Resident Evil 4 Remake for the Oculus VR is being censored and removing anything "problematic". Mostly anything sexual or flirtatious.
Removal of content & significant revisions have been made to RE4's story and dialogue to please the gaming media & the social justice crowd.
happywarrior.substack.com
For many gamers, the upcoming
Resident Evil 4 VR Remake is the “it-game” of 2021. Soon to be released for the Oculus Quest 2 on October 21rst, much time, money, and effort have been put into this remake of the classic horror-shooter by its new developer
Armature Studios, and IP owner
Capcom. As
announced by Oculus Executive Producer Ruth Bram;
Facebook, the owner of Oculus, is promising gamers innovative gameplay changes to take advantage of VR; while vowing that little will be changed to dialogue and story. What changes there are, would be done so "reverently."
According to my sources and shared RE4VR game development videos, pictures, and documentation, the opposite is true. As shared with the
Happy Warrior, we have confirmation that there are indeed many irreverent alterations to both story content and dialogue. These include notable changes to dialogue, deletion of some scenes, and achievements. Pro-active protection. With alterations focused on removing any scenes and dialogue that the gaming news media and social justice crowd may deem misogynistic.
Released to
GameCube in 2005 and almost a dozen different platforms since; RE4, as fans refer to it, is the masterpiece that created the action horror game genre as we know it today. The game stars Resident Evil hero Leon Kennedy fighting and
shooting his way through a small Spanish village inflicted with a zombie-like inducing parasite -Las Plagas- to save the US President’s daughter Ashley Graham. The game was a great innovator back in the day and continues to this day to be considered by most fans of the series as the best entry ever made.
As stated in the translated Japanese introduction of a leaked cover for a game development video tracking the woke revisions, the developers note that any content that is specifically related to
"sexual harassment, sarcastic expressions, sexist conversations, and expressions that may be indirectly linked to them have been removed." Also, writing that
"These were not unavoidably removed as part of the translation or porting process but were done by Armature Studio at the request of OculusVR and with the approval of CAPCOM.”
The compilation video I received, features only some of the revisions in the remake. In the video, 5 scenes showcase heavy alterations. In the
first two scenes, we can see the removal of flirtatious dialogue between Leon, the game's main character, and his radio support, Ingrid. During the
third scene, a male character, Luis Sera, jokes about the deuteragonist, Ashley Graham, “ballistics," a comment slyly referencing her character’s bosom and general appearance. These dialogue exchanges are now sanitized, leaving radio static and oddly stilted dialogue where they used to be. These alterations are likely to annoy veteran RE fans, but the mutilation to the game’s ending will perturb them.
In
scene 4, we see significant alterations have been inflicted on the ending, with at least 30% of the original dialogue missing. The worst yet is in
scene 5. In the original, after the credits roll, Leon admits his attraction for Ingrid then asking her for her phone number for which he is rebuffed.
Unlike the previous alterations featured in the video, this scene is completely erased from RE4 VR.
My sources and their contributors are individuals with different backgrounds and positions at different companies, some with ties to the game development community, that are only united in their appreciation for the original title. One noticed certain features missing in the documentation for the remake, specifically that a popular achievement was missing. Another observed the strange void of where specific dialogue and game assets had previously been. A third individual observed that subtitles had been altered.
I received additional documentation backing up their claims which will not be published here to protect their identities. These are folks that appreciate RE4 for what it is, hoping that with public scrutiny, it might remind Capcom of that as well. Censorship done for the right reasons is still censorship.
These changes alarmed them, as Capcom is famous for being extremely protective of their intellectual properties, and that these changes, as constituted, went entirely against the promises Facebook had made. The project is being handled by Armature Studios, with only one major developer from the original game -current series producer Masachika Kawata- involved with the project. Capcom is mostly in a supervisory capacity. According to my sources, the vandalism came at the request of Oculus’s owner, Facebook. Theorizing, that tolerating censorship may
“simply have been the price of doing business together.”
So far, Facebook has been
coy with the changes, with press releases using such corporate doublespeak as " all cutscenes will be present in their original format" instead of original content. When gaming preview videos are shown, like this one featured at
an official gaming showcase, the footage always cuts away just before the original controversial dialogue should begin.
Resident Evil 4 is a touchstone of modern gaming. A 3rd person horror masterpiece, as engaged with its game mechanics as it is the story. The title published 16 years ago, still remains in gaming as relevant as the day it came out. The title was far ahead of its time, filled with tight MCU-like dialogue and palpable romantic chemistry between its protagonists; lifted with cheesy jokes and moments bordering between fear-inducing and bravado; yet never mislays its welcome. This is a game that always strikes the right balance between fun and danger.
In addition to what is covered here,
there are at least 2 other major revisions to RE4VR. My sources sent additional documentation backing up their claims but will not be published here so as to protect their identities. These are folks that appreciate RE4 for what it is, hoping that with public scrutiny, it might remind Capcom of that as well. Censorship done for the right reasons is still censorship after all.
Which is a shame, as putting aside the misguided efforts to mutilate a classic so as to proactively protect the company from progressive game journos, according to my sources, this adaptation in terms of gameplay looks like to be one of the best takes on the franchise yet. Armature Studios' work is top-notch, and the game is an impressive technical achievement, with development mostly complete as early as March of this year. Changes for VR look to be radically inventive, and RE4 has never looked visually more pleasing. However, gamers and audience members should ask themselves;
if Oculus doesn’t undo the damage, is that woke bargain still worth taking?
