Marvel’s Spider-Man 2 has been praised for its exceptional gameplay and storytelling, but there’s one area it had faltered on: Cuban representation. Luckily, the Spider-Man 2 devs recently fixed a major involving Miles Morales’s ethnicity in the newest patch.
Miles is Afro-Latino. More specifically, he’s half Puerto Rican. He proudly displays his ethnic heritage via a Puerto Rican flag inside and outside of his apartment. Or rather, he would, if the devs hadn’t accidentally confused the Cuban flag for the Puerto Rican one. We recently talked about this, as the devs put a model of the Cuban flag into the game.
This led to some outcry from POC. Some went to Twitter to post the blunder, as part of a wider discussion about representation in gaming.
To Insomniac’s credit, they fixed this mistake relatively fast. As reported by IGN, patch 1.001.003 changes the Cuban flag to an appropriate Puerto Rican one, and also fixes a few bugs. Insomniac Games also issued an apology in a statement that reads in part, “We understand that accurate representation matters, and greatly regret this error. We sincerely apologize and will do better in the future.”
The flags look similar, so it’s somewhat easy for those not familiar with them to get both mixed up. The Puerto Rican flag has a blue triangle and red stripes. The Cuban flag has a red triangle and blue stripes. And while this was easily an honest mistake that was very quickly fixed, it doesn’t let Insomniac developers off the hook.
Anyone of Cuban or Puerto Rican descent would have immediately spotted the difference. This speaks to the overwhelming absence of Latinx voices in these development studios—and specifically the apparent lack of Puerto Rican voices in a game centered on a proud half-Puerto Rican character—which allows mistakes like this to happen. Yes, it may seem minor to white and non-Hispanic people, but it is indicative of a much bigger problem currently happening in the video game industry.
This mixup further homogenized the incredibly diverse regions of Latin America and the Caribbean because people not from those regions still trust themselves to be an acceptable authority on these matters. This mistake is disrespectful, and more are sure to come unless Insomniac diversifies.
We can take the apology and learn nothing or we can use this as a learning moment. When I say “learning moment,” I mean in the real way. This helps us understand just how little other cultures are often considered in gamedev. There’s very little Cuban and Puerto Rican representation in gaming as it stands. And when this rep does appear, it’s usually stereotypical roles, like representing crime or poverty.
Miles Morales is one of the few Afro-Latino characters in gaming and I’m thankful to have him. However, the entire industry must do better on this front.
(featured image: Sony Interactive Entertainment)
