A popular Ubisoft video game has come under fire for adding a new Māori character after some fans were upset by a detail from her background.
'Rainbow Six Siege' recently promoted a new 'operator' to be included in the game's next update - Rauora, real name Hāpai Iwini, according to her biography.
Many fans were initially excited to see Māori representation in such a popular global game, but others quickly noticed an unwelcome link to New Zealand's largest mass shooting.
According to Rauora’s biography, she was born in Christchurch, New Zealand, on March 15th - a date that immediately shocked and disappointed Kiwi fans, given its tragic significance.
On March 15, 2019, a gunman took 51 lives and injured a total of 89 people in a racially-charged attack on two Christchurch mosques.
It was the deadliest terror attack in NZ's history, and a day that then Prime Minister Jacinda Ardern described as one of the country's "darkest".
“Tell me I'm not going crazy…” a Cantabrian posted on a local Christchurch Reddit thread, sharing Rauora’s bio.
Others were just as horrified, with one writing: "It's so blatant I can't help but feel this is some writer's idea of a ‘joke’."
Another X user called it out, saying: "There are 365 days in the year, and you chose the day of New Zealand's worst mass shooting to be the birth date of a character, also from Christchurch? Then called her something that also translates to HAPPY HOME?"
“There’s no way this is a coincidence… right?” another questioned.
“I think it’s just poor decision-making, would have been the easiest thing in the world to cross-check,” the original X poster responded.
“I literally just googled March 15 New Zealand and it is the only thing that comes up.”
While there’s plenty of speculation about the creator's intentions, some have defended Ubisoft, suggesting it may be a very unfortunate coincidence.
In the Christchurch Reddit Thread, one person suspected Rauora’s bio might be AI generated.
"I'm not defending it at all, but could it be that it was literally written by AI? Seems like the kind of mistake it would make," they wrote.
Another added: "I doubt they have a character creation check like ‘ensure birth date does not coincide with acts of terror in place of birth,’ but seeing this now, they probably should."
A third downplayed it, saying: "You can always find something bad about a certain date."
Intentional or not, most agree that extensive checks should be made for future character designs, and that Ubisoft may need to rethink and change Rauora's information before the update is released next month.
Ubisoft has yet to comment on the issue.
