Bounding Into Comics Reports: Quick question, dear reader: In regards to Dustborn, which is set in an alternate, fascist version of the United States, depicted said regime’s enforcers rejecting the idea of ‘politics in entertainment’, and had players using the idea of ‘canceling’ someone as a genuine combat mechanic, would you consider the game to be an explicitly political one, or one whose politics were incidental to its adventure?

Common sense suggests that most, if not all players would place it under the former label. However, the same cannot be said CEO of Dustborn developer Red Thread Games Ragnar Tørnquist, who believes that not only is his game apolitical, but that critics accusing it of being such are completely off-base.

Tørnquist, who also served as the game’s director, offered his thoughts on players’ rejection of his studio’s latest game during a recent interview given to Mikkjell Lønning, the Editor-in-Chief of the Norway-based video game news outlet Gamer.no, on the subject of the Dustborn backlash.

To start, the dev was directly asked by his host about the accusations that the game was pushing a “woke agenda”, to which the developer asserted, “It caught us completely off guard. We were very surprised by the extreme reaction to the launch, and we had no plan for how to handle it.”

From there, Tørnquist turned to speak on an alleged wave of harassment and death threats he and his team had supposedly received from critics, admitting to Lønning, “You can easily ignore what’s said on forums or on X. Emails feel a little closer to home, but receiving text messages where someone wishes you dead, is unsettling”.