The tenth installment in Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands video game franchise has just been released for Microsoft Windows, PlayStation4 and Xbox One. Developer Ubisoft is billing the game as one of the biggest open world games they have ever published.
The game takes place in Bolivia in 2019 and pits the “Ghosts” U.S. army elite special operations unit against the fictional Santa Blanca Mexican drug cartel.
So, of course, a movement on social media reckons it’s racist. Beyond the fact the enemy is a Mexican cartel, though, people aren’t quite certain why:
Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon: Not Sure If Racist
— gerrowadat (@gerrowadat) March 8, 2017
Ghost Recon Wildlands FEELS racist, but too broadly for me to pinpoint exactly why. like, Fast & Furious movie racist.
— Calamity Archie (@TallPrivilege) June 13, 2016
Is Tom CLancy Racist against mexicans?
— AboveTopSecret.txt (@abovetopsecretx) March 10, 2017
Others are more certain:
ghost recon wildlands is literal racist propaganda where bolivia is reduced to a cartoon murder playground, the side missions are dull, 6/10
— j a c k s o n (@headfallsoff) March 9, 2017
i’m not kidding when i say you haven’t seen racist american jingoism in games until you’ve played wildlands
— Tegiminis (@tegiminis) March 15, 2017
Hey, can we all talk about Ghost Recon: Wildlands’ weird racist and sexist trailer? https://t.co/3G7ynnii2V pic.twitter.com/17OgeS08kU
— E Warren (@grandquiet) March 10, 2017
But still no concrete examples of racism beyond a thematic unease…
The Bolivian government isn’t happy about the country being depicted as a bloodthirsty narco-state, filing a formal complaint to the French embassy in La Paz. Bolivia’s Interior Minister Carlos Romero even threatened legal action.
A Ubisoft statement responded: “Tom Clancy’s Ghost Recon Wildlands is a work of fiction, similar to movies or TV shows. Like all Tom Clancy’s games from Ubisoft, the game takes place in a modern universe inspired by reality but the characters, locations and stories are all fantasies created solely for entertainment purposes.”
Good luck taking on that defense in a court of law as opposed to the Twitter justice system.