gender politics” in the game, which gives you a pretty good idea of a large portion of the gamerbase for the KCD games.
You’ve made a good choice in not supporting this dipshit.
Any evidence that these slaves and merchants existed in Bohemia, or no? Because “The (Holy) Roman Empire” is a wide area.