Skullgirls bombarded by negative Steam reviews after devs alter old artwork they felt was in 'poor taste'

[John Elden Ring]

The patch removes Nazi-like armbands and almost imperceptibly tones down the sexualization of some characters.​

Decade-old fighting game Skullgirls has been hit with more than 600 negative Steam reviews in just 24 hours because of a patch that mostly tweaks and removes artwork that the developers say doesn't reflect their current "values" or "broad vision" for the future of the game. The overall Steam rating for Skullgirls remains "Very Positive," but its recent review average has tumbled down to "Mostly Negative."

The Skullgirls "Content Updates and Revisions" patch was deployed on June 26, and affects the PC, console, and mobile versions of the game. The changes are summarized in a forum post by game director Charley Price, and target three aspects of Skullgirls:

• "Allusions to real-world hate groups" seen in the dress and iconography of Skullgirls' Black Egret army, particularly its Nazi-like red armbands
• Instances in which characters "are fetishized and/or have sexualization imposed upon them," with particular attention toward younger characters
• Some content "believed to be in poor taste" with regard to race

Some of the tweaks only affect artwork seen in galleries, where four pieces of fanart were removed and 15 official illustrations were modified, but a number of adjustments were also made to in-game animations and story mode art. The Black Egret armbands were removed wherever they appeared, for instance, and a story mode illustration showing Black character Big Band being beaten by police was removed.

Some non-artwork was changed, too: A "Soviet Announcer" voice pack was removed (there are a few possible reasons for this, but it isn't obvious which it is), and the combo counter phrase for 18-hit combos, which had been "Barely Legal," was replaced.

The full changelog can be found here, and the video below from LalitoTV documents the art changes with before-and-after comparisons. In many cases, the alterations are so minor that they're hard to notice unless pointed out. Several illustrations were tweaked to obscure a character's underwear without substantially changing the sexual content of the scene, for example.

Via PCGamer

 

[flaccidsnake]

true alpha male behavior

 

[Zzero]

Lol, the game is entirely fetish smut shit. Thats why they are all girls and no men. I thought that was trashy at the time but I certainly didn't want the hellish future we created by going too far the other way.

 

[Summer Nightmares]

Spoiler: The mousepad of those users.

 

[Nym]

Maybe make a new game

 

[nongkris]

online gamers and racism/sexism, name a worse duo.

 

[Deleted member 417]

online gamers and racism/sexism, name a worse duo.

Virtue signallers and unwelcomed political nonsense

 

[Zzero]

Spoiler: The mousepad of those users.

They keep it in the plastic so its easier to rinse off after use.

 

[Bryank75]

That's Steam for ya!

 

[Zzero]

online gamers and racism/sexism, name a worse duo.

If you want to see a real worse duo its that one member of the game's development team and the creepy posts he used to make on SA 15 years ago. Face it, the game is and always was sexist and sold itself with cute age-questionable girls. Thats why they liked the fan artists making smutty drawings of their characters. Thats why they put those smutty fan drawings in the game and had to remove them now.

 

[Swift_Star]

Well, it's the developers choice and right to do it.

 

[BlueLyria]

#FreeFiliaCheeks