Report: Devs asked to remove sexist and harassment-related content from Resident Evil 4 VR
Some dialogues and scenes have been changed or removed from the upcoming VR version of Resident Evil 4. According to the latest report, this act of censorship came at the request of Facebook.
Resident Evil 4
The Happy Warrior host Peter Pischke reported the changes, citing a few game development videos he obtained as evidence.
“Sexual harassment, sarcastic expressions, sexist conversations, and expressions that may be indirectly linked to them have been removed,” a disclaimer in one of the videos reads. It also says that these changes were made by Armature Studio “at the request of Oculus VR and with the approval of Capcom.”
The developer hasn’t revealed the reason behind this decision. However, a few sources told Pischke that Facebook, which owns Oculus VR, was the initiator.
The list of changes
- The studio changed the first dialogue between Leon Kennedy and agent Ingrid Hannigan. Leon’s line “Somehow I thought you’d be a little older” is missing from the new version.
- The same goes for one of their subsequent conversations, where Leon flirted with Ingrid, joking about her being “lonely” without him.
- When seeing a dead woman in the village for the first time, Leon simply says, “I guess no one’s safe here” instead of “Guess there’s no sex discrimination here.”
- Luis Sera’s sexist joke about Ashley Graham is also missing from the VR version. So the “ballistics” joke, which referred to Ashley’s breasts, is gone. The developers also renamed the “Secure the Ballistics” achievement to “Secure Ashley.”
- One of the key changes is related to the ending of Resident Evil 4. According to the leaked video, the studio removed around 30% of the original dialogue. There is also no scene where Leon gets rejected after asking Ingrid for her phone number.
This news made some fans urge the community to boycott Resident Evil 4 VR and play the original version instead. Other people called these changes censorship, with one person saying that the developers “shot themselves at their foot.”
Resident Evil 4 VR is expected to come out on October 21 exclusively on Oculus Quest 2.
