Bethesda, on the face of it, seems really keen to give off the impression that it’s all about modders using its games to express themselves. Unless, of course, you make a mod that consigns the former, late prime minister Margaret Thatcher to “The Tenth Circle of Hell: The United Kingdom of Great Britain and Northern Ireland.” In which case, it’s to the dungeon with thee. .
After being served an “educational” notice, the creators of a Doom mod by the name of Thatcher’s Techbase had their .wav stricken from the record of Doom + Doom 2, a bundle that introduces cross-platform, in-game mod support.
Good news, though! Thatcher’s Techbase is getting a re-release on the official store. I am, however, going to have to call it [REDACTED] Techbase, because I’m worried the characters used in the tweet below might break something on our poor website.
“To celebrate its 3rd birthday, I am rereleasing THATCHER’S TECHBASE for ‘DOOM+DOOM 2’! However, in light of the recent Educational Notice received from Bethesda, all real-world politics have now been removed.”
The result is an utter masterclass in malicious compliance—something that manages to be an even more biting political satire than the original, which mostly just put the face of the famously anti-union political leader in Hell, and let you blow up demons with rockets while pondering the economic impacts of her decade in power.
Now, in a pleasantly Streisand effect-adjacent move, [REDACTED] Techbase serves as a giant middle finger to Bethesda’s staunchly anti-politics stance. Clumsily-pixelated enemies, censor signs with comic sans, haphazard smiley face stickers and—perhaps my favourite addition—the swapping out of a poster that reads “Victory to the Miners” to “Victory for the Gamers”. It’s about time!
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The soundtrack has even been touched up, as the mod’s creator reveals: “Even the soundtrack has been updated to ensure no politically-motivated rhythms can be heard by players. Please listen to ‘L2VY’, a new track by @nostoppingepoch.” It’s a pretty banging remix of public domain classic Twinkle Twinkle Little Star.
For ███████’█ TECHBASE, no expense has been spared. Even the soundtrack has been updated to ensure no politically-motivated rhythms can be heard by players.Please listen to “L2VY”, a new track by @nostoppingepoch: pic.twitter.com/yxCIkdFOgZSeptember 24, 2024
Honestly, I’m just impressed by the sheer spite flexed here, more than anything. I’m not entirely shocked that Bethesda’s anti-politics on its official modding platforms—it’s a little weird, considering it’s a company that owns a series known for its satirisation of the “American naivete”, but I suppose once you start digging into messages more complex than ‘nuclear bombs are probably bad to fire at people’, hands start a-wringing.
If Starfield was any indication, Bethesda’s developed a growing allergy to actually saying much of anything about the real world with its games which—you know, fine, whatever, Bethesda’s one of the big boys now, and with that comes the responsibility not to rock the boat too much. Still, when you’re trying to scrub Doom, a game that was so controversial for its time that Germany banned it for 17 years, squeaky-clean of anything that might upset people? The satire writes itself.