It feels like this game is like 2 years too late, if you told me this was a modern final fantasy i would have believed in an instant.
Chinese Video/Computer Games
- Thread starter AssassinsMace
- Start date
It China May Cry. lol i cant resist. Now that "Lord of Mysteries" is gaining fame, I hope many games in the future will be based on its world setting.
So it’s Gordon Chang and Serpentza’s favorite game?
So I looked into this a bit and apparently there are several contributing reasons for why the game is getting review bombed.
Performance is an obvious one; another is the deluxe edition false advertisement; another is the game being priced lower in some countries outside of China than inside China. All of these are being gradually addressed.
However, one reason that made me angry was the game's politics. It seems there is a large scale Chinese review bombing of the game because it is set at the end of the Ming Dynasty, you fight & murder some of the most famous loyalists of the Ming for no reason (other than them attacking you because you're infected by the feathers), but do not encounter or fight anybody from the Qing. So this triggered Han nationalists who believe the game is white washing the Qing's invasion and is anti-Han?
Can Chinese developers have some self awareness? Like I was reading through a Reddit thread on this and immediately some Korean dumb **** launched into a thread about how Yuan and Qing are not Chinese and that's why Han Chinese are mad because they were ruled by foreigners for "almost all of their history." I instantly recognized the type because I've dealt with dumb **** like that before and their method of argument is always the same.
Why is China allowing crap like this to pass the censors? I thought part of the censorship process was to remove negative / controversial views of history? Here we have a game where the Ming is literally portrayed as the bad guys and the CCP censors do nothing? Not to mention who in the development team thought it was a great idea in the first place to have the main character slaughter a bunch of famous Chinese historical figures including the last Ming emperor, which is almost certain to encourage ethnic conflict online and help the West, Korea, etc. promote their divide & conquer propaganda around certain dynasties not being Chinese? Do you think the Japanese or the Koreans would ever portray their history in this way, like have you play as an Okinawan rebel against the evil Imperial Japanese or some Han commandery captain against savage Korean natives?
I can totally see this trigger another wave of censorship in the Chinese gaming industry once enough people report it to the government for disrupting social harmony. I just don't see what the **** the developers were thinking and why they can't have some self awareness instead of forcing the government to clamp down; and here I was just enjoying the loosening of censorship rules, Wuchang proves this is why you can't have nice things.
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Wuchang did not pass Chinese censorship. It's published by an Italian company on Steam which is a grey market in China. Fully compliant Chinese platforms such as WeGame doesn't have the game because it's not legally available in China.
All this seems largely unwarranted from what I've gathered about the game and its subsequent controversy. Seems to be a chicken and egg scenario where the real problem isn't the depictions of some game but rather the reactions it incited which the Western Sinologist types, set on propagating the narrative of the "historiographical partitioning of China" through the othering of Chinese nationalities like the Manchu as "foreign," are pouncing on to exploit.
The problem with the Han Chinese dynasties is that they are intractably isolationist in historical retrospect. It's undoubtedly partially culturally reductive to say this and viewing cultures in reductive civilizational cliches is not a rigorous mode of analysis, but it is worth drawing a few points from. The Qing and Yuan phases of expansion are in direct contrast with the remarkable lack of relative expansion under the so-called "Han Chinese" dynasties. Those two dynasties were established under conquest and actively contextualized their reign as one of triumphal subjugation over the general population and majority culture. Operating under that mode of cultural belief allows a more assertive geopolitical posture compared to the more passive foreign policy philosophies of the "traditional" dynasties.
It's impossible to say, in a historical counterfactual, whether the Ming would have been able to confront European imperialism in the way that the Qing ultimately failed to do, but the signs weren't positive with the Ming destroying Zheng He's fleet, allowing Portugal to settle in Macau and the Dutch and Spanish to occupy Taiwan. The problem is that apart from the Tang, every single "traditional" dynasty had been satisfied with merely holing up in "China proper" and occasioning extending to the Hexi Corridor. The only major moment of Han Chinese expansion from "China proper" after the Han dynasty (which first established the Protectorate of the Western Regions) was during the Tang but the Tang defeat by the Abbasids in Central Asia was unnecessarily treated as a Teutoburg Forest moment and it was frankly surprising that the Ming even bothered at all to restore a presence over Gansu and the Hexi Corridor.
Yes, the Qing lost ultimately Outer Mongolia and Outer Manchuria but those territories alongside Inner Mongolia, Dongbei, Tibet and Xinjiang's incorporation under Qianlong would possibly have never been made by at all by Han Chinese dynasties like the Ming.
A pragmatic assessment of the Qing can therefore be defined, basically word by word, through the same parameters that Stalin once gave about the Russian Tsars:
While there’s historical validity to the complaints of Ming nostalgists regarding the Qing’s systemic cultural suppression of the majority population to secure their rule, all that is still inconsequential from a geopolitical basis compared to this bequeathment that the Qing endowed modern China with today. This is why the pining over the Ming and the teeth gnashing over a portrayal like this, even if it stemmed from malign intentions from the writers set on "Ming bashing" and "Qing glazing," ultimately misses the point. In fact, it's good that a media product is provoking this sort of reaction because this is a bridge that Chinese society needs to inevitably cross and a subject that must be reckoned with sooner or latter. The traumatic sore of 400 years ago when the Qing succeeded Ming China is clearly still an open scar, if not wound, and often festering.
The "post-racial" idea formed that all Chinese, regardless of particular nationality and ethnicity, "are equal" as Chinese since the Xinhai Revolution clashes with this constant angst from parts of the Han Chinese majority, exemplified through whenever moments like this crop up. It's dangerous to leave unaddressed because the same nonsense occurred in the Soviet Union, where Khrushchev once bragged about the USSR having solved the "nationality problem." Then in thirty years time, the entire union was torn apart largely due to Great Russian chauvinism inflamed by Yeltsin who kicked out the Central Asian SSRs due to Russian disgust at "subsidizing the periphery." Kazakhstan then infamously became the last member of the Soviet Union with even Russia having seceded before it. Now, after another thirty years time, you can see the plain regret as Russia comes crawling back into Central Asia and the Caucasus to try to recover some of its geopolitical influence after the Russian majority's tantrum episode thrown under Yeltsin.
Looking at historical general opinion, the Han Chinese population seemed to have largely viewed Xinjiang with similar disdain to what the Russians held for the Central Asian SSRs, especially exacerbated by the early 2010s terrorist attacks, until the West's atrocity propaganda campaign galvanized a ferocious protectiveness of Xinjiang and an appreciation of the Uyghur Chinese as genuine and equally Chinese, as seen in part by the explosive domestic tourism numbers to Xinjiang in recent years. The only real way for China to ever be truly divided is by internal complicity and perhaps these sort of provocative moments (though this particular incident stemming from a video game seems like an unwarranted overreaction) are what's necessary to actually move the needle and prevent Han Chinese chauvinism from rearing its head to make the same mistakes that the Soviet Russians did.
The problem with the Han Chinese dynasties is that they are intractably isolationist in historical retrospect. It's undoubtedly partially culturally reductive to say this and viewing cultures in reductive civilizational cliches is not a rigorous mode of analysis, but it is worth drawing a few points from. The Qing and Yuan phases of expansion are in direct contrast with the remarkable lack of relative expansion under the so-called "Han Chinese" dynasties. Those two dynasties were established under conquest and actively contextualized their reign as one of triumphal subjugation over the general population and majority culture. Operating under that mode of cultural belief allows a more assertive geopolitical posture compared to the more passive foreign policy philosophies of the "traditional" dynasties.
It's impossible to say, in a historical counterfactual, whether the Ming would have been able to confront European imperialism in the way that the Qing ultimately failed to do, but the signs weren't positive with the Ming destroying Zheng He's fleet, allowing Portugal to settle in Macau and the Dutch and Spanish to occupy Taiwan. The problem is that apart from the Tang, every single "traditional" dynasty had been satisfied with merely holing up in "China proper" and occasioning extending to the Hexi Corridor. The only major moment of Han Chinese expansion from "China proper" after the Han dynasty (which first established the Protectorate of the Western Regions) was during the Tang but the Tang defeat by the Abbasids in Central Asia was unnecessarily treated as a Teutoburg Forest moment and it was frankly surprising that the Ming even bothered at all to restore a presence over Gansu and the Hexi Corridor.
Yes, the Qing lost ultimately Outer Mongolia and Outer Manchuria but those territories alongside Inner Mongolia, Dongbei, Tibet and Xinjiang's incorporation under Qianlong would possibly have never been made by at all by Han Chinese dynasties like the Ming.
A pragmatic assessment of the Qing can therefore be defined, basically word by word, through the same parameters that Stalin once gave about the Russian Tsars:
While there’s historical validity to the complaints of Ming nostalgists regarding the Qing’s systemic cultural suppression of the majority population to secure their rule, all that is still inconsequential from a geopolitical basis compared to this bequeathment that the Qing endowed modern China with today. This is why the pining over the Ming and the teeth gnashing over a portrayal like this, even if it stemmed from malign intentions from the writers set on "Ming bashing" and "Qing glazing," ultimately misses the point. In fact, it's good that a media product is provoking this sort of reaction because this is a bridge that Chinese society needs to inevitably cross and a subject that must be reckoned with sooner or latter. The traumatic sore of 400 years ago when the Qing succeeded Ming China is clearly still an open scar, if not wound, and often festering.
The "post-racial" idea formed that all Chinese, regardless of particular nationality and ethnicity, "are equal" as Chinese since the Xinhai Revolution clashes with this constant angst from parts of the Han Chinese majority, exemplified through whenever moments like this crop up. It's dangerous to leave unaddressed because the same nonsense occurred in the Soviet Union, where Khrushchev once bragged about the USSR having solved the "nationality problem." Then in thirty years time, the entire union was torn apart largely due to Great Russian chauvinism inflamed by Yeltsin who kicked out the Central Asian SSRs due to Russian disgust at "subsidizing the periphery." Kazakhstan then infamously became the last member of the Soviet Union with even Russia having seceded before it. Now, after another thirty years time, you can see the plain regret as Russia comes crawling back into Central Asia and the Caucasus to try to recover some of its geopolitical influence after the Russian majority's tantrum episode thrown under Yeltsin.
Looking at historical general opinion, the Han Chinese population seemed to have largely viewed Xinjiang with similar disdain to what the Russians held for the Central Asian SSRs, especially exacerbated by the early 2010s terrorist attacks, until the West's atrocity propaganda campaign galvanized a ferocious protectiveness of Xinjiang and an appreciation of the Uyghur Chinese as genuine and equally Chinese, as seen in part by the explosive domestic tourism numbers to Xinjiang in recent years. The only real way for China to ever be truly divided is by internal complicity and perhaps these sort of provocative moments (though this particular incident stemming from a video game seems like an unwarranted overreaction) are what's necessary to actually move the needle and prevent Han Chinese chauvinism from rearing its head to make the same mistakes that the Soviet Russians did.
I always wonder if current prime minister is Zhu Rongji, what will those Ming nostalgists do.
But the game is still a proper soul like, however it is said the investors are not happy tho.
Wuchang controversy about Ming dynasty portrayal was pretty stupid and unnecessary if you actually play the game.
- The last Ming emperor; Zhu Youjian was already committed suicide, the empire already lost when the game start. His consort and imperial guard are just unable to accept that and seek to resurrect him. Only to get the monster full of rage and destruction.
- Ming group in this game also represent in more positive than negative. They are loyalist who protect the village and innocent peoples from rebel and bandit but were overwhelmed by plague and about to lose. The reason you fight them is because you got fethering and they are hunt down the infected.
- Wuchang is most likely Han ethnic based on her family backstory. Her father was an high rank imperial official that even the commander of imperial guard known and respect.
- Rebel in this game also portray in way more negative. They are raid and slaughter innocent peoples throughout the game. You also fight and kill their resurrected leader; Zhang Xianzhong.
- Ming group in this game also represent in more positive than negative. They are loyalist who protect the village and innocent peoples from rebel and bandit but were overwhelmed by plague and about to lose. The reason you fight them is because you got fethering and they are hunt down the infected.
- Wuchang is most likely Han ethnic based on her family backstory. Her father was an high rank imperial official that even the commander of imperial guard known and respect.
- Rebel in this game also portray in way more negative. They are raid and slaughter innocent peoples throughout the game. You also fight and kill their resurrected leader; Zhang Xianzhong.
The game didn't have any Qing because the plot have nothing to do with them. It's not even about the fall of Ming dynasty since they already lost, they only use that time period as background. The story is more about personal journey of Wuchang to bring someone she lost and the obsession about immortality & resurrection that defy the nature of life and death.
You also only fight two historical figure in this game; Zhu Youjian and Zhang Xianzhong. The rest is fictional characters.
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The gameplay itself is solid and high-quality for a soulslike.
From using the end of Ming to goon bait, the developers tried to be too clever in their marketing, desperate to use whatever they can, and it backfired. Shoving the director's name at the start of the game is also a major narcissistic turn-off. I would predict sales would be 2x better if they released a public demo 1-2 months before launch and used "Wuchang" as the Chinese name.
Like Sekiro, the plot could use the end of a dynasty as a setting without using actual names. Zhang Xianzhong and Zhu Youjian can similarly just be fictional characters but still have the same roles. The player can fight a Miao-coded boss, but no Manchu, despite players leaving comments about wanting this under every pre-release video.
You can argue the plot doesn't require Qing enemies, but that's a conscious dev choice that goes against what players want. It's similar to western devs going against customer wants and adding "ugly woke" characters. And now they face the consequences of backlash and lower sales.
This is also a major signal for the upcoming "Blood Message" game. They need to include Tubo enemies or will face a similar backlash.