PETA: Assassin’s Creed IV whaling mechanic is “disgraceful”
“PETA encourages video game companies to create games that celebrate animals – not games that promote hurting and killing them.
– PETA Statement
PETA is no stranger to criticizing video games– they’ve said themselves that they intentionally blow things out of proportion in order to draw attention to their legitimate cause– and today we get to hear about their opinions on Assassin’s Creed IV: Black Flag, specifically the game’s whaling mechanic.
Whether the criticism is legitimate or not isn’t really up for debate– even PETA would likely admit (behind closed doors, of course) that going after artistic mediums isn’t always wholesome– but the question of whether the game is “glorifying” the action is still completely unknown. Plenty of games have violence, but not all of them glorify it, and we’ll have to wait and see whether this particular mechanic is made out to be a moral positive or simply a fact of life, as it was back then.