Calabiyau Character's Faction Named 'New Bethlehem' — Players Connect It to Girls' Frontline 2 Controversy: Same Designer, Same Vibes?

Another gacha game walked straight into the same minefield — this time it's Calabiyau (卡拉比丘). Players spotted that a character nicknamed 'Little Boy' (小男孩) belongs to a faction called 'New Bethlehem,' a name with heavy religious and political baggage in the context of the Israel-Palestine conflict. The OP drove the point home: 'This was already covered in the Little Potato 2 (土豆2) drama — and now you're doing it too?'

For context, 'Little Potato 2' is the community's mocking nickname for Girls' Frontline 2: Exilium (少女前线2：追放). That game previously faced intense backlash for allegedly embedding Zionist symbolism and references throughout its worldbuilding. Now that the exact same issue has surfaced in Calabiyau, the community's immediate reaction was: are the same people behind this?

The top theory in the comments points to a suspected designer known as 'Sister Xing' (星姐). One highly upvoted reply stated: 'It's becoming pretty obvious where Sister Xing jumped ship to.' Another commenter quipped: 'Sister Xing: kids, I'm back' — implying the specter of Girls' Frontline 2's design philosophy has resurfaced in a new title. Someone even summarized it bluntly: 'The entire world is just one giant Sunborn (散爆) — same flavor of terrorism + Zionist nonsense.'

Not everyone agrees, though. A notable counter-argument got significant traction: 'What's so weird about a game that name-drops biblical references actually using a biblical name? By that logic, Agatha Christie is a Zionist and so is Kamachi Kazuma (the Toaru/Index light novel author). Calm down.' This comment drew its own share of supporters who felt the community was seeing conspiracy where none exists.

But the majority clearly wasn't buying it. One commenter roasted the devs: 'The Zionist insert is way too on-the-nose. Even if you'd changed it to Zhumadian (a random Chinese city), at least that would count as localization — you wouldn't get caught so easily.' Others questioned the motive: 'You could've used Greek mythology, Norse mythology, anything — but you keep choosing Zionist symbolism. Are you actually on someone's payroll?' And then there's the cold-blooded realist: 'Everyone else is getting 500K RMB. Zionists can only afford 500 to 2K USD — they'd rather pocket the rest themselves.'

As of now, Calabiyau's developers have not responded to the controversy. Whether 'New Bethlehem' was intentional or an innocent oversight, this incident is yet another wake-up call for the gacha industry: in an era of global releases, every cultural symbol you choose to include will be scrutinized under a microscope by an increasingly vigilant community.