Look, I’m not so delusional that I think that the video game culture wars will ever go away. One, there is always going to be a culture war around every single artform because we all live our lives on a parabola in which new things are exciting to us right until we hit that curve in our age when anything new is scary and/or an insult to life itself. Two, there is a lot of money in the culture war stand, especially if you’re very good at being very angry on camera.
If you can find an audience that’s willing to give you money to tell them what they shouldn’t buy while packaging it as a moral battle against ‘politics’, you’ll be able to retire before your parents. You don’t even have to say what those politics are! At the same time, I’m starting to get a sense that - at least for right now - the video game culture war well is running a little dry.
The Culture Wars Have Never Been This Boring
To be fair, video game culture wars have always felt somehow like the stupidest thing possible and the longest-lasting discussion on the internet. Hell, it was stupid long back when the American government was holding hearings on Mortal Kombat. And there’s always something on the stove. We’ve had full blown outrages over summoned mythical creatures in Final Fantasy 8 looking slightly less sexy in a remaster. We’ve had entire videos in which adults melt down because they have the option to pick pronouns.
And, hell, if you want to ‘both sides’ it, I’ll throw myself under the bus and say I was probably a little weird and negative online about Dead or Alive Beach Volleyball 3 or 4 or who gives a crap when I could’ve just not cared because it honestly didn’t really matter. Now, I’m not saying the culture war is nearly a ‘both sides’ equal balance because, let’s be honest, it’s very, very far from equal. I’m just saying that I, too, can admit that sometimes I’ve personally been a lot.
But right now, there’s something weird about the video game culture war vibe. It’s not that everyone has linked hands and decided we’re all in this for one reason: to have a good time with current and future friends around the world! Of course not! The worst reasons to enjoy a video game are because it’s a good time or thought-provoking or makes you feel connected to something other than yourself. Rather, there’s this sense that a lot of the outrage hitting games right now is more forced than usual? You can almost sense outrage factories holding up different games, going, ‘Is this something? Are we mad at this one?’
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Look at the response to God of War Laufey. The anger at the main character being a woman was real, don’t get me wrong, but it also felt kind of dry. This is doubly true because Kratos’ wife is a straight white woman who loves her ripped husband and fights for her family - their perfect culture war ideal that they post about again and again and again. Yet, as the trailer first aired, literally as it was running, people were playing the same old song: find the worst possible angle of the woman in the trailer as she’s screaming or talking so her mouth is making a weird shape.
Then protest that it wasn’t what they would’ve wanted if only someone had asked them. And definitely, absolutely hunt down a picture of a woman who worked behind the scenes and use her photo as evidence that she’s either a disgusting whore or a censorious prude depending on how attractive she is to the commentator.
And it’s just… so done? The morning radio shock jocks of YouTube aren’t shocking anyone. I don’t have a huge dog in this fight. I like the God of War games, but it’s not like they’re sacred relics in my life that will drastically affect my own sense of direction and purpose if they change. Lots of games do spin-offs and sidestories and quasi-sequels that run subsequently to a previous entry. Lots of games switch up the main character. But therein lies the rub, doesn’t it? Remedy just announced a new Control in which you’re playing a man instead of a woman. Was there outrage? No. Because beyond the hypocrisy, there’s an even-lazier-than-usual cynicism still wrapped in “things used to be better.” And now that argument works less when things are in fact kind of better.
I know, I know, it’s different because the ‘God of War’ in the name is supposed to be Kratos, even though narratively he himself probably has some mixed feelings about that title at this point in the story. Also, the series has lots of gods of war and also who cares? It’s like being angry at Star Trek: Deep Space 9 because the crew isn’t technically ‘trekking’ anywhere until the third season when they get the Defiant. I guess I see your point? But also, do you actually think that’s an argument worth having?
Why Are We Pretending James Bond Is Woke?
Or, hell, look at First Light. I’m enjoying it, even though I’ve never been the biggest James Bond fan. I’ve got nothing against the franchise, even if IO making an Austin Powers game would’ve been a thousand times better and a million times funnier. But it’s a fun game. James Bond is charming. Hot ladies hit on him. He kills people. He has - and don’t tell my mom! - sex. And yet even that game has had bad faith YouTubers and streamers poking at it, saying, ‘This must be woke, right? What about this part? Is it woke that Bond is younger than my average viewership?’ Of course, two of Bond’s co-workers are women of color so - there you go! Done! As we know, Bond has never worked with nor flirted with women of color before. Dang. Got ‘em.
Here’s what’s been really curious to me. I’ve seen more than one culture war-forward influencers see a trailer for a game like Laufey, publicly say it looks great, and then immediately backtrack when their fans demand they campaign against it because there’s an unapproved lady holding the weapon this time. And before you jump in the comments to tell me why I’m wrong, I already know: if she was a cyborg or a robot, you’d be over the moon. We don’t need to sidebar on this, but I guess if you’re a video game developer hoping to avoid people screaming at you about having a woman as a protagonist, just make her a robot with honkers. It’s like saying, “Shh… Shh… Don’t worry. She’s a woman, but she’s not human, so she can’t hurt you.”
But, joking aside, it is odd to have to change your opinions on the fly because you make money off outrage but did not feel outraged by the topic. It’s creaky. It’s sweaty. It’s a homework assignment that you have to do with a sigh rather than a belief you have to state with, you know, belief. I’m sure everyone doubts everyone else’s sincerity when they disagree on anything, but there’s something truly insincere about posting, essentially, “Well, I think some people misunderstood me when I said this game looks great and that’s why, in my next video, I’ll discuss how I was never excited to play this triple-A first party Sony title in a series I like.”
Even The Outraged Aren’t Outraged Anymore
I want to describe the current culture war as something akin to undead, but that’s both making it sound too cool and acting like this isn’t a cycle that will repeat again and again and again. But if we were in a washing machine, the part of the cycle we’d be in is when wet clothes are slopped against each other in dirty water before being actually washed and spun out to dry. It’s tired out. You can tell there’s no real, actual outrage because all the rants and photoshops and memes are just copies of copies of copies of previous memes.
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Like I said, video game culture wars have always been stupid. And I know that these culture wars are still damaging to the people who make the games, especially when fans still attack them personally and put their info online. But you can really feel the air getting sucked out of them. You can feel the muscles straining as they reach. As I said, there’s a lot of money in the culture war outrage stand. But at this point, that stand is starting to look pretty worn down and desperate.
Like Follow FollowedGod of War Laufey
Action Adventure Hack and Slash RPG Systems Developer(s) Santa Monica Studio Publisher(s) Sony Interactive Entertainment Prequel(s) God of War, God of War Ragnarok Franchise God of War Number of Players Single-playerWHERE TO PLAY
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