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Vid game's easiest level makes players white, hardest level makes them black

South Park doing what it does best: making you laugh, uncomfortably

Science fiction author John Scalzi once wrote that “In the role playing game known as The Real World, 'Straight White Male' is the lowest difficulty setting there is.”

His words now appear to have influenced the developers of the latest video game based on TV show South Park.

As the video below shows, during the game's character creation process users are offered the chance to set the game's difficulty level. If they select the game's easiest level, their character has white skin. At higher levels, the character's skin becomes progressively darker.

Youtube Video

“Don't worry,” says South Park character Eric Cartman during the difficulty selection process, “this doesn't affect combat, just every other aspect of your life.”

The game's not all politically correct: its title is “South Park: The Fractured but Whole” and it appears to be laced with profanities and racially-charged terms.

Scalzi, for what it is worth, is a straight white American male and says his post wasn't entirely original anyway. "I am, however, amused to see it in an actual video game," he writes in a new post. "All the dudes who whined about how the metaphor was all wrong will now have to grind their teeth when they set up their characters in this game. And that’s a lovely thought." ®

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