A website and trailer recently appeared for a supposed real-time strategy game called Slavery: The Game. All signs point to it not being real, but one way or the other, the makers of Total War have nothing to do with it.
The trailer, seen above, talks about the "game" being set in the 17th century, when Europe still ruled the world. Players are able to buy slaves and then "discipline" and "exploit" them in an effort to "become the most powerful slave trader." An inventory screen shows that players can level up and equip different weapons such as a whip, rifle, and spiked club.
Now, it goes without saying how offensive something like this would be if real, but even as a joke (or a publicity stunt), it's going to cause a great deal of outrage.
One of the copies of the trailer uploaded to YouTube credited The Creative Assembly in its description. TCA is best known as the developer of the Total War series. Both it and its owner, Sega, were quick to distance themselves from the project, posting a tweet over the weekend which reads, "The Creative Assembly and SEGA have no knowledge of, and are not in any way involved with the alleged title 'Slavery the Game'."
That's unsurprising, as you wouldn't expect a reputable developer or publisher to work on something so guaranteed to draw the ire of countless people and activist groups. The website (which is located behind an age gate, making it seem more legitimate) and the official version of the YouTube video make no mention of Sega or The Creative Assembly, but it all seems well-enough created that it could be the home for an independent developer's project.
However, there are a number of reasons to believe this isn't a real game, ridiculous concept aside. As noted by The Escapist, the phone number listed on the site is for a Kentucky area code that forwards to a Google Voice inbox, and the email address listed doesn't seem to go anywhere. There's no record of the company listed, Javelin Reds, to be found anywhere, although a PR company called Red Javelin does exist. Also worth noting is something noticed by a YouTube commenter (and pointed out by an Escapist member): Javelin Reds is an anagram for "De Slavernij," which translates from Dutch into English as "the slavery."
And then there's the issue of the trailer listing its platforms as Xbox 360, PlayStation 3, and PC. The beginning of the trailer shows the game's alleged ESRB rating as being Adults Only. Only a small handful of games have ever earned such a rating, and none of them have ever been released in that form on a home console. The list largely consists of PC games and a small number of multiplatform titles that were later either canceled or altered. It's unlikely Microsoft or Sony would ever allow an AO-rated title on their respective platforms, let alone one that centers around being a slave trader.
It's entirely possible this is is a PR stunt. If that is the case, we don't know what product, game, or service it's meant to promote, and while the saying goes that there is no such thing as bad publicity, associating yourself with slavery probably won't go over well with the masses.
Controversy has been used to draw attention to games in the past; Dante's Inferno immediately comes to mind as one example of this. EA staged a fake protest during E3 in 2009, with one of the protesters saying things like, "This disrespects ourselves, the Bible, the Christian belief," and "Our youth today live in a fantasy world to begin with, and they don't need any encouragement to follow in the sins that are laid out in the levels of hell." This was later revealed to be a viral marketing scheme, prompting an actual backlash from Christians.
Alternatively, Slavery: The Game could merely be an attempt to rile up the Internet, get a lot of views (there are currently more than 300,000 views total across several copies of the trailer on YouTube), and to make the front page of websites and blogs everywhere. In which case... mission accomplished, though it's hardly an admirable accomplishment under the circumstances.
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