The new Temple Hideout stage has been removed from the Street Fighter V shop, despite just being released. The answer may lie in the stage’s music and a bit of an accidental cultural mashup. The Temple Hideout stage, which is a modernized version of Street Fighter II ’s Thailand level, is very much a Buddhist temple. Yet, players noticed not long after the stage released that the music featured an Islamic prayer, very much in Arabic.
Whoops! Somebody crossed the streams. While it may not be obvious to most Street Fighter V players, anyone familiar with either religion would probably immediately know something was off. That kind of cultural faux-pas could cause some ugliness.
This isn’t the first time video games have used religious imagery or prayers for aesthetic affect, and upset the relevant communities. Games like The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time and LittleBigPlanet have carelessly used Muslim imagery and were subsequently forced to remove the content later.
It’s always important when creating something to be sensitive to the needs and wishes of various cultural groups. Especially when something is considered sacred, you may end up really upsetting a lot of people for simply tossing something together because it looks cool or adds to the mood of a scene. It’s not a matter of people being too sensitive, it’s a matter of being considerate to others.
Source: Polygon