Ubisoft facing backlash over new Tom Clancy game’s gross use of Black Power imagery

Ubisoft’s terrible summer continues with an unforced error which prompted swift backlash followed by an apology that many see as inadequate.

The trouble started on Aug. 25 with the release of the Tom Clancy’s Elite Squad mobile game. In an opening sequence that introduces the story and setting we learn about the anarchist group UMBRA, which we’re told is taking advantage of societal unrest to destabilize government.

Notably, the sequence associates UMBRA with a stylized raised Black fist, imagery that is typically associated with the Black Power movement. More recently, the image has come to be associated with Black Lives Matter. 

Just to spell it all out: The video is introducing an antagonistic terrorist organization in UMBRA that’s working under the auspices of protest for positive change, except their real goal is widespread destabilization of civic order. The visual iconography tied to UMBRA’s protest group illusion is a raised Black fist.

In the subsequent backlash, critics of Elite Squad took issue with the use of the raised fist as a terror group’s con. It feeds into the false notion IRL that Black Lives Matter is some kind of anarcho-terrorist organization, an incorrect view that’s been nurtured by far-right figureheads, including Donald Trump.

The backlash continued throughout the week following Elite Squad‘s launch until Ubisoft was compelled to respond over the weekend. The French publisher issued a brief apology that also pledged to remove the offending imagery in forthcoming updates for Android (Sept. 1) and iOS (“as soon as possible”).

The apology didn’t go over well.

As many pointed out, the issue is as much the game’s premise as it is what Ubisoft called its “insensitive and harmful” use of imagery that has deep-rooted historical and political implications. Elite Squad pitches the idea that an active and energetic protest action can be subverted by hostile forces, implicitly feeding into far-right narratives that frame BLM supporters as anarchists.

The game’s remedy for these terrorists-as-protesters? A crack team of elite government agents. Yet another lean toward the false far-right narrative we’re living with in 2020, which sees Trump regularly calling for a greater federal enforcement presence to quell protests in “Democrat-run cities.”

It’s worth noting that the premise isn’t completely outside the realm of what’s normal for a Tom Clancy title. The late novelist who is known for military and espionage stories set around and after the Cold War era, is well-known his right-leaning views. He died in 2013, but it’s not unbelievable to see a story like this bearing his name.

Ubisoft’s apology acknowledged the “insensitive” use of BLM iconography in the intro video. But critics of Elite Squad contend – correctly, I believe – that the framing as a whole is equally insensitive. 

The U.S.A. is in a state of social upheaval as we reckon (again) with centuries of systemic racism and its impact on society. Releasing a game that suggests protest actions are really just cover for terrorism in the midst of such an environment seems like the very definition of insensitive. It’s also, as many critics pointed out, grossly capitalizing on very real (and harmful) unrest.

Unfortunately, Ubisoft’s pledge to fix the offending imagery likely won’t extend any further than that. The game is made and released already, and the Tom Clancy tie gives the publisher the cover it needs to justify Elite Squad‘s “the protesters are actually terrorists in disguise” framing.

Even if it’s still, to quote the publisher yet again, “insensitive and harmful.”