Head of 343 Industries Bonnie Ross has apologised for an offensive term being used in Halo Infinite as the name of a colour variant for a cosmetic meant to celebrate the Juneteenth holiday.
During one of Halo Infinite’s regular updates, as always, several new cosmetic items were added to the game. In celebration of Juneteenth, a U.S holiday which celebrates the emancipation of enslaved African-Americans, a nameplate entitled ‘Juneteenth’ was added to the game. However, if you entered the sub-menu to change the nameplate colour (which are the pan-African colours), you’d find that the colour variant was called ‘Bonobo’ (pictured below). Credit to Sean W on YouTube who first reported this.
A bonobo is a type of great ape. It should be obvious to everyone how detestable the implication of this is. As reported by Kotaku, the colour variant’s name was changed within thirty minutes of the knowledge becoming public, being quickly renamed ‘Freedom’. Various 343 Industries staff came out with personal statements, with senior community manager John Junyszek saying bonobo was the name of an internal toolset and was never intended to be included in the game. Halo Infinite’s head of creative Joe Staten said their mistake was inexcusable and that he was ashamed. Finally, 343 founder Bonnie Ross issued an apology on Twitter for the use of an “offensive and hurtful” term.
Kotaku’s sources have confirmed that Bonobo is a development tool used at 343. In fact, it may be a legacy name carried over from the Bungie days. It’s unclear how this term ended up as the name of a cosmetic associated with Juneteenth, whether it pulled code from the Bonobo development tool or a developer was using it as a placeholder name, but either way, it certainly doesn’t look good.
Professional Halo player for OpTic Gaming Bradley “aPG” Laws criticised 343 on Twitter, calling the inclusion of the term “blatant racism.”
It is particularly troubling how the term was allowed to pass through multiple layers of quality control without being flagged as offensive.
