TheSilent Hill 2remake is one of the most anticipated releases of the year, butcontroversy over its rating has left containmentin gaming boards.
Wikipedia curators had to lock the Silent Hill 2 Remake pagefollowing a streak of vandalism over the critical reception of the game, which is in early access and will be released on October 8th.
Konami has had a tough decade or so. The exit of Hideo Kojima following the release ofMetal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Painput one of the company’s prized franchises in turmoil, andits executives made sure to bury the restby effectively killing thePro Evolution Soccerbrand.
In that context,Silent Hill 2 is a breath of fresh airthat could mark the beginning ofa new era for Konami, with theinitial press reviewsscoring 87 out of 100 on Metacritic.
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If you were to check the Wikipedia page for the game a little while ago though, you’d see a much different picture, witha string of ones and zeroes, punctuated by a charitable 6/10review from IGN.
Disgruntled gamers madean organized guerrilla attack on the page against exhausted Wiki editors, resulting in an hours-long back and forth until the page was locked.
Silent Whining 2
Vandalizing a Wikipedia page is an unremarkable incident on its own, butthis pushback against the Silent Hill 2 remake does not exist in a vacuum.
Gaming communities are made up of people (despite occasionally not looking like it) and are therefore not insulated from external events. The “woke” panic is no exception to this.
This attitude is not new to gaming, with divisive events like Gamergate in 2014 coming to mind. Today’s rift feels different though.
A Similar Reddit Battle Over The Last of Us Part II
The release ofThe Last of Us Part II(which, for the record, has a Metacritic score of 93/100, in case that Wiki page gets vandalized too) is perhapsthe first big battle of this war.
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The prime illustration of this is the redditThe Last of Uscommunity, which issplit between r/TheLastofUs and r/TheLastOfUs2.
Albeit much smaller than the main sub,r/TheLastOfUs2 still has around 100,000 userswhose sole common point is hatred ofThe Last of Us Part II.
Hating a sequel to something you like is normal (if unhealthy when done obsessively). The problem is thatcommunities like r/TheLastOfUs2 dress social grievances as game ones.
The core criticism leveraged in many games now is that they are “woke,“but this is rarely defined in any concrete term.
Still, theanti-“woke” game crusaderswill happily provide examples of games andbroader mediathat most definitely emanatethis intangible “woke” vibe. Silent Hill 2, for example, is “woke,” hence it was faux-review-bombed on Wikipedia.
Aloy having peach fuzz inHorizon: Forbidden Westis “woke.“Abby being ripped after years of surviving an apocalyptic wasteland inThe Last of Us Part IIis “woke.“Having a chin that is not pointy is “woke.” Being able to indicate preferred pronouns in Starfield is “woke.”
If what is “wrong” is so apparent to this crowd, and if they are the self-proclaimed silent majority, one wonders why they seem unable to sit down and put togethera good gamewith the seemingly infinite pool of wisdom and game-dev talent.
The brave players who have an issue with games moving on with the times need to say what (or who) they dislike without hiding it under vibes-based terms or quit arguing and trolling Wikipedia pages.Much like in real life, that peach fuzz is here to stay, which is good.
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