The recently released Switch exclusive Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise has been a contentious one. While fans of the original never expected a sequel to materialize, a lot of the conversation has been focused on how poorly the game performs. It absolutely sucks from a technical aspect, but there’s a bigger discussion that should be evolving from talks of the game: its depiction of trans people.
I can’t speak to the specifics of said character (I haven’t yet played the game) but many gamers have voiced their concerns over some dialogue that paints trans people in a bad light. Deadly Premonition 2 might be able to hide behind its wacky ideas for offbeat story purposes, but you certainly cannot excuse hate speech.
Addressing fans of the game, director Hidetaka Swery issued an apology on Twitter yesterday evening for the game’s trans representation. “I might have hurt transgender people in my scenario. It wasn’t intentional. I am really sorry for that,” wrote Swery.
Instead of doubling down on the problematic segment, Swery has vowed to rewrite some of the dialogue around this specific character. It’s hard to know specifically what he means as his statement was translated by Google, but it appears as if he’ll hire a diversity team to help him tweak the segment in question.
This update will likely arrive in a patch at some point in the future. It might even coincide with the promised framerate fix and could turn the reception around this game from “Wacky, poorly optimized imitation of the first” to “Cult-classic hit that improves on its predecessor.”
However you feel about Swery’s desires to change the dialogue in the game, I feel this is the right move to make. Even if he was pressured into such an action, Swery strikes me as a very genuine person. Most of his games are about giving people a means to escape and not take things so seriously. When he says the hatred wasn’t his intention, I’m inclined to believe him.
It would have been better to clear this stuff from the get-go, but at least Deadly Premonition 2 won’t have to remain a broken mess.
Source: Twitter
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