Final week, IGN featured a game called Ecumene Aztec — by which you play as an Aztec warrior going full guerrilla warfare on Spanish conquistadors. Within the wake of this IGN profile, Ecumene Aztec’s builders have been harassed by far-right extremists, together with having the web site related to the writer stolen by far-right trolls, who then made it right into a web page selling Spanish imperialism.
Within the preliminary write-up for the sport, IGN named Giantscraft as Ecumene Aztec’s developer and writer. Giantscraft can also be listed because the writer on press supplies for the sport that The Verge has obtained. There aren’t any hyperlinks to Giantscraft’s web site on IGN’s article, however looking for Giantscraft reveals a single Instagram web page.
On this Instagram web page, Ecumene Aztec doesn’t seem; as an alternative, the web page includes a hyperlink to the web site giantscraft.com. Upon visiting the web site, customers are greeted with a particularly bare-bones web site for a recreation writer, that includes a quote attributed to Hernán Cortés — one of many conquistadors accountable for the destruction of Tenochtitlan and the enslavement of its folks — in addition to a large picture of the Cross of Burgundy — heraldry linked to Spanish royalists, far-right South American extremists, and Nazis. Additionally featured on the web page is a hyperlink to a different Instagram web page that could be very clearly a sort of “anti-woke” 4chan-esque account full of memes celebrating Spanish imperialism.
To be clear, Giantscraft doesn’t look like affiliated with the Spanish far proper. A translation of a submit on the fascist Instagram web page means that Giantscraft didn’t reserve the area giantscraft.com and, after the reveal of Ecumene Aztec, an opportunist swiped the area and arrange what is actually a Spanish Imperial fan web page. The Verge reached out to Giantscraft and its PR, and a PR spokesperson confirmed this by way of e mail, writing that “for the reason that announcement they’ve been beneath assault from laborious proper teams” and that the area was taken shortly after Aztec’s announcement. Resulting from obvious dying threats the event staff has acquired, we’re granting the PR spokesperson anonymity.
Ecumenegames.com is the writer’s official web site, with its PR spokesperson claiming that the writer was within the midst of a reputation change to Ecumene Video games when all this occurred.
On social media, Ecumene Aztec acquired a combined response. Some praised the general idea of the sport — in spite of everything, there are only a few video games by which conquered peoples get the chance to battle again towards their historic oppressors — whereas others derided the sport’s stereotypical tackle Aztec civilization that includes an ahistorical depiction of Tenochtitlan and human sacrifice constructed into the sport’s mechanics. One other subset of detractors had been upset that you just couldn’t play because the Spanish.
The criticism of the sport appeared sufficient to immediate the builders to replace its scope. In an replace on the game’s Steam page, the builders wrote that they’d rework the sport to permit gamers to decide on to work with the conquistadors in addition to implement extra options to make the sport extra traditionally correct.
In an announcement made by its PR, the builders of Ecumene Aztec mentioned the change in scope was as a result of asks from the neighborhood.
“It was not deliberate. Nevertheless we noticed that about 40 p.c of [the] viewers says that [they] want to have [the] selection to affix [the] conquistadors, so we’d truly attempt to give this chance. The sport will not be political in anyway and by no means will probably be, it’s historical past FICTION.”