After a fun week at The Game Awards full ofdiscourse about winnersand cool announcements, the gaming world enters the hangover phase wherea vocal minority makes noiseover inconsequential things.
This time,the drama is coming from disgruntled players of an old title projecting their issues onto an upcoming one.
Four years may have passed since the release ofThe Last Of Us Part II, but judging by the comments intheIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophettraileron YouTube, some people are still not over that.
Fueled by an irrational hatred ofNeil Druckmannand a rumored absence of romantic closure with women,a group of trollsdecided to make derogatory comments about actor Tati Gabrielle.
In response,the developers decided to disable comments on the video for the time being.Existingcomments remain liveon the PlayStation mirror of the video, though some fans are calling for a clean-up there too.
Tati Gabrielle stars inIntergalactic: The Heretic Prophetas Jordan Mun. While this is her videogame debut, her Naughty Dog credits include Jo Braddock in theUnchartedlive-action adaptation, and Nora in the upcoming second season of HBO’sThe Last Of Us.
From the Intergalactic trailer, we can derive that Jordan Mun is a real Billy Badass type, and the game is going to be all about vibes.
Same Old Song And Dance
Performative outrage aimed at female characters is not a particularly new thing in video games, but it has taken a new level of intensity asdiscourse outside the industry over abstract concepts like “DEI” or “woke” seeps in.
Most videogames reveal trailers featuring female protagonists today attract some backlash, though critics are yet to explain what they are against.
Intergalactic was not the only game to attract this crowd after The Game Awards. CD Projekt Red, which gotplenty of heatafterCyberpunk 2077, receiveda strange amount of backlashover the looks of Ciri, the protagonist ofThe Witcher 4.
The backlash has caused plenty of confusion among gamers outside of ideological fringes, as the character looks like a conventionally attractive woman, but with more realistic graphics than inThe Witcher 3.
Judging by the commercial success of the gaming industry in recent years,the chants of “go woke, go broke” don’t seem to have reached the financial reports, but it does not make these interactions any less annoying for developers and actors pouring their souls into games.
