Let’s overlook the truth that you play as a sleeper agent who goes round killing looters in a quarantined metropolis for a second and have a look at the core message of The Division.
Tom Clancy’s The Division (sure, the devoutly Republican Tom Clancy who writes political thrillers that fetishise the army) kicks off when a pandemic sweeps New York. A terrorist group has contaminated banknotes with the smallpox virus, timing the assault so it coincides with the busiest purchasing time of the yr: Black Friday.
Oblivious to the connotations of a society being undone by a virus transferred by way of capitalism, Ubisoft would seemingly inform us it simply needed to make a game with Christmas decorations in it. The developer has a bizarre tendency to pick a setting based mostly on aesthetics alone.
Ghost Recon Wildlands has you invading Bolivia as a gaggle of US particular forces in a bid to rid the world of medication, collaborating in pitched battles by civilian-populated villages. But sufficient about that, try these salt flats. The builders went to Bolivia and took a great deal of photos and the whole lot.
The solely game the studio has launched in latest reminiscence with any self-awareness is Watch Dogs 2, which appeared into San Francisco’s obsession with tech, highlighted privateness considerations, and touched on race and sophistication in a metropolis of wealth divides.
Next up it’s Tom Clancy’s (yep, his title continues to be hooked up to the collection) The Division 2, a game about taking again the American capital from a corrupt authorities. Only it’s probably not about that in any respect, in accordance with Ubisoft. No, it’s a game about unity, apparently. It’s about coming collectively in a world the place civil battle rages within the US and the one method to cease it’s to shoot folks a number of occasions till their well being bars deplete.
“We’re definitely not making any political statements. Right? This is still a work of fiction, right?” artistic director Terry Spier advised Polygon in a latest interview. “It’s not a political statement. No, we are absolutely here to explore a new city.”
According to Speir, the brand new setting is about contrasting in opposition to New York and perhaps seeing some landmarks folks recognise. “I loved the coldness of the first game and to be able to go to DC and actually get to feel the humidity and hot summer of East Coast weather. That’s what I’m most excited about,” he mentioned.
It’s about feeling the warmth in a medium the place you may’t bodily really feel something in any respect. We would doubtlessly really feel one thing emotionally, however overlook that – players don’t have feelings, ideas, or emotions. We’re not right here to be moved.
What makes this entire state of affairs worse is how the advertising staff apparently didn’t get the memo. Ubisoft already apologised for sending out a joke email about the US government shutdown, and now it’s simply put out this bullshit:
THIS JUST IN. Mexico responds to the deteriorating state of affairs within the US. pic.twitter.com/xassgLoXLF
— The Division 2 (@TheDivisionSport) March 6, 2019
Yeah! Let’s simply make gentle of kids being ripped from their households, we could? After all, it’s a freebie, because the game is apolitical and due to this fact can’t be criticised for its politics. Presumably that’s the logic at play right here.
Marketing groups by no means shut up about model identification. Somewhere alongside the strains, the advertising facet determined that The Division 2’s model identification is in how the game mirrors real-world politics. Its model identification is political to its very core. Ubisoft has a transport crate stuffed with truffles and it’s stuffing every certainly one of them into its big fucking mouth.
Perhaps the true division is the gaping chasm separating the advertising staff from the product it’s making an attempt to bump up pre-order numbers for. Or, much more seemingly, Ubisoft is aware of precisely what it’s doing and it’s making an attempt to hook folks in with the promise it should have one thing to say, whereas on the similar time pandering to those that don’t wish to interact with themes of their video games.
In the tip, we’ll seemingly get a product that claims issues by full accident as a result of the Washington Monument seems to be cool in screenshots. Grab a conveyable heater and place it so it blows immediately into your face for the optimum expertise.
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