Following an uproar over the new Rainbow Six Siege operator Rauora, Ubisoft has quietly made a change to the character's biography, moving her date of birth from March 15 to May 11. The original birthdate coincided with two mass shootings at mosques that left 51 people dead and 89 others injured in Christchurch, New Zealand, the city where Rauora was born.
Rauora, real name Hāpai Iwini, seems like a fairly unremarkable Rainbow Six Siege character at first glance: Māori, excelled in the military, joined the New Zealand Special Air Service, plays semi-pro rugby, and serves as a volunteer firefighter when not deployed. But it was her birthday that drew immediate notice in the Ōtautahi/Christchurch subreddit.
"I've played the game since release and was so excited to see a Māori operator announcement today!" redditor Jugs_McBulge wrote. "But I have no clue what Ubisoft was thinking using March 15th as Rauora's birth date."
"Tbh it took me a solid minute to click to what this post is about and then... It's like oh God," glitcherious added.
"Yeah that's kind of fucked up," Silverwolffe wrote. "A swat officer from chch [Christchurch] on that date?"
it was enough of an issue that even the New Zealand Herald, the country's largest newspaper, saw fit to cover the backlash.
The Christchurch mosque shootings, committed by a single shooter motivated by white supremacist and anti-immigrant beliefs, took place on March 15, 2019. The attack caused New Zealand to raise its terror threat level to "high" for the first time in the country's history; the shooter, who was apprehended alive, was sentenced to life in prison without the possibility of parole, also a first for New Zealand. March 15 was subsequently selected by the United Nations as the International Day to Combat Islamophobia, but the murders also had a more grotesque impact seen in things like user-made re-creations of the shooting in Roblox.
There is of course debate about how exactly this particular date of birth was chosen for this particular character. Some on Reddit suspect it's a "joke" in extremely poor taste, or perhaps an anti-immigrant dog whistle, while others believe it's a simple of carelessness: Developers throwing in "important New Zealand stuff" and chucking in March 15 based on a vague recollection that it's an important date without bothering to check why.
Whatever the reason, it's a mistake amplified by recent blunders like the use of a real-life historical reenactment group's flag in Assassin's Creed Shadows without permission, not to mention struggles with recent high-profile releases, game shutdowns, layoffs, and studio closures. I'm not convinced that anything nefarious is going on, but the selection of March 15 as the date of birth for a character from Christchurch at the very least speaks to a sloppiness at Ubisoft that simply shouldn't be happening, especially at a time when the company desperately needs a win, not stupid, self-inflicted injuries. It may be a simple coincidence—across Siege's 70+ operator roster, Ubi seemingly hasn't made a habit of choosing birthdays significant to a character's birthplace—but the game's wholehearted embrace of Rauora's identity puts an onus on the company to ensure it gets the details right.
"We apologize for the oversight and have taken immediate steps to change the birth date," Ubisoft said in a statement provided to PC Gamer. "The change has been made on the game’s website and will be implemented in the game via an update on March 4th."
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