"Imagine being a proud racist"— Asmongold slams Avowed art director for racial comments about "crusty white dudes" in the gaming industry

Streamer Zack "Asmongold" is known for voicing his unfiltered thoughts on his Twitch streams. Often enough, he is relentless and does not hold back if he is against a certain person or concept. A testament to this is his recent criticism of Matt Hansen, the art director of Obsidian Entertainment's Avowed, an upcoming RPG game set to release as an Xbox exclusive in 2025.

The controversy began on November 24, 2024, when Hansen criticized Elon Musk, the CEO of X, for suggesting (while responding to a post about Avowed) that including pronouns in a video game was unnecessary. Matt later admitted that his primary goal had been to provoke Elon from the outset:

"I wanted so badly to make him mad with my game, and I cannot believe it actually happened."

This news provoked a classic Asmongold review, and upon some deeper digging, the streamer found a different, now-deleted post from Matt Hansen on X, a platform the art director is no longer available on:

"Reminder to Black artists out there who are looking for portfolio reviews or job advice: my DMs are open, and you will always have my priority. We got too many crusty white dudes in this field, please let me help you replace me one day - I want to go back to living in the woods.”

Matt Hansen made some racially driven comments that many found to be in bad taste (Image via Asmongold Clips/YouTube)

Asmongold found this statement to be racist, and claimed that a video game art director such as Hansen is in no position to make such remarks:

"Imagine being a proud racist. You know, celebrating the fact that you're using your game to push your political viewpoint. I'm sure the investors and the people that run the company will really... they'll be super happy to hear about that."

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"Total performative bullsh*t": Asmongold goes off on Avowed's Matt Hansen

Asmongold's point of view was based on the fact that a lot of Hansen's comments were contradictory. The streamer essentially stated that if Obsidian Entertainment were to use Matt's logic against him, he'd take legal action against the company:

"If Obsidian fired this guy and told him 'We're firing you because you're white and we want somebody who's not white in the role' he'd file a lawsuit. This is total performative bullsh*t."

This incident led to a broader debate about the role of diversity and inclusion in gaming, with some accusing Hansen of alienating potential players.

The situation was further complicated by Hansen's comments on the game's performance. He stated that a 30 frames per second (FPS) target was sufficient for a single-player, first-person game like Avowed, suggesting that 60 FPS wasn't necessary.

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Asmongold and his candid comments have landed him in trouble before, in October 2024, he was banned for making controversial statements on the Israel-Palestine conflict.