The Twitch streamer Asmongold continues to struggle with changes that Blizzard is making to their games to be less sexually suggestive. Now Asmongold addresses the change to the Amazon in Diablo 2 Resurrected . Blizzard has given the fighter more masculine facial features. Asmongold says that Blizzard is doing this only to cover up the fact that people were sexually harassed in their offices.
This is the change to the Amazon in Diablo 2 Resurrected: We have already reported on MeinMMO that the Amazon in Diablo 2 Resurrected received more masculine facial features than in the original Diablo 2.
Blizzard stated that they did not want the warrior Amazon to look like she just came from a nightclub.
The change was controversially discussed among fans. They mocked the new image of the Amazon and said she looked like the actor William Dafoe.
There are numerous memes and jokes about how “unfeminine” the Amazon now appears.
“Condescending and paternalistic”
This is what Asmongold criticizes about the changes: While he himself plays Final Fantasy XIV, the well-known Twitch streamer Asmongold deals with the change to the Amazon. Asmongold is known as a passionate fan of WoW and Blizzard, but has recently struggled with the publisher’s redirection.
He seems to be bothered by the change on principle. He criticizes that Blizzard, after the sexism scandal , is now changing so much in their games:
“I want to play a video game. The steps they take to change a game just to cover up that people were harassed in their office, that’s really … it offends me as a player.”
Asmongold
Asmongold says that these changes reflect a condescending and paternalistic attitude. Blizzard acts as if it were somehow a fault of the players to play the game.
For Asmongold, after such changes, a game would no longer be an expression of artistic intent, but a vehicle for a message, for an agenda.
Asmongold is clearly a strong opponent of the changes at Blizzard: They had committed to make changes to their games after the sexism scandal. Among other things, paintings of half-naked women in World of Warcraft were replaced with fruit bowls:
After sexism scandal: WoW replaces half-naked woman with fruit
