I feel like there's no place for this kind of opinion anymore, this might be a pretty 'unpopular' opinion for Kiwi but also for a different reason 'unpopular' for the rest of the liberal internet at the same time. While I do think that wokeness has got to far in gaming industry recently, the 'based de-woke' mods are usually too reactionary and stupid. They don't have nuances beyond to satisfy the right wing political points.
What I don't like about wokeness is when it feels 'too forced and doesn't fit into the setting', e.g. transgender and non-binary characters that have 'current day' identity but they're in fantasy world or so far future that real sex change or other transhumanist procedures would eliminate the concept of being trans (Dragon Age Veilguard, Baldur's Gate 3, Apex Legends), remake race change for the sake of diversity (Demon's Soul remake Crestfallen Warrior), and things that go against established lore that feel like they were made only to satisfy liberal messaging.
However, I also don't mind when non-white characters are in the setting as long as they fit the setting, I also don't mind gay characters as long as they fit the setting - something that de-woke mods also would try to remove because the presence of those groups are automatically woke to some people. E.g. AmericanKrogan Fallout 4 mod changing all characters to be white and all female characters who are not in traditional women roles to be male... BUT the thing about Fallout is that it doesn't literally take place in 1950s with every baggage of that time, as much as people like shit on Fallout 4, the setting being racially mixed has been a thing since Fallout 1/2 because the game is supposedly set in Amerimutt future, not because it's some recent woke addition. The changes also miss the subtext of the story a lot. The Mechanist must be female, because they're pulling that Samus Aran twist where the 'assumed male' robot overlord turns out to be a woman, and the mod kills the twist because it changes her to male. Or that The Railroad might have been intentionally written as a satire for 'annoying libs' to begin with which the mod misses the point again.
If people just say that they want the mods for 'personal aesthetic' I can accept that reasoning, but there's the fact that these mods push itself as being a more 'realistic' vision for the game, an argument that doesn't work considering what they actually changed.
Or the fact that de-woke mods don't actually work if the game is inherently so 'woke designed' that it's beyond saving. A mod may remove that PhilosphyTube tranny from Baldur's Gate 3 but it doesn't remove the fact that most companions are written like shitty tumblr OCs with quippy dialogues that are only there for sex scenes. Or Sims 4, because Sims 4 is kind of 'beyond saving' if you want classic sims experience that's not 'trendy Fortnite live service game' style they went with the design direction.
