See no evil, hear no evil, speak no evil

In a hilariously unfortunate circumstance involving a well timed critique I posted last night, entitled “Death of the Dev”, news recently broke about a patch for Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, that relates to massive amounts of censorship for the title being patched into the game, and what may be a grim omen for the future of the Chinese gaming industry.

For more context: I was addressing the notion of the concept of “Death of the Author” as it applies to video games. Imperfectly so, I might add, as I didn’t have more time to extrapolatr upon the base idea, and was largely referencing ideas involving leaving the gameplay being mostly untouched, as single player content, outside of game breaking bugs, should belong to “the players”, as it were, leaving the base experience largely “as is” in relation to launch, for X,Y, and Z reasons. I understand Devs have the want to “perfect” their own formula as it were, but given some insight and context, I think there’s plenty of room for the discussion of the “Death of the Author” concept, especially when metaphorically paired with the reference point of “Han shooting first”, with the irate fan backlash prompted from Lucas altering Star Wars, which I made mention of towards the end of the article. Sloppy premise? Certainly. One devoid of merit? Not at all, and definitely worthy of dialogue.

The hilariously unfortunate circumstance I reference, however, is with my own posit of the concept of “Death of the Author”, re-appropriated for video games, i.e. “Death of the Devs”, and how it now, less than 24 hours later, involves an update for Wuchang: Fallen Feathers, which adds an entire new layer of implication to my initial proposition.

In a new update (1.5) that came to the game this past week, some of the patch notes involving the changes to the title included the following description:

 “Made adjustments to animations, values, and level design for certain NPCs and AI. Added dialogs for some NPCs to complete some plots. We will further optimize the exhaustion animations in the future to improve the plot performance.”

What’s insane about the update is how much it alters the game, as it no longer makes it possible to kill certain bosses and other NPCs who are based on real-life historical figures. This is apparently due to fan outcry, according to VGC who was one of the publications to report on the event, who cited modder Lance McDonald’s quote on why the changes came about, being quoted as saying “actual censorship due to pressure from Chinese players who were upset about being able to kill historically significant characters from the end of the Ming Dynasty”.

****SPOILERS FOR WUCHANG AHEAD***

McDondald was quoted again, in pointing out some of the insane reasons as to why the changes are over the top ridiculous… you know, beyond all of the obvious pretext of nationalism and thin-skinned media consumption in response to actual real world historical events impacting a fictional work. McDonald pointing out:
“…ruins the entire point of the game’s plot about impermanence”, adding: “The entire plot of the game is about the Ming Dynasty coming to an end, and the folly of refusing to let it end, and the protag’s sister dying and the folly of refusing to accept her death. Then they do this mess and now I don’t even know what.”

So yeah, not only does the new update change the gameplay, not just from a story standpoint, to help propping up the absurdist standards Chinese media has in terms of censorship in relation to their culture, it also fundamentally changes the game, with both dialogue options affecting the interplay of events, and the in-game narrative losing gusto, due to it’s address of how the story deals with the twists and turns of it’s own plot vs the historical significance of events that have already occurred. The 1.5 update also alters the gameplay, as Chapter 4, which deals significantly with a historical rebellion, is now fundamentally easier, as it is reported that about half the enemy combatants cannot attack the player, due to the reasons mentioned.

This obviously adds a massive layer of complication to my initial premise, but contributes wildly both to my notions of why it’s important to maintain the untouched integrity of single player content, and now adds further fuel to the fire, perhaps feeding into the notion of game preservation, and why archival work is so vital in helping to maintain an accurate historical record in the world of the digital, and the video game medium in general.

While the initial reports of Wuchang being censored states it was in direct response to “Chinese players who were upset”, this doesn’t completely answer the question of whether or not the changes were made voluntarily by Chinese developer Leenzee, to possibly get ahead of the matter, and make the editorial changes before they were forced to make the changes by the Chinese government, or whether or not the player push back involved relevant officials in high places within the Chinese authority to reach out first themselves, who then would have contacted Leenzee, with a not-so-optional declaration to implement the changes, or be at risk of being shut down and the game banned as a consequence.

Ultimately, it’s a shitty situation, but a totally predictable one. I take a moment now to make it clear: I’m not in favor of censorship, nor do I blame developer Leenzee for the changes they made. I’m just familiar with prior occasions of censorship involving the Chinese government, on matters both big and small, so this was honestly something that many likely saw coming, and many more should have saw coming, from about 20,000 miles away.

I suppose to follow up on my initial posit, of “Death of the Devs” notion, especially with games like Wuchang, there will always be “more than one” version of the game, based on a lot of context. In this case, there is at least, a few versions of Wuchang that will exist, leaving us, the gaming industry, with an objective and subjective moment in time. There will be the version that the Chinese nationalists want everyone to play, the version Leenzee originally put out, and then a third version that may yet be distinct from either that a fan gets a hold of down the line, that is further affected by the changes, leaving yet another version to pick from.

Much like my article yesterday, involving my initial posits of “Death of the Dev”, this is an incomplete idea, and a still evolving one, now with one more caveat thrown into the mix in terms of preservation related to unhampered with single player content. However this idea continues to evolve, I am certain of at least one thing- China forcing censorship on Wuchang is a grim sign for the of the Chinese gaming industry.

~Pashford