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PaperclipPerfector  1d ago (text post)   6090 thread views

Culture War Roundup for the week of October 19, 2026

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A new wave of outrage is circulating on Twitter. Castlevania: Belmont's Curse is being criticized for Rose Belmont being insufficiently attractive. Hades II was also dredged up as an example of a game with unattractive characters in the same style, prompting the lead artist of the latter to clarify she wasn't responsible for Castlevania.

I personally do not think every woman in a videogame has to be designed as goon fuel, like Aerith and Tifa in the remake, 2B or half the cast of Overwatch. What surprises me is the ferocity with which the supporters of Hades and BC defend the artwork and decry the label of "safe horny" (which, as I understand, means technically, but not viscerally, attractive).

Hypothesis 1: they sincerely prefer this style and cannot understand why anyone would not like it. Maybe it's a learned preference.

Hypothesis 2: it's a form of "every woman is a 10" defense. They cannot say they wanted to have more diverse levels of attractiveness in games, because they implicitly agree that attractiveness can be ranked by saying it, and agreeing to this is very chud-coded.

Hypothesis 3: because some of the hecklers said the women in both games look trans, they cannot backtrack without losing face, because this would mean agreeing that transwomen are less attractive.

Hypothesis 0:

It's flag planting. It's always been flag planting. Taking a territory that belongs to your hated enemies and putting your mark on it. Making fictional women unattractive to the men you despise is taking it from them. Making their heroes into fat black trans lesbian girlbosses is taking them from them. Degrading their achievements by removing gameplay and shoving easy modes into everything is taking it from them.

removing gameplay and shoving easy modes into everything

Is this actually a trend in the gaming industry?

Pretty sure so, yes. There was a strong push from the gaming press against the popularity of souls-like games because their difficulty and the git-good attitude it fostered in their audience was exclusionary. Mix Tape and Wolverine are two recent major releases that lean heavily into minimizing difficulty and hand-holding the player; "yellow paint" design (look it up) has been a growing issue for a long time.

There was a strong push from the gaming press against the popularity of souls-like games because their difficulty and the git-good attitude it fostered in their audience was exclusionary

Exclusionary towards women and generally anyone who isn't a young toxic white male game nerd, I presume?

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