Dustborn
game·M·Aug 20, 2024
Dustborn (9/10 Woke): Catastrophic 1.2 user score from preachy queer activism, Trump-fascist allegory, pronoun lectures, and forced DEI cast that buries any fun—go woke, go broke.
Dustborn exemplifies overwhelming progressive ideological intrusion that prioritizes activism over coherent storytelling and entertainment, resulting in a catastrophic commercial failure with a peak of just 81 concurrent Steam players and a Metacritic user score of 1.2 against critics' 68.
The narrative is steeped in contemporary left-wing politics, depicting a dystopian 'Divided States of America' where players control Pax, a queer Black female protagonist leading a ragtag crew of mutants (Anomals) fighting 'Puritans' portrayed as fascists spreading disinformation in a blatant allegory for Trump-era America and right-wing extremism. Gameplay mechanics reinforce this by weaponizing 'words' to label enemies as racist or bigoted, turning combat into social justice lectures.
The cast is a parade of identity politics checkboxes: protagonist's lover Noam (they/them non-binary), transgender character Ruth, and a diverse ensemble emphasizing LGBTQ+ representation, pronouns, and intersectional grievances that clash with the punk road-trip premise, rendering characters unlikeable and dialogue preachy. Developers Ragnar Tørnquist and Red Thread Games openly admitted the game's left-leaning political intent in interviews, expressing surprise at backlash despite anticipating reactions to its 'politically correct' elements, while dismissing criticism as conspiracy theories and hate from 'chuds.' Funded by EU/Norwegian public grants, it embodies ESG/DEI-driven design that alienates audiences, sparking widespread review-bombing and 'go woke, go broke' memes, with X and Steam flooded by condemnations of its forced diversity and ideological preaching that eclipses any narrative merit.
Methodology: Each score synthesizes audience discourse, critic and aggregator reception, and press coverage — weighed against the work itself, not any single source.
See how this title scores across all 5 woke subcategories with detailed explanations.
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We've run a full content analysis on Dustborn and scored it 9/10 on the woke scale. Read our detailed breakdown above to see exactly what we found.
Our analysis checks for themes like identity politics, race-swapping, gender ideology, environmental activism, anti-religious messaging, and other progressive agenda elements. The score breakdown above shows which specific categories were flagged and how heavily they factor into Dustborn's overall score.
Wokeometer focuses on ideological content rather than traditional ratings (violence, language, etc.). Dustborn is rated M. For a full picture, combine our woke analysis with the age ratingto decide if it's right for your family.
We evaluate media across multiple ideological categories on a 0–10 scale. Scores of 0–3 mean story-first, 4–6 have moderate elements, and 7–10 flag heavily agenda-driven content. Learn more about our methodology →