Homeworld 3 Changed by Activists During Development?

Video Games

Yet another video game appears to have been infected with wokeness, DEI, and other Hydra heads, but this one is an interesting case because it seems to have been done late in the game’s development. I’m talking about Homeworld 3, a real-time strategy sci-fi game developed by Blackbird Interactive and published by Gearbox Software. Homeworld 3 is a sequel arriving over twenty years after its immediate predecessor, Homeworld 2, and was developed and distributed by different companies from the first two, who launched a crowdfunding campaign that polled fans, asking them what they wanted in a new Homeworld game. They even brought on some of the original Homeworld developers to help make the new one. It looked like the recipe for a crowd-pleaser.

Since then, however, Gearbox was acquired by Swedish company Embracer Group, and Homeland 3 was delayed several times before finally being released on May 13, 2024. The final result is… not good. Steam reviews are very mixed, with the gameplay and other mechanics considered decent  but the story supposedly a mess that interferes with the universe’s lore and is inconsistent with the previous Homeworld games. The story also revolves around three women, one of whom is the villain (who is, of course, not really bad, because female villains can never just be evil anymore) and one of whom is the main hero who has been redesigned in… let’s say a similar way to Lara Croft (whose current license owner, Crystal Dynamics, is also owned by Embracer Group). The ArchCast has a video that goes into this in detail:

As ArchCast explains, this seems to come down to Lin Joyce, Gearbox’s “managing director of narrative properties,” which is a fancy way of saying that she oversaw the game’s story and gave notes on various plot and character elements. Interestingly, Joyce’s promotion to her previous position, head of writing, coincided with the first of many delays for Homeworld 3; her next promotion came ahead of the many changes in the game and subsequent delays. However, it’s probably not all Lin Joyce; Kabrutus, creator of the Sweet Baby Inc. Detected curator and the DEI Detected website, made a video identifying some of the woke, DEI-pushing groups that receive a “special thanks” in the Homeworld 3 end credits:

All this adds up to another highly anticipated video game ruined by activists with agendas that don’t include telling a good story that fits with an established franchise. It’s a shame; I’ve never played a Homeworld game, but at this point, we’ve all felt this pain somewhere. This time feels even worse because Blackbird and Gearbox specifically asked fans what they wanted in this game (and took money from them), then seemingly ignored them. Was Embracer Group’s acquisition of Gearbox a factor? Remember, they also own Crystal Dynamics, the company currently trying to destroy Tomb Raider. It feels like beloved video game series are slowly but surely being acquired and transformed into “improved” versions of themselves in this way, and it’s getting harder to escape it.