Ubisoft Addresses the Political Themes in Its Games
Ubisoft has deflected criticism in recent years about its games having politics by denying that they have political themes or stances but the company’s critics have argued otherwise and say that some Ubisoft games (such as Far Cry 5) appear to be political or are at least attempting to be.
Ubisoft’s vice president of editorial addressed these criticisms in a lengthy interview posted on Friday on the company’s official website.
“We don’t want [our games] to be apolitical,” Ubisoft executive Tommy Francois explained. “We want them to be include multiple political themes so players can experience multiple points of view, learn from them, educate, and share.”
“If my game was set during the Vietnam conflict, for example, we would want the Viet Minh, the Viet Cong…basically everyone’s point of view,” Francois also said, earlier in the interview. “And that relates back to people making up their own opinions and our ability to create more mature games that are nuanced, versus being black or white.”
Additionally, according to Francois, the company “generally” has no issue with representing different viewpoints and it tries to fight against “self-censorship”.
“We have had discussions on how do we deal with this. We are scared sometimes as we are world-building. That was the case for Far Cry 5,” Francois said. “It is a great game, but it just wasn’t possible to present all points of view and perspectives.”
“We believe that ultimately, in the future, players should be able to go in the game world, have as many different experiences as they want, experience as many different political views as they want, as many religions as they want…as many different fantasies as they want,” he added.
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