The new Medal of Honor's online component once pitted allied forces against the Taliban. It will no longer. Electronic Arts and Danger Close Games have renamed the latter team "Opposing Force" in an effort to soothe all the bad vibrations the game has been receiving as a result of the creative decision to include the Taliban in the first place.
It appears the models being used, as well as the weapons by the terrorists formerly known as the Taliban, have not been changed. The swap is in name only, making this move seem kind of hollow in hindsight.
The reaction to the usage of the Taliban hasn't exactly been vicious, but EA has been assaulted by the mainstream media and even the military for it. Before this name swap, EA attempted to explain that Medal of Honor was, in fact, just a video game, and not portraying actual events in its online mode. Later, EA attempted to display the online mode's non-offensive play by giving everybody with a decent rig a free chance to check out the PC version's forthcoming open beta for a period of three days. Now, it's just changing the so-called offensive name entirely.
== TEASER ==In a statement, game producer Greg Goodrich confirmed that the people that were kicking and screaming about the Taliban name were a small group. "We’ve received notes from gamers, active military, and friends and family of servicemen and women currently deployed overseas," Goodrich wrote on the MOH blog. "The majority of this feedback has been overwhelmingly positive… However, we have also received feedback from friends and families of fallen soldiers who have expressed concern over the inclusion of the Taliban in the multiplayer portion of our game."
This small number of people means a lot of the Medal of Honor team, and as a result according to Goodrich, EA has "decided to rename the opposing team in Medal of Honor multiplayer from Taliban to Opposing Force."
I'm guessing this was a tough call for both parties. On one hand, you've got real world people who have given it all in the conflict this game takes inspiration from, who aren't digging the inclusion of the Taliban. On the other hand, this is just a game. It doesn't represent real life--no-one knows that better than the game makers themselves. But does this decision make it better?