Tomb Raider Remastered Trilogy Includes Racial And Ethnic Stereotype Warnings

thegamer.com:

Tomb Raider Remastered Trilogy is almost here, bringing with it Lara's first three adventures to modern systems. They're absolute classics, full of dramatic moments, tense fights, and a whole host of new and improved features, but with all of that good stuff comes with it the series' dodgy past, particularly when it comes to the depictions of certain cultures.

Tomb Raider 3 in particular will probably raise a few eyebrows nowadays due to its stereotypical and racist depictions of a group of South American natives who dance, wield blowguns, and are implied to be cannibals. However, rather than scrub the game clean of any implied racism or prejudice, developer Crystal Dynamics has opted to include a warning for players upon booting up the game that they may see racial and ethnic stereotyping (thanks IGN).

In this warning, Crystal Dynamics states that it wanted to keep the racist stereotypes in their original form rather than remove them, as it hopes that doing so will help people "acknowledge its harmful impact" and that we can all "learn from it" going forward. It's a rather novel approach to dealing with outdated content, especially in something like a remaster that has given developers the opportunity to change things, but it's an approach that appears to be a positive one overall.

The games in this collection contain offensive depictions of people and cultures rooted in racial and ethnic prejudices. These stereotypes are deeply harmful, inexcusable, and do not align with our values at Crystal Dynamics.

Lots of people on social media are praising Crystal Dynamics for sticking with the game's original vision despite the racist stereotypes, and would rather have developers just acknowledge outdated content and provide warnings rather than remove things from beloved games outright. There are some arguments in bad faith, and some people are moaning about the sheer existence of a content warning, as expected, but the vast majority seem to be applauding Crystal Dynamics