In the new ‘South Park’ game, being black makes the game harder

By Ben Gilbert

In the new “South Park” game, “South Park: The Fractured but Whole,” difficulty is directly tied to the colour of your character.

Though the game features a robust character creation system, it’s immediately overruled by the subsequent difficulty slider. The more challenging you make the game, the darker your character’s skin tone becomes — a not-so-subtle nod to racial inequality.

As South Park’s own Eric Cartman puts it when you make the choice, “Don’t worry, this doesn’t affect combat. Just every other aspect of your whole life.”

Since “South Park: The Fractured but Whole” is a role-playing game — along the lines of “Final Fantasy” and “Skyrim” — the character you create is your main interaction with the game world. Though many games, including the new “South Park,” offer robust character creation options, the choices you make rarely impact the game directly.

“South Park: The Fractured but Whole” flips that, and instead forces a skin tone change on the character you already created based on the difficulty you choose.