As Nintendo’s removal of the Amie petting minigame in their upcoming Fire Emblem Fates demonstrated, localization efforts by foreign game developers are often be tricky and unpleasant business. A rumor reported on by Destructoid last year – which purported that the Tomahawk class in Square Enix’s upcoming 3DS RPG Bravely Second had been changed to a cowboy motif for Western releases – resurfaced today and was confirmed, thanks to European players who have played Bravely Second’s demo by way of Collector’s Edition pre-orders.
The Tomahawk class in Bravely Second’s Japanese version dresses characters in stereotypical Native American garb: tribal leather garments, war paint, feathers, and furs. The new Hawkeye class, meanwhile, spruces characters up in low-cut riding pants and cowboy hats. It also appears to grant characters a generic Southern drawl (in dialogue text). Combined with the fact that both the Tomahawk and the Hawkeye use firearms as weapons, the change sets itself up for a semiotic bedlam on the Internet.
The Tomahawk class as it appears on several of the game’s female characters, with a leaked photo of the Hawkeye posted on an unnamed “Spanish store” back in November last year.
New images of the Hawkeye, from European demo players, can be seen below:
A brave move by Square Enix? Some fans don’t think so. Several posters on Reddit predict that the Tomahawk change will ironically cause major backlash on the Internet. They cite a multitude of reasons as to why some Western gamers might find the shift offensive; from the Hawkeye’s cowboy outfit being a symbol of oppression, to the alleged removal of ethnic representation in Bravely Second.
Others point out that Square Enix is caught between a rock and a hard place with the Tomahawk class, and that the Japanese gaming giant doesn’t have much of a choice when it comes to appeasing their Western audiences. Knowing that they will likely face the ire of angry Western gamers either way, Square Enix likely took a path of “minimizing anger” in Western countries by changing the class to one with a less racially-charged theme.
Square Enix itself has yet to make an official statement regarding the Tomahawk class’ visual and thematic change.
Regardless of whatever storms are brewing in the social media-verse, the Tomahawk-to-Hawkeye transformation seems to be here to stay.
Bravely Second will release in European and Australian territories on February 26 and February 27 this year, respectively, for the Nintendo 3DS. North America will receive the game later, on April 15, 2016.