Words: Liam Wiseman
Superhot and its spin-offs instantly became indie darlings following their releases. The time-bending mechanics of the 2016 original put a much-needed new spin on FPS gameplay, and it became obvious quite quickly that the game would be awesome in VR. And, it was. But five years on from launch, Superhot VR has patched out one of its more controversial scenes.
Update 1.0.22.1 brings quite a significant change with it, removing a scene in the game that implies serious self-harm. The developers of the Superhot series, Superhot Team, accompanied this update with a post on their Steam community forum stating that the original option implemented to "skip disturbing scenes" was not sufficient to protect players from the content in question.
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The official statement from Superhot Team is below:
"'Skip disturbing scenes' toggle was added in a previous update. Considering [the] sensitive time we're living in, we can do better than that. You deserve better. All scenes alluding to self-harm are now completely removed from the game. These scenes have no place in Superhot VR. We regret it took us so long.
"We're committed to shipping this update to all VR platforms."
While this is a positive move to ensure players have the best Superhot VR experience possible, the timing is a tad odd as the game has already been out for five years now. However, it's likely that this move was in response to feedback the team has received over the past few years, and it's nice to see a developer respond to player feedback, especially when dealing with sensitive subject matters like self-harm.
Superhot VR was given a PEGI 12 age rating in the UK, meaning that pre-teens could have potentially accessed that traumatic content. The developers are clearly aiming to be more responsible for the content that they put out into the public realm, and regardless of whether you think the game is now missing certain elements to it, taking responsibility for your own and other people's mental health is incredibly important. The recently released upgrade of Doki Doki Literature Club also includes content warnings before the player experiences the self-harm and suicide related content in that game, though that was given a very appropriate PEGI 18 age rating.
Despite the removal of this content, Superhot and its sequels remain fantastic experiences that we recommend fans of innovative indie games should play. In 2019, Superhot was awarded a place on our indie games of the decade list, and the game remains just as fun, exhilarating, and puzzling as the day it launched. Superhot VR isn't the only video game to be removing controversial content either, as Mass Effect Legendary Edition edited some of the more misogynistic content for its re-release earlier this year, again in response to negative feedback from players.
Featured Image Credit: SUPERHOT Team, Jessica Lewis via UnsplashTopics: VR, News, Indie Games