A great game that's delighting millions, the launch of Marvel's Spider-Man 2 has been mostly smooth, sans a couple of issues. First, a few players who opted to pick up physical copies of the game are having trouble installing it. Now, it seems, the removalists responsible for setting up Miles Morales' apartment have misplaced a patriotic wall adornment.
Eagle-eyed players quickly noticed a Cuban flag hanging in Miles' home instead of the expected Puerto Rican flag, considering Miles and his mother are Puerto Rican. Additionally, Cuban flags are flown in the street outside the apartment.
We could see how the mistake gets made, as the two flags look similar to the casual eye. Still, it probably should have been caught in a AAA first-party release, especially considering how much importance was placed on getting that aspect right in Insomniac's standalone Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales expansion. James Stevenson, director of community and marketing at Insomniac Games, indicated that a fix is in the works.
As Danny Peña points out on Twitter, a suit later in the game has the correct implementation, so it seems something got mixed up along the way. Puerto Rico is an unincorporated territory of the United States with official Commonwealth status (thanks Wikipedia), and its flag (and Cuba's) belongs to the Stars and Stripes family of flags, which is just priceless pub ammo you've been given for free.
How are you enjoying Marvel's Spider-Man 2? Did you notice this mixup, which is of national importance? Unfurl your flag in the comments section below.
[source ign.com]
Comments 30
Simple fix, for a simple mistake. I didn't actually notice this bug, but this is one of the reasons why diversity is important in QA. I wouldn't have noticed it, I'm not Puerto Rican and I'm not familiar with their culture at all, but if a Puerto Rican or Cuban flag was in the apartment and a Mexican flag was meant to be there instead, I'd have totally noticed. Noticed stuff like that before.
Diviserty of thought, culture, ideas, and opinions are great for our industry.
As a Puerto Rican, i was disappointed to hear about this. I can’t express how obsessed most of us are with this flag. If it was legal, I would not be shocked if some parents would dare tattoo the thing on their babies buttocks. Seriously, we put that flag on EVERYTHING.
It’s especially puzzling because they went very out of their way to get the correct food on their kitchen, from what I hear. They certainly did an amazing job with the Miles Morales game. I do wonder if this is just the result of someone tasked with producing higher res versions getting the wrong flag online… still puzzled at how it was missed. Again… they paid so much attention to other details that I can’t believe there were no Puertorican eyes somewhere in the dev team.
It was a mistake. You know what that is right? Why disappointed? They are fixing it. You should be pleased😊
Diversity is so important at every level, from the writing room, to the QA teams, this is an open and shut example of why. The flags are similar but the two populations are entirely distinct people, and from what I gather the Puerto Ricans really do like their flags. Reminds me of that time the Orangemen were burning Côte D’Ivoire flags instead of Irish tricolours lol
Damn. Glad I never pre ordered this. Appalling the state games are launching in now. Sony had one big single player launch this year and they blew it. Glad it's being fixed swiftly.
What's wrong with people being proud where they come from, of a country or whatever. Hint: IT'S NOT YOUR ACCOMPLISHMENT.
Anyway, yeah, wow... Humanbeings. What does that guy even mean "strange, later it was rhe correct flag". YEAH BECAUSE A TINY MISTAKE WAS MADE. Sone completely other guy in some completely other part of the game in sone completely other texture.. Jeez
I’ve been reading complaints and an article about how Insomniac butchered the Spanish language option by making Spanish words gender neutral, to be more “inclusive”, thus confusing many Spanish speaking people. If this is true, which based on the evidence it appears to be, then that is just shameful. Imagine trying to change a language that’s existed for centuries because it doesn’t agree with your narrative. This is peak cultural appropriation.
@IslandLogic Yeah sounds pretty offensive if that's actually true.
I dont understand how this happened when they paid so much attention to detail in miles morales.
@IslandLogic just had a quick google and the bit that uses gender neutral language definitely uses gender neutral language in the English dub too. Probs a gender fluid character. Inclusivity is good.
Close...but no (Cuban) cigar.
@Grimwood man, I seriously couldn't agree more.
@IslandLogic oh noes. the absolute horror.
It reminds me of a scene from Xena: Warrior Princess where Gabrielle reads an ancient Greek text, only for the words to be modern Greek that also make no sense ("hello, good morning, hello, good night, hello..." and then she said something in Spanish?) Yeah, Greeks had a laugh and moved on. Nobody was offended.
@naruball It's not a fair comparison if it's done for a belief/ideology you do not agree with.
@Maddie47 Is this a troll comment? I literally went through the entire story in three days and never encountered an issue and neither has the majority of the player base. Spiderman 2 is easily one of the most stable and bug free games that have released.
@R_Ryder you're right. It's actually worse. In this case Insomniac tried to be more inclusive and people raised their pitchforks, because god forbid someone else feels included, when the world should revolve around mimimi. That's what people on twitter sound like.
@Nepp67 they may be referring to the issue that some people have that bought a physical copy, in which case, the characterization "unplayable" would be warranted for once. If not, then you're absolutely right.
This is a minor mistake that is barely worth mentioning.
If I had to whine like this every time an American film or series butchered my native language, you'd never hear the end of it. It's just a lack of culture, no big deal.
@NinjaNicky now that's what I call fair criticism.
Sorry to hear that :/
@Rhaoulos I'm not much of a nationalist either but cmon lol
Tharsman puts it quite eloquently above #2.
Someone at Insomniac was over-tired and saw blue as red and red as blue, but hopefully they've managed to get some sleep by now 😴
Reminds me a little of the horrible broken Spanish in Red Dead Redemption (1). It's crazy how no one notices easy to fix stuff before launch. And no, the Spanish was never fixed.
How do you screw that up?
Well at least it wasn't a Buy Large Mansions flag.
@IslandLogic basically "here, let me fix your culture for you"
Kinda like flying a rainbow flag at the Vatican.
@NinjaNicky I gotcha, I'm honestly surprised there were any crashes at all. Hopefully they iron those issues out because it sounds frustrating.
@IslandLogic Gender neutral Spanish words have been around for decades. Ever heard of Latinx? It wasn't white people at Insomniac that came up with this idea.
sorry, that is quite a blunder for a $100m+ production.
@kcarnes9051 That word has been around for less than two decades and is incredibly unpopular amongst the people it allegedly refers to. Read the reception part of its Wikipedia article, and people from all walks of life, male and female, dislike it to an overwhelming degree.
@Matroska and yet it was a word created by a segment of the Latino population. Its popularity is irrelevant to the point I was making. Just because I generally dislike the word folx because folk is already gender neutral, it doesn’t change the fact that folx is in the lexicon and that it was created by English speakers and thus not offensive to use within the context of someone who would use it using it in the way they would use it.
Also, Latinos also has the word “Elle” which is also used as a gender neutral by certain Spanish speakers.
The point being that an English speaker at Insonmiac did not come up with this linguistic trend that has arisen around the discussion of gender dynamics within the Latino community. It exists.
@Savage_Joe
Spanish speaking localizers were faced with translating meaning conveyed in English when referring to a gender non-binary person in the game. Thus the translator is forced into a dilemma: translate the English into Spanish and ignore all gender neutral implications or use a gender neutral form of Spanish that actually exists in reality that is accepted by non-binary Spanish speakers, even if they don’t represent that majority of Spanish speakers.
Meaning is lost if the translation from English to Spanish doesn’t include a gender neutral implication.
One solves the dilemma of translating meaning from one language to the next and one does not.
This is an example of a translator finding a solution when it comes to the incompatibilities that arise with language translation.
For the record, I also think the word Latinx sounds ridiculous, just as I think folx sounds ridiculous, just as I have difficulty wrapping my head around they/them.
But it’s not so big of a problem to get upset about it. It’s really no big deal. I also have a compassionate understanding that their are minority groups that use language differently within my own language, and while challenging at times, I prefer to understand and accept their way of speaking as valid because all language is transitory and fluid over time. This is simply true. I do not presuppose that I or any larger group speaks the correct way because there is no inherent correct way from a macro view.
Just as there are different languages in different countries, there are different languages in different communities. We can call these dialects. This idea that one language only has one way of being true is simply not true.
While it is true that company’s do at times push certain world views it is also true that those world views exist within certain groups and arise organically out of them. Both can be true and one does not invalidate the other.
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