After statements from members of the Mordhau development team implied players would be able avoid seeing player characters of another ethnicity or gender, Triternion is saying that particular option was never officially on the table and will not be coming to the game.
In a recent interview with PC Gamer regarding how developers can deal with toxic players, Triternion artist Mike Desroisiers mentioned that, with Mordhau getting the option to characters who aren’t white and/or male in the future, there could be an option for players to only see white male characters, saying it’d be similar to having online chat filters. “Whatever stance we take officially, some group of people are going to be upset with us,” Desroisiers told PC Gamer. “And so, ideally we’d put the power in the players’ hands, and give them the option to enable and disable different things.”
This prompted a sea of controversy online, as people debated whether such a toggle would curb and enable more toxicity. Today, however, Triternion posted on the company’s official forums, stating the comments made to PC Gamer were not based on a misunderstanding, and that such a toggle was never going to be an option.
According to the statement, the artists involved in the interview, including Desroisiers, aren’t involved character development or decisions like a race/gender toggle, and due to a lack of PR experience “ended up answering some of the questions in a misleading way, which combined with a lack of context, led to some very controversial statements.” The statements in the interview were apparently based on a discussed, but never-officially-planned option to toggle player characters to be all male, female, or a mix of both. “Shortly after launch and in internal discussions, the concept of a gender option toggle was dismissed as it would undermine the customization players work hard to create,” the statement reads. “Our official stance is that these toggle options are out of the question.”
The statement also goes on to address the topic of toxicity in general, stating that currently the team is “stretched thin,” on developing the game and thus cannot properly moderate the game or forums, but that the team is planning to improve in this regard in the future.
For more on Mordhau itself, check out our review of the game.
Source: Game Informer
