Skullgirls Draws Backlash Over Character Censorship Changes

Hidden Variable, the developers of the indie fighting game Skullgirls had announced sweeping censorship decisions across the game, drawing some backlash from the audience.

In a forum post, game director Charley Price said the changes would role back some of the rougher edges of Skullgirls imagery- such as the Nazi-analogue Black Egrets or the game’s sexual depiction of underage characters like Filia.

“While the Renoir family and the Black Egrets were always intended to evoke imagery from an oppressive militant regime, we felt that the way that manifested (most notably via red armbands, flags, and symbolism) was too close for comfort – especially given the unfortunate reality that some of these hate groups are still active in various respects to this day”, the statement reads.

As a result, it’s not like the Egrets would be completely reworked- according to Price’s blogpost they would instead be removing the overt references- such as the red armbands and the Nazi symbols.

He also elaborated on the more complicated issue of sexualized characters in Skullgirls:

“While Skullgirls is no stranger to characters that confidently express their sexuality, there are instances in the game where characters are fetishized and/or have sexualization imposed upon them. This includes a few depictions of unwanted predatory behavior, particularly towards younger characters”, Price’s statement reads.

“While alluding to some of this can be narratively meaningful, we have made a number of small adjustments throughout the game to ensure that this content is less exploitative (e.g. the opening of Filia’s Story Mode)”, he adds.

A follow-up post goes into detail about which arts would be affected- such as one where the cast are captured by Double, and it’s easy to see Price’s perspective, since the the plot point of being captured by a shapeshifting nun doesn’t need to look like it came from the back half of a seedy manga store.

The changes also affect the character Big Band, with a lot of references to police violence being removed.

Fans have naturally not been happy with the changes- 38% of the game’s recent reviews on Steam have been negative, with many comments calling out the censorship issue specifically.

“Censoring a 12 year old game… yeah I’m not a fan”, writes one Steam user, Josefu. “A massive shame. Part of Skullgirl’s identity for the most part, was how confident, risque and charming it was. It was definitely the reason I bought the game ages ago”.

“We of course realize that some members of the Skullgirls community may disagree with these changes, either in terms of how we chose to address them or whether they were in fact issues that warranted addressing in the first place”, Price continues. “Please know that all of these choices have been made following careful consideration and lengthy discussion amongst all members of the current development team.”

“We are confident that this will provide a more sound foundation for Skullgirls that we can all be proud of as we continue to grow and expand the universe in the years to come”, he adds.

If nothing else this is a sign of longer-term commitment to the Skullgirls IP- admittedly a game full of borderline-softcore wouldn’t fly in the mainstream like it does in indie spaces, and as a business decision it makes sense if they were planning to grow the Skullgirls name.

That being said, the community’s grievances aren’t entirely baseless- the game has always prided itself on its more raunchy nature, so fans who’d been there since the early days might feel betrayed by the push to clean things up to seem more legit.

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