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Some of you may have heard of an almost decade old video game called "Kingdom Come: Deliverence". It is a realistic RPG with no fantasy elements, developed by a Czech studio, and set in middle ages Czechia.
At its release its fidelity to history was widely praised by gamers. But gaming journalists attacked it for this very reason: fidelity to history meant that there was a paucity of Africans in the game. Despite gaming journalists forming united frons to smear the developers as racist, for not altering the racial demographics to please foreigners, the developers stood FIRMLY by their game.
Fast forward to a couple of months ago, and a sequel to KC:D is announced. Warhorse Studios says nothing eyebrow raising. Then a shock: screenshots appearing to show an African boasting about his land plenty, equality and knowledge, purporting to be from KC:D2 surfaces. There is widespread disbelief, the developers deny its authenticity, deboonkers find queerities in rendering. Matter is considered to be dubious at best.
Then a shock: a full admission from the man who so unfairly smeared, and who didn't buckle, that the game is in fact alters history to suit the tastes of 2025 American audiences.
Still the wages are low in Czechia, and loyalty of the marginalized and silenced peoples is worthless compared to fame the media can bestow upon you, and fortune gained from hiding the massive backtracks in marketing, so the game is already profitable.
There is plenty of subversion here. Take a look:
• Henry and Hans are gay for each other: https://imgur.com/a/VoNmnq0
• Musa the Malian Scholar, Physician and Explorer (who quickly went from "Al Fake" to "just a Trader" to big plot critical character with over an hour of dialogue that is part of the main story and can't be killed) lectures the player about how much more enlightened his society is than Bohemia over and over, and goes on about how they don't season dey food, you can also get relationship advice from him, or talk about jerking off, also you apparently have to defend him during a trial and if you fail it's game over with Henry getting hanged: https://imgur.com/a/P2dsthI
• Henry apparently has a Jewish step brother, who he can be gay with? and teaches him about the plight of his people: https://imgur.com/a/mooiFgi
• The Jewish quarter and synagogue in the game that wasn't historic, but added by the dev team for story purposes: https://i.imgur.com/5u0o4mG.png plays a major part in the main story and you will have to defend them from “Antisemite” (talk about anachronistic) Christians attacking them in an ahistorical invented pogrom: https://i.imgur.com/YarvjPJ.jpeg
• The main not-gay romance Option is supposedly a single mother who cheats on you with Musa, a black man, and becomes angry with you if you don’t champion him in court in a subsequent quest.
• A gypsy prostitute from a gypsy camp you're to run errands for teaches Henry about hermaphrodites: https://i.imgur.com/ZAn8Ges.png
• Henry gets humiliated or outdone by women several times
• There's a Quest about humanizing and making friends with the Cumans that invaded and pillaged Henry's village and killed his parents and girlfriend
• There's a quest where you have to help make a Golem using Jewish magic, and to do so Henry apparently has to eat dead bodies? The act itself mocked as humiliating (“from Lord’s messenger to taster of cadavers”): https://imgur.com/a/bMPqJIm
The pogrom is interesting - the head developer, who defended the child sodomy (Henry is a minor by canon) he injected, said to players you can make your own choices whether or not to engage in sodomy, but conveniently you have no choice but to slaughter your fellow White Christians beside a Muslim ally to advance the main plot. On a related note about the lead dev from Wikipedia’s early life:
It seems that he ignored his personal ethnic grievances in the first game, to wide acclaim, but then heavily layered them into the sequel in a way that slanders White Christian European history, while vandalizing the beloved first game.
Much media has followed this path - Joker to Joker 2, The Last of Us to The Last of Us Part 2, Hades and its sequel, etc. Rugpulls and humiliating retcons everywhere.
What was "based" about Hades 1?
It was not based, but rather the sequel more heavily catered to woke pieties and aesthetics than the first. It is not the best example, but sequels degrading, if not on an about-face like Kingdom Come, then simply unignorably further downward into wokeism, is a noticeable pattern.
And Baldur's Gate 3 shows us that people, including the white Gamers, love it as long as it's a good game.
Anacdata: the people I know that first played BG1 on launch either didn't buy BG3 or gave up on it.
BG 3 appears to have - successfully - shifted its target audience.
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