Where the Trump-as-Master Chief post is merely cringeworthy, the Homeland Security message is flat-out dangerous. Comparing immigrants in the US to a parasitic alien life form that infects and annihilates advanced societies is not deeply offensive, it’s also rooted in the worst of human history: As seen in the untermenschen of the Holocaust and “cockroaches” in Rwanda, to name a couple recent examples, dehumanizing the “other” so you can more easily inflict cruelty, injustice, and horrors upon them is hardly a new technique, and the US government’s messaging was not subtle.
You might think that using imagery from one of its best known videogames in a call to “destroy” immigrants would prompt Microsoft to action, or at least to express some small modicum of disapproval. For now, at least, you would be wrong: Rather like Nintendo, which eagerly picks copyright fights it knows it can win but kept its mouth tightly zipped when Homeland Security used Pokémon to promote violent immigration raids, a representative told PC Gamer that “Microsoft does not have anything to share on this matter.”
Unexpectedly good political commentary from checks notes PC Gamer
Good to know! I’ve just been having regular encounters with high quality content from there, rather than being a regular reader, so I haven’t had any awareness of anything in the background.
In a world full of “gaming journalists have no place in an era of AI” this is really heartening to hear
In Contact Harvest, Truth learns of a new species that has been discovered, and apparently the old Forerunner scanners say the humans have a lot of holy Forerunner artifacts that are indicated by this symbol:
Truth goes to talk to the old Forerunner AI kept prisoner in the basement and says “You guys didn’t provide a legend with your scanners, what’s this thing?”
Mendicant Bias the Forerunner AI explains, “Oh, that’s the symbol for Reclaimer. Reclaimers are the people my old bosses chose to inherit our empire after they all kicked the bucket.”
Truth says “Wait, you’re saying this is a planet full of demigods?”
Mendicant Bias is like “Yeah, haha, I guess if you insist on worshipping my creators as gods, then you’d better start worshipping these people instead from now on. They’re supposed to be your new bosses.”
Truth says “No, absolutely not. I worked much too hard to become a space pope and I’m not letting the second coming of Jesus get in the way of my plans. I’m going to declare a space jihad against these new aliens so nobody finds out they’re demigods.”
Anyway, the new species were humans and the Covenant declared a holy war and nearly wiped humanity out. Truth also ordered a genocide of the Sangheili after the Sangheili generals started asking a few too many tricky questions like “why are we having a space jihad against the humans they seem nice”
Unexpectedly good political commentary from checks notes PC Gamer
Honestly PC gamer has been pretty solid lately. Not sure why. Almost makes me nervous.
Staff shake-up last year. Phil Savage and Tyler Wilde have really stepped it up and let their writers sound off.
Like any of the major sites though, the news side still has its share of articles generated from one-liners sourced from interviews ran elsewhere.
Good to know! I’ve just been having regular encounters with high quality content from there, rather than being a regular reader, so I haven’t had any awareness of anything in the background. In a world full of “gaming journalists have no place in an era of AI” this is really heartening to hear
Also if Trump is any Halo character, he’s the Prophet of Truth
Nah truth was actually well spoken and was a decent leader. He’d be regret.
In Contact Harvest, Truth learns of a new species that has been discovered, and apparently the old Forerunner scanners say the humans have a lot of holy Forerunner artifacts that are indicated by this symbol:
Truth goes to talk to the old Forerunner AI kept prisoner in the basement and says “You guys didn’t provide a legend with your scanners, what’s this thing?”
Mendicant Bias the Forerunner AI explains, “Oh, that’s the symbol for Reclaimer. Reclaimers are the people my old bosses chose to inherit our empire after they all kicked the bucket.”
Truth says “Wait, you’re saying this is a planet full of demigods?”
Mendicant Bias is like “Yeah, haha, I guess if you insist on worshipping my creators as gods, then you’d better start worshipping these people instead from now on. They’re supposed to be your new bosses.”
Truth says “No, absolutely not. I worked much too hard to become a space pope and I’m not letting the second coming of Jesus get in the way of my plans. I’m going to declare a space jihad against these new aliens so nobody finds out they’re demigods.”
Anyway, the new species were humans and the Covenant declared a holy war and nearly wiped humanity out. Truth also ordered a genocide of the Sangheili after the Sangheili generals started asking a few too many tricky questions like “why are we having a space jihad against the humans they seem nice”