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PaperclipPerfector  2d ago (text post)   7984 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026

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removing gameplay and shoving easy modes into everything

Is this actually a trend in the gaming industry?

Pretty sure so, yes. There was a strong push from the gaming press against the popularity of souls-like games because their difficulty and the git-good attitude it fostered in their audience was exclusionary. Mix Tape and Wolverine are two recent major releases that lean heavily into minimizing difficulty and hand-holding the player; "yellow paint" design (look it up) has been a growing issue for a long time.

There was a strong push from the gaming press against the popularity of souls-like games because their difficulty and the git-good attitude it fostered in their audience was exclusionary

Exclusionary towards women and generally anyone who isn't a young toxic white male game nerd, I presume?

“Removing gameplay” probably peaked with the QTE craze, but it was never as clear-cut as the OP suggests. Sometimes games which wanted to blow the budget on set pieces and titty physics chose to “remove gameplay” as a consequence.

“Easy modes” are definitely more prevalent now, and unlike the former, people will show up to defend them on ideological grounds. Equity and inclusion, you know? But games are still a product. If adding easy mode generates 5% more sales at the cost of “degrading” that guy’s “achievements,” well…

And yet inserting black lesbian girl boss into a popular bro-shooter still happens almost every time. Many of these decisions really are ideological, and very many recent games a have failed because of it.

Almost every time, huh? Sure, I haven’t been keeping up with the latest in bro-shooters, but which ones do you have in mind?

Also, that’s not what he asked.

Sure, I haven’t been keeping up with the latest in bro-shooters, but which ones do you have in mind?

Here's an example, no scrolls, straight from the cranium: what extremely popular shooter franchise do you think this character is from?

Answer: Pre-guardian Ikora Rey from Destiny 2.

Bonus question: where in the popularity life-cycle of the franchise did this character design appear?

Immediately prior to game death. Destiny 2 is dead now, and so, effectively, is Bungie Studios.

Hmm, I guessed that was the girl from Deathloop.

But hasn’t she been in that series since the beginning? Does giving her hair make that much of a difference? It’s not even blue!

Compare Overwatch, a game which I would put on the forefront of DEI technology. Every new character draws flak for being too gay, disabled, Japanese, whatever. Why? Surely they know what game they’re playing by this point.

I think nomenym is being melodramatic. Launching new franchises with inclusion bait is not the same thing as adding inclusion bait into existing ones.

Hmm, I guessed that was the girl from Deathloop.

Not Wolfenstein? Certainly not Gears.

But hasn’t she been in that series since the beginning?

Ikora Rey has been in the series since the beginning, and there was a time when I would have argued her as an example of "diversity" done right. I thought she was a pretty okay character back when I played; not nearly as interesting as Cayde-6, but then, who could be? Only, this is where her design lead. On the one hand, it didn't have to lead here; she could have been developed a million different ways. On the other hand, I think it was always going to lead here, because Bungie purged the non-Progressives, and this is what Progressives do.

Does giving her hair make that much of a difference? It’s not even blue!

I think it does make a pretty big difference, actually. Of course Destiny's story needs to loop itself and its main characters back to the 1970s; It's not enough for Ikora to be a strong black female character, she needs to be a strong black female character from this specific era and context, this specific trope, in this specific way. Of course the notable on-screen romance needs to be Osiris/Saint-14. Of course we need the Gay Pride iconography slathered over everything in-game. Of course we need Nimbus as the main NPC for the penultimate expansion; there's a hundred dollars I'll never get back.

And now it's dead.

Why? Surely they know what game they’re playing by this point.

And yet inserting black lesbian girl boss into a popular bro-shooter still happens almost every time. Many of these decisions really are ideological, and very many recent games a have failed because of it.

It's flag planting. It's always been flag planting. Taking a territory that belongs to your hated enemies and putting your mark on it.

You expressed skepticism about the prevalence of the specific cited pattern; I think I'm providing at least a reasonable amount of evidence that the pattern is real. But the pattern was asserted as an elaboration on how Flag Planting works, and it seems you're arguing pretty strongly that the flag-planting is real. You recognize the flags, and you endorse the claim of previously-shared territory they represent.

I would argue that Overwatch wasn't originally on the forefront of DEI technology, which is why it was repeatedly attacked by progressives for being insufficiently progressive, and senior staff were purged due to a moral panic, which in turn was caused by Progressive journalist culture warriors megaphoning false claims of sexual harassment and sexual impropriety. And now it is, by your own apparent framing, Progressive territory that Chuds have no standing to criticize.

Yes, Progressives see non-maximally-progressive media as territory to be captured. Yes, Progressives see it as good and necessary to plant flags on territory they capture. Yes, this has either resulted or closely correlated in significant drops in perceived quality for numerous franchises across the entertainment industry, to a degree that scarcely could have been imagined a decade or two ago. Yes, character redesigns/replacements/new main characters are a big part of how this is done, and making them a particular sort of black female is a notable example of the pattern. Progressives post video of public lectures where they lay all this out explicitly in plain language. I've observed the process in my own company. We've developed new terminology specifically to describe the resulting pathologies.

Launching new franchises with inclusion bait is not the same thing as adding inclusion bait into existing ones.

What's the difference? Why is that difference significant? Progressives view all media as their domain. They want to see that media conform to their ideals. This can be done in a variety of ways, but why are the differences in methods more significant than the nature of the change and the goals driving it? "Progressives will seek to gain control of a given media franchise and Christian Rock it into unrecognizability" is a claim with solid predictive potential, in my view.

Not only is it a trend, but there's Discourse about how more/most/all games should add it, and it's some kind of ist or ism not to, and "the only reason people don't want it is to be exclusionary". It's a whole Thing.

Yes. Has been for at least ten years.

The term "Nintendo hard" usually refers to games from the early 90s. Nintendo makes a lot of more approachable titles these days (although some of the completionist features remain quite hard).

I have mixed feelings on difficulty changes.

Yeah, games back in the NES days were often like that for two reasons. Because arcade games were like that too to steal your quarters, so it was expected of games in general. And because they were seen as children's entertainment for the most part, children who have ample free time compared to adults and little money, so they might get new games once or twice a year for their birthday or Christmas. With cartridges having very limited space for content, companies had to make games hard as fuck so that they wouldn't be beaten in a rental's time.

This new Castlevania has difficulty sliders. Which I appreciate? Like, maybe I don't derive value or enjoyment from four screens of running back to a boss I died to, and prefer respawning right outside the room.

Oh dear. Do yourself a favour, and if anybody suggests you try the original Castlevania, RUN.

For context, I've played (and enjoyed) Bloodstained, Aria of Sorrow, Dawn of Sorrow, Order of Ecclesia, and now (through the demo) of Belmont's Curse. I have not, however, played any of the Soulslikes, where I understand making the boss run back is a significant and deliberate part of the game.

I don't know if that's a necessary feature of a Soulslike; e.g. the recent Silksong had pretty short runbacks, with one major exception (that everyone complained about). But it WAS a central feature of the older Castlevanias (before SotN led to the coining of the term "Metroidvania"). I haven't played it yet, but from the complaints I've heard, I suspect Belmont's Curse is trying to evoke that punishing era to some extent.

That first boss run made me say fuck this shit and open up cheat engine. Not having checkpoint before boss should be capital offense. And the execution should be livestreamed.

By "cheat engine", are you referring to the Belmont's Curse in-game settings?

No. To cheat engine 7. Spiritual successor to ArtMoney

Why wouldn't you just go to the settings and enable "respawn at boss doors"?

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