Are Controversy and Anger a Mainstay in Gaming Culture?

I do believe that it’s human nature to see the good in things. We all get one try on this spinning ball in space, so why sit in stewing anger and negativity? But it’s also true that oftentimes in a group setting, negativity can be used for comedic effect. Many also confuse negativity with valuable observation. They think that seeing flaws in everything will make them seem intelligent, or like they have superior taste. And when it comes to products being sold to us (like video games), seeming too positive will have you being labeled as a “fanboy” or “blind consumer”.

Even though the culture war had infected video games years ago, it feels like 2024 is a boiling point of sorts. The first few months of 2024 were dominated by vitriolic statements towards Stellar Blade.

The protagonist of Stellar Blade, Eve, was enough fuel for months of online debate.

Many claim she’s simply another character meant only for the male fantasy. Others claim that beautiful and lethal women characters are empowering, much like 2B from Nier Automata.

When Stellar Blade released, I foolishly thought that we could all take a deep breath and calm down for a little bit.

And then Assassins Creed Shadows was revealed.

Now a new heated online debate bubbled up, this time with its fighters pretending to care about historical accuracy. Was Yasuke a retainer? Was Yasuke a samurai? Does it really matter in a series where you can jump off an enormous tower and be perfectly fine as long as you land in a bale of hay? Probably not. But it won’t stop the online gaming community from acting like it does.

This past Thursday, May 30th, I was hopping between two different livestreams watching Sony’s State of Play and Konami’s Silent Hill Transmission. With both presentations we saw quite a bit of Silent Hill 2 remake, a game I’m personally very excited for. The chat in these livestreams were relatively positive. And then I checked Twitter.

With these new trailers we got a glimpse of two character redesigns, Maria and Angela. With Maria, the most noticeable change is her showing less skin, specifically around her stomach. I don’t really see much else that seems disrespectfully different to the original game. Fans argue that technically, Maria acts as a symbol of lust and repressed sexuality for the protagonist James. As far as my smalls bits of Silent Hill knowledge go, that is true. While I personally don’t see this redesign as an issue (I see it as simply modernizing the 1999 Christina Aguilera outfit it was originally inspired by), I can understand why the diehard fans of the lore may be a little irked.

But what I find truly peculiar and obnoxious is the reaction to Angela’s redesign.

Angela in the original game is supposed to be 19. But her face always read to me as a woman in her mid to late 30’s. With this new design, she looks much closer to her intended age.

She’s sporting some chubbier cheeks this time around. And of course, you already know how the internet is going to react to that.

Now we have the people claiming Silent Hill 2 remake is “woke”, because the developers made one of the characters a little less conventionally “attractive”. If you know anything about Angelas backstory, it makes a lot of sense that maybe she became self-hating and self-loathing. Maybe she eats her pain away (I’ve been there).

Or maybe, just maybe, she has some chubby cheeks. That’s it.

So, I guess we’re just left with one question. And one sad answer.

Are controversy and anger a mainstay in gaming culture? Should we expect a new Twitter meltdown every few months about a game that has yet to be released?

The clear answer to me is: Yes.

We live in an age where almost everything is considered “taking a stance”. There were people calling for a boycott of Stellar Blade simply for having a hot main character. On the other side, people were saying that they were going to be buying multiple copies of the game to support its “anti-woke” nature. It’s seems like the people who just want to play and passionately talk about video games are outnumbered. Or, maybe wisely, they choose not to voice their opinion on social media. And there’s our solution of course. Unplug a little bit. It’s something I need to work on massively. Who really cares what some random person online is saying just to earn some social credit with their respective crowd? As the old adage goes: Twitter is not real life. No social media is.

If any of this actually mattered in the real world, Hogwarts Legacy wouldn’t have been the best selling game of 2023.