Seeing this happen in-game is both infuriating and validating. President Obama demonstrated this skill a number of times while he was in office. What’s code-shifting, or code-switching? It’s a term that refers to how people shift how they act or speak, their cultural identity, when dealing with different groups of people. We hear them ‘code shifting’ their words as they greet the local workers.” Because Marcus and Horatio are so charismatic, we’re able to easily walk in their shoes. “With the second goal of our narrative team - to keep things light and fun, even when tackling serious subjects. “Our primary goal with the narrative was to try to reflect the truth behind the various stories in the Bay Area,” he continued. “By choosing Marcus Holloway (a black man from Oakland) as our hero, we knew this would create some interesting challenges as he worked his way through the tech industry, especially Silicon Valley,” Dominic Guay, senior producer of Watch Dogs 2, told us via email, when we asked about this aspect of the game.
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That’s something that was thought about during production, and the creative team seemed to wrestle a bit with how to discuss race. Where Mafia 3 took us back to 1968 with slurs, blatant racism and worse put upon that game’s Lincoln Clay, Watch Dogs 2 is set in the present day, showing us Marcus Holloway dealing with the covert racism that now comes part and parcel with being black in the U.S. It’s pleasing to see another game tackle race and blackness besides Mafia 3 this year. This coworker gives them both a suspicious once over before casually threatening to take his “concerns” to HR.Īny person of color with a white colleague who’s been convinced they don’t belong has had that same experience the same sense of being guilty until proven innocent … and then still maybe being called guilty. The moment passes between them as they enter the cafeteria, and Horatio gets his daily dose of microaggression from a white colleague who’s sure Horatio’s up to no good. Hey, what do you call a black man surrounded by thousands of white people?" Horatio: "Ha, man, welcome to Silicon Valley. Sometimes humor is our only option to keep cool in this situation, and that’s how Horatio responds. Horatio questions that with, “Scared? Of what?”įor anyone who’s been the only or one of a few black folks in a tech office, Marcus’ answer is obvious. Marcus says to Horatio as they arrive at the campus, "Hey, Horatio man. When they are walking around the Nudle campus - Nudle being the game’s satirical version of a huge technology company - there’s a moment between them that many of us have had when working in corporate life. The true turning point that made me love this game was the following conversation between Marcus and Horatio, the only other brother on the team with a legit day job where he’s also doubling up as a source of info for DedSec. That wasn’t my first surprise in terms of how Watch Dogs 2 tackled race. Even a bit of explanation would have gotten me more involved, but all wasn’t lost after those first few hours. In the introductory mission, we are directed to delete Marcus’ profile from the CTOS servers, but we have no idea why he’s doing this, just that it needs to be done for him to complete his initiation into DedSec. Since I turned away from the first Watch Dogs, I had no clue as to why protagonist Marcus Holloway might be so amped to join DedSec, an elite group of hackers. In fact, I was bored with the game at first. I hadn’t expected to like, let alone find a soft spot for, the characters in Watch Dogs 2, but I don’t mind this sort of pleasant surprise in my gaming. Consider the ridiculous argument that Battlefield 1 is “blackwashing World War I.” The creators of Remember Me likewise had a hard time selling their game with a black female lead until Capcom picked it up. That’s all too rare in gaming for many players. There are characters I could identify with, and who spoke to my experiences. The hero of the game is Marcus Holloway, a sympathetic young black hacker, and my favorite scene includes Horatio Carlin, the other black hacker we get to know in DedSec. Considering the way the first game served up an unlikeable stereotype of a misanthropic hacker, the sequel is a breath of fresh air. Watch Dogs 2 surprised me with how it handled the microaggressions that black folks in the tech sector often encounter.
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