South Park: The Fractured But Whole’s difficulty slider changes your skin color

It affects every other aspect of your whole life

South Park has never been shy when it comes to comedy. While writers Matt Stone and Trey Parker will sometimes go for pure shock value, their satire tends to be very biting and very reflective of modern society. It looks like that final point is going straight into The Fractured But Whole, as a difficulty slider for the game will actually change your skin color.

There are options ranging from “Easy” to “Very Difficult,” but as you opt to go for a harder selection, your skin color will get darker. The ever accepting Eric Cartman will even comment, “Don’t worry, this doesn’t affect combat. Just every other aspect of your whole life.” Oooo boy, that is tough to swallow.

The only things that apparently get changed are how much money you’ll receive and how other characters will approach you. It isn’t meant as an actual difficulty selector, more just pointing out how modern society has a negative bias towards people of color. As clever as this satire might be, it also does reveal a pretty ugly spot that society still hasn’t gotten over.

While I think this is quite funny, it does bring up points about mixing and matching “difficulty” and race. I know this is supposed to be a jab at racial tensions in America, but if a person of color actually wants to represent themselves in the game, why should they have a harder time playing it than someone else? I guess that is the kind of balancing act Ubisoft was willing to deal with and hopefully it pays off in the end.

South Park: The Fractured but Whole’s difficulty slider changes the colour of your skin [Eurogamer]