I can reply only for myself.
I have a zero-tolerance policy on uncalled for and excessive white noise/virtue signaling (commonly known as bull-shit), so I will not be supporting or purchasing any products which violate this policy.
I do not know what the future holds for their developers and I don't enforce this policy preemptively.
I believe it's mostly self-respecting.
And it is a clown world.

Race swapping a Nordic goddess is pretty damn insulting to that region and it's mythology in and of itself, but the real reason the game is bad is because woke ideologues are entirely incapable of writing compelling, believable characters or narratives, their world view does not allow it because they see traditional, normal human behaviors and interests as problematiic or oppressive things that must be subverted and repaced with their ideals.

And boy howdy is Ragnarok a victim of such writing, for starters, in trying to subvert a male protagonist that the writers consider "toxic", they turned Kratos into a sad sack full of self doubt and emotional turmoil. They call this character development, when he's really just been inverted, deliberately altered and weakened to push a narrative, they took away his identity and it rightfully pissed a lot of fans off, including David Jaffe, the creator of the character.

On top of the entirely out-of-character protagonist, the game's plot and pacing are in the toilet, with consistently cringey, borderline high school drama caliber dialogue spoken by grating, unbelievable characters in ponderous cutscenes that go on too long and happen way too frequently. The game also yanks control away to show you more of this awful story so often that you can't even really ignore it and try to just enjoy the gameplay.

The gulf in quality between this game on GOG right now and the sequel is huge. This is what always happens when you hire these kind of people to work your narrative, you end up with a compromised game that is pretentious, yet crudely and childishly written and unrelatable to the average joe consumer. Ragnarok may not be the most on-the-nose preachy of SBI games but it is still pretty damn bad.

If you want actual good games, you better believe we should boycott products that are involved with blatant activist groups like this.

You're right. You defined yourself as anti-woke. It's in black and white. The internet never forgets.

So formerly the most powerful man on Earth has some of the most controversial, misinformed, unlawful and dumb takes on social media. And he might become the most powerful man on Earth soon again. If people are going to enforce this "private social media posts should interfere with and impact your work life" then it should be equal to everyone. All or nothing.

So personal tweets are proof of factual inaccuracies in the Kotaku article? Of which you have named none, zero, zilch? Got it. Actually no, I will keep treating Twitter/X as the ultimate cesspool of hate and misinformation it is, thank you very much.

Wait. You think Alan Wake 2, Spider-Man 2 and God of War Ragnarök are REAL WORLD subjects? Ok then.

It seems you read too hastily, no surprise there. I didn't say, imply or mandate that people should "respond to EVERY SINGLE sentence" of a comment. I told you it was dishonest and arguing in bad faith when you only reply to and quote words or phrases from singular sentences out of singular paragraphs, omitting the rest of the sentence and statement that would have changed or explained the meaning completely well. Only for you to be able to comment something remotely reasonable without losing face. That's sad.

Look, it's very simple, maybe you will finally understand. The burden of proof is on the one making the claim, especially a strong one, that they doubled down on. You? You have repeatedly stated that Sweet Baby Inc. inserts diverse characters to fictitious games to their detriment and adds "artificial" writing (whatever the fck that means) and bs to them. I asked: "Could you please show when and where SBI did that, with some verifiable facts or evidence or reasoning or anything to back you up?". You provided nothing.

You? You have repeatedly claimed how full of factual inaccuracies Kotaku is, especially this investigative article into GamersGate2.0 harassment, and that Kotaku's downfall can be easily seen. I asked when and where can you see this? What are the factual inaccuracies in the article? You provided nothing.

The only thing you provided after several very long walls of text, is some singular personal tweet from a singular Kotaku journalist, as if that was proof of factual inaccuracies in the article.

Indeed, the only thing that you seem to object to, is wokeness, wherever you perceive it supposedly. You are the definition of anti-woke, and you don't even seem aware of it. That's sad.

If you had backed up anything you constantly claimed, then this discussion would have been a lot shorter. I basically called you out on your bs, and I was right, you pulled the allegations out of your ass because you couldn't stand them being opposed to your world view. How dare they invade your safe space with forced diversity and inclusion, am I right? I mean, look at Alan Wake 2, how dare they put in a black woman protagonist into a Finnish game, and with such a Nordic name? Surely she should be blonde and white and a viking? Right? Artificial slop, it was. Boo Sweet Baby Inc. Boo Kotaku for reporting on it. Let's boycott them, throw in some harassment maybe for good measure. /s

You clearly should be. Nobody masters inane drivel whilst saying nothing, quite like you. It's quite a talent, really.

Ah yes, the GamersGate harassment campaigns due to journalists invading the safe space of frothing-at-the-mouth pasty-white manchildren. Their last bastion and reeking cave of filth - video gaming. You should be proud of the torture people inflicted on those people. It was of course justified for infringing grossly upon your pastime hobby. How dare they?

What exactly do you think is being shoved in your face? Do you think that Sweet Baby Inc. made Remedy write their main character as a black woman? Do you think that Remedy would have gone with a white male, without Sweet Baby Inc.'s involvement? What about Spider Man 2's diverse cast? What about God of War Ragnarök's? How would the story have been better without diversity and inclusion? Can you point to some examples?

How about killing (also banging some) Greek and Nordic gods by some made-up Greek deity modeled on generic American pop culture badasses? It's ridiculous to pick on something like that while the whole premise of the franchise is "insulting" in its core.

My thoughts exactly, complaining about the writing is fair game (tho I'd argue only the original and this "reboot" tries) but getting all outraged because a character has an inappropriate skin color is... tough, God of War isn't exactly historically accurate, nor does it respect most mythos

So instead of throwing the same, tired buzzwords (iS It WoKe??) maybe focus on the actual issues Ragnarok may have

At this point, I believe I have a very good understanding of why and how the series turned woke.
I condemn such subversive practices. Even if God of War seems to be a straight arrow, I will not be purchasing it.
Nevertheless, I would like to congratulate the GOG team for securing more releases and I wish them the best on bringing more curated games to their customers in the immediate and far future.
I wish all of you plenty of fun, whatever games you choose to play (except pornography related ones).

The second character in Alan Wake 2 was going to be a white woman. I think people are tired of the forced race swapping that is one-sided. It's getting so bad there trying to lie about history in documentaries. This issue goes far beyond gaming. Good job at being racist by the way.

Anyway, why are we still talking about this issue? Just play the game. That's what I'm doing.

Do you really not understand that race swapping like this is only being done in one direction, by people like SBI for political reasons, not authentic storytelling ones? Kratos may have been just made up and inserted into mythology, but at least he was written with the intent of being entertainment, an appealing power fantasy character in a narrative that was trying to be, foremost, fun. Ragnarok attempts none of this because it was heavily influenced and written by activists.

While the DEI crap in this game makes me roll my eyes, it's really the core of the game, the appalling written, glacially paced storytelling which drags down and interferes with everything else that is the problem. But it is a problem born of the same source, these issues are directly the result of, as I said before, wokeness. It is because of political activists masquerading as writers and consultants, cramming their narcissistic worldview into existing properties because they have no actual creative ability and know that no one is going to pay attention to them if they try to make their own original IPs.

Maybe it is a year in the 13th century. Let's have a look at the Eddas
https://www.gutenberg.org/cache/epub/14726/pg14726-images.html A GENDERFLUID Loki transformed into a MARE (SEX CHANGE, TRANSFORMATION INTO A HORSE, TRANSSEXUAL) and was IMPREGNATED by Svaðilfari (A STALLIAN). He (A MAN) gave BIRTH to Sleipnir. Even Baldur's Gate 3 hasn't managed something like this with its bear.

The Norse mythology is WOKE as F***. When the Eddas were written nobody knew that they wrote woke garbage.

Even people in the 14th century already knew that to be religious mythos, as still do the majority of people in the 21st century.
Only a minority of persons believe this can become/should be an established reality today (much like the existence of magical powers).
Norse mythology is commonly accepted to be... mythology. A fictitious story appealing to the 14th-17th century man's religious needs, already set in stone, done and dusted.

Nobody should have to argue about significantly diverging from its already set parts (events, people, gods, e.t.c.) and it is irrationally outrageous to suggest otherwise (e.g. Kratos and his deeds are an addition for the purposes of entertaining a modern audience, are not and will not become a set part of the mythos).

They could make their own mythology with their own gods and events, not clash with/rip off a preexisting one. In older/ancient days, I believe it was called a herressy to do so (it still is actually), and was even punishable by death (it still is in extreme cases). Because we no longer treat Norse mythology as having religious substance (there is a minority who does), it does not mean we should alter its set parts to the limit of producing a degenerate outcome.

The Norse mythology is ... a mythology. What a statement! And it is fiction! A fiction where the woke parts have to be removed in a quote. Of course, a copyright-free fiction which already has been altered with Greek mythology can't be altered any further.

LOL.

We can also have a look at Angrboða who is depicted as a black woman in God of War Ragnarok. Angrboða is a mother of a giant wolf, a giant serpent which encircles the Earth, and a crippled woman where one half of her body is dead. This is even more INCLUSIVE than modern fiction. Here is a nice family picture

https://www.gog.com/upload/forum/2024/03/a1cbbc7f012e8d49fc8e8b80bc8378741f5129c9.jpg

Changes to this are so outrageous that we have to write long walls of texts and whine, bitch and moan all day over the internet.

On X you can find this from the director of Alan Wake 2 though.
https://twitter.com/TimePirateNinja/status/1764697135344202183?s=20

Prove this please. foad01 already linked how Remedy acategorically refutes and dismisses this.


It can also be found in this Wired article about the GamersGate2.0 harassment of journalists and Sweet Baby Inc.:

https://www.wired.com/story/sweet-baby-video-games-harassment-gamergate/ And I wouldn't even know how what you claimed works, since Sweet Baby Inc. comes in to consult the narrative so late in the process, all the graphical assets have been done, and most of the voice acting and writing. Did Remedy at the very initial stages, before anything was done, "race-swap" (jesus, what a term) the protagonist? To the story's detriment? This is an award-winning game that has been praised endlessly, and the whole thing was built around the black female actress. You better be ready to back up what you just claimed.

Wow, wtf??!!! If you can't quote me being racist, then you better own up and like an adult take it the fck back and apologise.

Wtf, mate. What is your damage?? This is a video gaming forum. Learn to act like a human being ffs.

Actually, you're falsely accusing people of being racist, for no reason, on a video gaming forum. So no, you're not just playing games.

Calling people pasty-white man children is not racist? lol Your one acting unhinged on gaming form not me.

Not only did you ignore direct questions at you about the topic, and to back up even a little bit what you claimed, you doubled down on your accusation based on nothing.

Pasty-white pale nerd manchild was not a deragatory term against one race, in context. It is therefore thus not racist. It was clearly directed at the nerdy, living in mom's basement, never go out, crowd, that nerd-rages frothing at the mouth against "woke" ideology, as they have not experienced life and the world around them. Never mind the sun.

You need to take it back. You can't just shout "RaCiSt!" at people on video gaming forums based on nothing, because you disagree with what they're saying.

Coincidentally, you have succumbed to what you accuse the left of doing - throwing around the word racist so it loses its meaning. *slow claps*