A few days ago, an interactive web game called 'Pathways' was released in the UK. It was sponsored by the British government and produced by a London-based social enterprise called Shout Out UK (SOUK). The intent is an educational game to help prevent youth from falling into extremism.
This is what it looks like when you open it. The controller is just for show; you just click with your mouse.
You can choose between a male or female character. At first glance, you might think it's some kind of dating sim. Of course, the left-wing UK government would never release something like that.
Basically, the protagonist Charlie (a fixed name since it's gender-neutral) goes through life and hits choices that could lead to extremism (mostly immigration and racial issues here), with 3 options given. Depending on what the player picks, the story branches out to show how Charlie acts. The Green-Yellow-Red gauge above the dialogue box indicates if the choice was 'correct' (according to the game's intent), 'not quite right,' or 'wrong.' There are 6 scenarios in total, but likely due to budget or purpose, there's no story continuity. Each one is independent, and previous choices don't affect the next story.
It's not even a multi-ending game; there's only one ending no matter what you pick. Even if you pick the most extreme options in all 6 stories against the game's intent, the ending is the same. It's a classic 'forced answer' (dap-jeong-neo) plot where a university lecturer notices Charlie struggling with their decisions and counsels them to solve the problem. It ends with an intro for the UK government and the SOUK campaign.
In terms of actual gameplay, it's just low-tier trash. Putting aside the fixed name 'Charlie' probably to save budget, they also use the PC-style 'They/Them' pronouns. But that's not the real problem.
The real issue is that it's a 'forced answer' game where if you don't agree with their set choices, they frame you as 'far-right,' so the reception was bound to be bad regardless of gameplay. Anyway, since a government-funded group made a game that forces pro-immigrant views and labels anti-immigration people as far-right, the 'Correct-Wrong' answers are always in 1-2-3 order. If you pick #3, it always ends with Charlie becoming twisted or getting punished for 'extremist' remarks.
Westerners' reactions are mostly negative, with comments like 'the UK is cooked,' 'even for anti-discrimination leftists, this is crossing the line,' and 'Antifa are more fascist than actual fascists.' There's a lot of hate toward the British government. Honestly, this could easily be compared to the situation in Korea, but I'll leave that to your imagination to avoid 'political bait' (jeong-tteok).
Up to this point, it just looks like common government propaganda, but this game caused an unexpected backlash.
The character 'Amelia,' intended to be the villain/antagonist, has instead become a popular meme character among Western right-wingers, including those in the UK. Amelia is the character who lures Charlie toward (what the game calls) extremism. She's depicted as a hardline anti-immigrant who complains to Charlieโwho is upset that an immigrant student got better grades and job offers while they didn'tโclaiming immigrants are stealing jobs and even going to protests. You can tell she was designed to be the 'far-right' character the game wants to criticize.
However, the Western bros who were pissed off at this 'JOAT' (Worst Of All Time) game started hyping Amelia up instead, turning her into a 'Patriotic Right-wing Goddess' lol. Not only are they claiming Amelia is the true protagonist, a hero, and a patriot, but they also find her designโpurple bob cut, beauty mark under the eye, choker, and fashion styleโto be cute, so they've started worshipping her as their symbol.
There's AI art, fan art, and even a meme coin launched. There's even fan art of her marrying Charlie and starting a family lol. The government officials and the game devs must be seething (budu-budu) right now.
Some indie dev even added Amelia as an NPC in their game because she got so popular.
Summary: The UK government released a boomer-style 'far-right is bad' game, but it backfired when the female character intended to be the villain became a huge hit and a meme among the right wing. Basically, the 'woke' UK government tried to lecture people and got hit with a massive reverse-wind from the youth. I tried to keep the political bait out as much as possible, so please don't delete this...
"The community is having a field day with how the UK government's attempt at 'anti-extremism' education backfired by creating a new 'waifu' for the very people they were targeting. They're mostly mocking the 'forced' narrative and praising the villain's character design."
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