A recent Houston Chronicle blog post accused Valve of being insensitive in setting their newest zombie game, Left 4 Dead 2, in the city of New Orleans.
Set in New Orleans, players will have to fight their way through hordes of zombies – with several of them who appear to be African-Americans. When I saw the first trailer for the game, all I could think about was Hurricane Katrina and the aftermath. Setting the game in a city that was scene of dead, bloated bodies floating by so soon afterward was a bad call, IMHO. The city has had enough to deal with — Valve, you should have spared them, even if it’s just a video game.
Valve recently had a chance to respond in an interview with game blog Destructoid:
“Utter insanity,” said [Left 4 Dead writer Chet] Faliszek. “There are mixed races of zombies, there are all different races of zombies that you shoot, and since we placed it in New Orleans, that makes it racist I honestly re-read the paragraph about five times … but when two of the characters in your game are African-American, it’s a weird thing to be accused of. We’re like, ‘how does this work’
“As far as Katrina goes, if you go down to New Orleans, Katrina’s still going on. I mean, it’s messed up, it is crazy that the city is still in the state it’s in, and we treat that with the utmost respect,” he added. “Our CEDA thing is not some subversive commentary on anything. This is a videogame, those are real people’s lives, we are not trying to make a statement with that. It’s a place we love, it’s dear to our hearts. We would not cheapen it. It’s not a brick-for-brick representation of New Orleans; it’s a fictional version, and I love that city.”
We’d like to extend the offer of a free beer for both the Houston Chronicle write and the Left 4 Dead writer to hash out our differences and maybe even play a few games.
Our stance? Let s just say, if a zombie’s coming after me, I’m probably not going to care what race he is while he’s noshing on my foot.
I think we can all come together, all races and creeds, in agreeing on that immutable fact.
