Pillars of Eternity took everyone by surprise when it released from out of nowhere to widespread critical acclaim, though its success was unfortunately blighted by a limerick included in the game that was written by one of its Kickstarter backers. Following much debate over whether the developer should leave the poem in the game, Obsidian has now removed it.
The poem was removed as part of the game’s 1.03 update, and followed a statement released by Obsidian CEO Feargus Urquhart, who said: “It’s come to our attention that a piece of backer-created content has made it into Pillars of Eternity that was not vetted.
“Once it was brought to our attention, it followed the same vetting process as all of our other content. Prior to release, we worked with many of our backers to iterate on content they asked to be put into the game that didn’t strike the right tone.”
The limerick reads:
Here lies Firedorn, a hero in bed.
He once was alive, but now he’s dead.
The last woman he bedded, turned out a man
And crying in shame, off a cliff he ran.
The rhyme was accused of being offensive to transgender people and was labelled transmisogynistic, with those who opposed its removal claiming that the backlash was an example of “Social Justice Warriors” trying to police opinions they disagreed with.
While I agree that so-called “outrage culture” can often get out of hand and lead to unnecessarily extensive bouts of dog-piling, in which individuals are forced to publicly apologize or change their opinions in order to avoid a widespread mauling after saying something that the internet hivemind disagreed with, in this instance I am of the belief that Obsidian was right to remove the offending content.
The limerick wasn’t integral to the game’s plot, nor was it even created by Obsidian themselves. It was a Kickstarter “perk” that backers of the campaign were given, in which they could have their name and a personalized message appear on on an in-game Memorial Stone. Though the backer was entitled to create the personalized message after giving Obsidian money to help fund the game, Obsidian was also entitled to remove it if they deemed it offensive. Though I’m suspicious of the claim that it slipped through the company’s vetting process, it’s still worth them removing it following the game’s release as it could potentially offend transgender people within the game’s audience for no good reason.
Regardless of your stance on whether or not the limerick should have remained on its Memorial Stone, as of the game’s latest patch it’s now nowhere to be found.
