Unrelated, but Related
A couple of days ago, Square Enix tweeted out a video background with a related caption. It depicted the statue of Captain America in Heroes Park in Marvel’s Avengers. A few days prior, they tweeted out a similar set of images of Kamala Khan’s Easter Egg riddled bedroom. The Heroes Park one was a little different in that the timing was a little tone deaf for the world of today. The caption wrote: “Heroes Park once celebrated the Avengers, but has since been defaced. Despite the AIM drones that surveil the area, there are still people who believe and pay their respects to Captain America.”
It seems pretty innocent on the surfaces, so what prompted this apology? Well, some fans were able to draw parallels to the current state of the America and other places of civil unrest in the world. As you may know, in the wake of George Floyd’s murder and the protests around the world, many statues honoring slave owners and confederate leaders are being defaced and torn down by protesters. Some are being taken down by governments as well. However, there are some anti-protesters that have taken it upon themselves to defend the statues, calling themselves “statue protectors.”
We’ve heard your response to our recent post and agree that now was not the appropriate time to share this content from our game. We apologize for being insensitive.
— Marvel’s Avengers (@PlayAvengers) June 16, 2020
Now Captain America is never portrayed as a slave owner. He is almost always representing the best of America. Still, the whole situation of a statue being defaced by citizens, but protected by law enforcement drones is kind of inappropriate. At best it was poorly timed, since the content was likely made weeks ago. While Square Enix can say that this has nothing to do with the civil unrest around the world right now, it is probably the easier thing to say that they are sorry and did not mean for it to come across the way it did. The tweet itself has been deleted, but the apology remains. Marvel’s Avengers is set to release on September 4th for PC, Stadia, Xbox One, and PS4.
Do you think Square Enix did the right thing to apologize and remove the tweet? Let us know in the comments below.
Source: Eurogamer