The game is set in an island nation called Yara. Yara is very clearly meant to be a stand-in for Cuba. The reserve history of Yara goes something like this. Yara underwent a war of liberation. I don’t remember if they explicitly say that it was to overthrow Yanqui colonialism but it seems to be implied. This is similar to what happened in Cuba. But from here, the world veers into the realm of alternate timelines.

This war of liberation results in someone called Anton Castillo becoming the sole dictator of Yara. Yara is under American blockade (like Cuba). Yara has developed a drug that stops cancer cells from metastasising. Cuba has also made some progress against cancer coincidentally. Thia drug is Yara’s chief export. The problem is that it is produced by using a poisonous fertiliser on tobacco plantations. (Cuba is also heavily reliant on its tobacco export.) So Anton Castillo’s regime forces the poor to work on the fields despite the deleterious effects of this poisonous fertilizer. They also perform brutal human experimentation on the underpriviliged. Yara sells this drug to everyone except the US because the US has embargoed them.

So you play as a guerilla who is a member of a liberation movement trying to overthrow Castillo. You are supposed to form a coalition with other guerilla groups to achieve this end. There isn’t much ideology to these movements. Sometimes they talk about the important of free elections but that’s it.

My question is… why? Why do all this? Why not just let me liberate Yara from Yanquis and their stooges which would be far less confusing?

    • loathsome dongeater@lemmygrad.mlOPM
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      1 year ago

      I feel they knew exactly what they were doing. Because the steps taken to take America mostly out of the game’s equation are fairly elaborate. The part about ideology being weak is probably just related to AAA games having terrible writing in general.

      • WhatWouldKarlDo@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        It’s for sales. Telling the truth would anger the Americans. It’s the same reason that after Sands of Time, the prince became that godawful angsty American. It wasn’t fashionable to have a Persian protagonist after the world trade centre came down.

    • ☭CommieWolf☆@lemmygrad.ml
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      1 year ago

      Well, not really, the game was developed by Ubisoft Montreal, with support from various European branches, not that theres any real difference ideologically, but in this case its not the US for once. Which I’d hazard a guess and say is the reason the game is so muddled, if it was by a US studio then it would be much more likely to take a more obvious pro-US stance. What we got just seems to be a jumbled mishmash with no ideological grounding whatsoever.

    • PooPooTheClown@lemm.ee
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      1 year ago

      I see the US part… the liberal thing feels like an enemy you just constructed so you could look cool hitting it

      Edit: I’m a goober with little understanding of lemmy or world politics, please read comment below for more insight

      • Soviet Snake@lemmygrad.ml
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        1 year ago

        I assume you didn’t see what instance you are commenting on. With liberal I don’t mean democrat in US electoralism slang, I basically meant to say capitalist, which is not that different from republicans.

        • PooPooTheClown@lemm.ee
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          1 year ago

          Oh yep you’d be correct I haven’t figured that part out yet on lemmy. I now totally see what you’re saying