When your goal is historical accuracy, a goal I am amiable towards, then fielding questions about historical decisions is to be expected.
And this is where I take issue. Asking why was group A, B or C not represented in game is not idiotic, the opposite in fact. Especially since in so many other venues the breadth of European history has a long tradition of whitewashing. Other histories too, I’m sure, but most of us were likely brought up being taught Eurocentric, or Americancentric (which is mostly a parallel history with a different focus) histories. So I speak to what I know, and I know that many of the representations of history are, to be blunt, wrong. Too much Great Man theory, too little women, too little cultural exchange. Which, from an English speaking point of view, I place a large amount of blame for that on the Victorians.
I personally have no truck, or interest, in the specifics of this game. I know nothing about it, and I don’t really care. Where I get irriatated is when people treat ‘why don’t we see X’ as a fundamentally invalid line of questioning. Which in this game is why is the game not showing people of African ancestry. Now
That? that’s cool. Like I said, my interest in this topic is less than the specific game, but more broadly how hour histories are represented, and often misrepresented, to not show things like this. So props to them for that. And if the answer to the question ‘why are there no African peoples in this game’ is that ‘15th century Bavaria was unlikely to have a meaningful population due to X,Y,Z’? That is a valid answer. I certainly have no problem with it, since in that specific case it may be valid. But tell me that in Italy, or France, or Spain, or Greece, or England of that time the same answer? I would legitimately have issue with that because it is documented historically wrong. For example Ezio’s traversing Italy. The presence of embassies, churches, and populations from the Christian kingdoms of Ethiopia and other African kingdoms isn’t even controversial, it is fact. I still enjoyed those games, but it was a missed opportunity, and one they could have done interesting things with.
History was much more diverse than people have commonly treated it. So I ask because I think it would be more interesting to show the breadth of that. I ask because games can be better, and shouldn’t we all want them to be better?