Command & Conquer developer Victory Games says people found the Middle Eastern makeup of the Global Liberation Army “pretty offensive,” and so it’s being changed.
In the fiction of Command & Conquer, the Global Liberation Army is a “quasi-terrorist, transnational organization,” as the C&C Wiki puts it, and while it maintains bases and engages in operations all around the world, it’s based primarily in the Middle East. But in response to complaints from gamers who found that to be an offensive stereotype, Victory Games says it will diversify the GLA lineup in the upcoming free-to-play edition of Command & Conquer.
“This is actually a pretty big change for the game,” Tim Morten, senior development director at Victory Games, told Polygon. “Anyone who knows this series will know the Global Liberation Army. But at the studio we had a bad reaction from people saying it was pretty offensive to have Middle-Eastern characters as militants.”
The GLA in this new incarnation of Command & Conquer will feature five generals of varied backgrounds, which Morten said – humorously – means the game will now “probably just offend everybody.”
Victory Games’ free-to-play Command & Conquer is being developed for the PC and is expected to come out later this year.
Source: Polygon
