Slay

by Brittney Morris

[Angie]

Slay was wild! And thought-provoking, and infuriating, and cheer-inducing, and...wild. I know next-to-nothing about MMORPGs. I'm a Simmer, so I understand the addiction of videogames and using them as an escape and a safe place. Which is what Kiera's game, Slay, is. It's an escape and safe place for Black teenagers (and really Black people of all ages as we find out). But that safety is threatened when a teen is murdered over the game, and people start calling it exclusionary and racist. Kiera not only feels guilt over this boy's death, but she also fears being sued for creating a game that not-so-subtly caters to a Black audience.

I'll start with what bothered me about Slay. How in the world did Kiera and Cicada (her real name is revealed later) create a game with 500,000 players by themselves with no jobs? Kiera is in high school and Cicada is in college. Both are very academically inclined, so they have no jobs to earn income to pay for this game. We get brief mentions of Kiera commissioning art from online artists and some donations, but she's created an ENTIRE WORLD with multiple regions, weapons, armor, clothing, animals, and 1,200+ battle cards! And this isn't some flat, text-based games. It's VR and fully immersive! That is not cheap. Not to mention the server costs and other maintainable. It was amazing, but not even remotely believable.

I was able to look past that though, because I just got sucked into Kiera's story. She poured her heart and soul into building a game where she felt welcome and safe. She was able to create a character who looked like her without fear of harassment. She was able to pull from all facets of Black culture to create something wonderful, fun, and educational. She's doing what she felt was right for other Black people. Not everyone agrees with her, including her asshole boyfriend who thinks Black people need to focus on education and business and family only. Black people are not a monolith, obviously.

Slay gets pretty intense when Kiera is faced with a possible lawsuit and the potential for her identity to be revealed. This would be scary for an adult, but for a 17 year old girl, it's just crazy. She handles it all in the best way she knows how though: in the battle arena! Yeah, it gets super nerdy in here! It kind of makes me want to play...