The video game won’t be available before 2025, but its proposed preview on the web has already caused controversy, divisions and a “theft” of the domain, which due to an oversight on the renewal has delivered it into the hands of the Spanish far right.
The arrival of the irruption into the vast world of gamers makes noise Ecumene Aztec, the latest computer jewel produced by the Polish studio Gaintscraft and placed on the market with only a few presentation frames. It dives into history and re-proposes the conquest of the then Spanish Crown army Mexica Empire, present-day Mexico, and in particular of the great Tenochtitlan. But he does it by transfiguring the historical narrative, he reverses the role of the bad guys and the good guys. A sort of digital redemption for the abuses, revenges, betrayals and violence suffered by the Aztecs by the soldiers of Hernán Cortés during the year 1521.
In the game you are a warrior who opposes the incursion of the Spanish military. You suffer the first assaults but soon you have to juggle traps, fights and clashes trying to eliminate as many enemies as possible. The environment is reconstructed in detail. It’s so sophisticated that, like any good computer product, you feel like you’re living in a real way. But it is also the same forests that surround the ancient imperial capital that aroused the first criticisms that opened the doors to divisions and furious controversies.
Spain, but Mexico itself, both sensitive to a past that still causes discussion, have split. The detractors recall that the then Tenochtitlàn was not immersed in the jungle and that its inhabitants were not those savage bloodthirsty worshipers of the sun god, repeatedly described in books and evoked in films such as the famous Apocalypto by Mel Gibson. Not to mention how the soldiers sent to the new world are represented: “Ruthless killers, looters, slavers and genocides,” reads a post on the game’s Instagram profile. This infuriated the Spanish ultra-conservative groups, who tried to boycott it. Then something more happened. Someone connected to the world of Vox has noticed that the lease of the domain had not been renewed. He took advantage of the administrative oversight and bought it, occupying it. He has thus transformed it into a space that celebrates the Spanish conquest and at the same time an excellent megaphone for the fascists and the extreme right.
Canada, three parents sue Fortnite: “It’s addictive like cocaine”
by Massimo Basile
Telling the curious ideological “turn”, The country he also explains that the old owners noticed the mistake. But too late. They could only link the video game site to a link in which they tell what had happened and what was the initial purpose of their product. In the various comments posted on the same page, opposing theses follow one another. There are those who insist on the “black legend” about the very bad Spanish soldiers and those who reiterate a more uncomfortable “truth”. “The reality”, reads the profile, “is that only 500 Spaniards were enough to overthrow the Aztec leaders, thanks to the help of 120,000 Indians who were trying to rebel against the tyranny of their oppressors”.
History and experts agree that beyond 80 percent of the indigenous people of Mesoamerica he died in battle, exploited as a slave and decimated by the diseases brought by the conquistadors and their animals. But the academic world itself is divided when it comes to establishing an objective truth. If the consequence of this genocide was the price to pay for the ransom of the indigenous people from their ruthless Aztec kings, or if it was an excuse to fulfill a religious mission, accompanied by the Cross of Burgundy. A debate of little interest to the Spanish extreme right. A representative of Gianscrfat, who asked not to be named, confirmed to the specialized magazine The Verge that he received heavy attacks when he came out Ecumene Aztec. Even death threats.