It's just weird that in a game system where the devs are explicitly providing, and marketing, the ability to do absolutely horrible things for the lolz, including the phrase "Deus Vult" is where they're going to draw the line.
I think Paradox is trying to avoid press backlash threatening their sales, as there is no way they could be actually "enabling" white/European supremacists by including a phase in its historical context in a video game, especially one which is often so implicitly critical of the Crusades and Christendom in general -- the games are clearly a warts-and-all sort of thing (at least)!
Or, perhaps this is their way of getting around possible European Union political correctness problems.
Anyway. That doesn't mean I'm going to skip the game, but I sure understand why gimlet squints are being aimed at them by their customers: their rationale can easily
look like the start of instituting a political correctness program, even if that's not really what they're doing.
Edited to add that it doesn't help for the article's author (as quoted in the OP) to be putting an obvious rah-yay PC spin on the choice, gladly suborning a historical detail, and vocally calling for more such adjustments! This attitude may be factoring more into suspicions about what else the Paradox devs may do (or may be required to do).
That’s refreshing, but in a game set during a time of conflicts fetishised by modern fascists, it’s the tip of the iceberg. I’ll be writing more about how Paradox are handling the political sensitivities of making a game about the crusades, and how they’re handling the representation of non-European cultures, in the weeks to come.
It's not just one phrase to be memory-holed, then, in order to avoid even the slightest suspicion of innuendo of supporting racists.
"Refreshing" == "oh thank something that people who don't want disruptive cultures overrunning Europe, I mean racists, can't use this game to promote their hateful racism {sips soy latte}"
Whereas most of us would be more like, man sucks to live somewhere that you have to be happy to delete a historical phrase to keep the press and government from charging you with terrorism in effect, but you have to do what you can to get by I guess.
