Aside from some gameplay tweaks are the latest Guilty Gear Strut The update included clandestine changes to the in-game glossary that raised some concerns about the concessions they were making to the repressive Chinese government.
Guilty equipment, thanks to its debut in 1998, has an extensive universe. The overarching story introduces an alternate, more complicated version of our world that blends magic and occult technology with the stories and motivations of actual countries such as the United States and Japan. As, Striving contains a fairly extensive glossary for people who are just getting started on the series.
An entry in this glossary recently attracted negative attention when the developers claimed to have removed references to regions such as Taiwan, Tibet, Uighurs, Korea, Singapore, Mongolia, and Siberia in certain versions of Guilty Gear Strut. As far as we can tell, the information circulated in certain reactionary circles for at least a week before arriving on the popular ResetEra video game forum A few days earlier.
A patch released earlier this week seemed to silently codify the truncated language in all versions of the game. When contacting Kotaku for more informations, Guilty equipment Developer Arc System Works did not want to comment on the situation.
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It’s hard to make these adjustments. While the removal of controversial nations bordering China such as Taiwan and Tibet from the text in question definitely raises eyebrows, the Uyghurs – the largely Muslim people to which China belongs currently detained in re-education camps—Is mentioned elsewhere in the glossary. Nor does this take into account the disappearance of references to places like Korea and Singapore.
Still, it’s hard to argue with people who see this as just the latest example of a video game developer trying to appease the autocratic Chinese government. The industry has a history of running on eggshells across the country, leading to things like that. has led Chat censorship in the Genshin impact and publishers completely retreat from the Taiwanese horror game dedication after jokes about Chinese President Xi Jinping were discovered in his fortune. Be it out of fear of angering Chinese players or contradicting the government’s attempts take action In everything that “threatens national unity”, developers largely avoid getting on China’s bad side.
Arc System Works may be popular with the competitive fighting game community, but it’s still pretty small by and large, and I can’t blame its superiors for choosing to capitulate preemptively instead of rocking the boat and taking risks A financial blow that the company cannot afford. But even after battling your way through a lot of racist, anti-communist bullshit from right-wing critics, China’s influence seems to be a growing concern of reasonable video game fans, and it’s something that developers of all sizes are definitely struggling with.
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