Don’t you just love the internet, where armchair lawyers, virtue signalers, social justice warriors, vicarious offenders, and those taking offence by proxy take to their keyboards and mobile phones, piling onto the offended wagon en masse over a heart-warming game that has won over millions of gamers worldwide?
What Is Pragmata About?
Described by developers Capcom as a unique sci-fi action-adventure game that follows Hugh and the android Diana exploring a lunar facility taken over by rogue AI, for them to find a way to Earth. Capcom is the Japanese developer of the Resident Evil series of games, amongst others, known for their well-polished and bug-free games. So when I first came across Pragmata, released on 17th April, I was curious, having played the remakes of Resident Evil 2&3. I was also relieved that it wasn’t a survival horror game, so I downloaded the demo on Steam. While I was waiting for the download to finish, I meandered over to the Steam community forum to see what other gamers were saying about the game, and frankly, I was taken aback by what I read.
I will add here that I’m not easily shocked, especially by community posts on Steam because so many of them are posted by trolls as clickbait, but on this occasion I was genuinely gobsmacked. Many of the troll posts have since been deleted, but the ones I did see suggested that anyone who plays the game is a paedophile and has daddy issues, whatever they are.
The dog whistle on this occasion is the android, Diana. It’s a known fact that some Japanese games feature scantily clad, busty females with impossibly lithe figures that appeal to a certain audience. Stellar Blade is one of those games that I played the demo to stretch my RX 9070 XT GPU, but the game didn’t really grab me as others have. Here’s an example of what I mean:
Anyway, back to Pragmata, where Diana rides on Hugh’s back, and he’s equipped with an exosuit and can use a variety of weapons. Diana, on the other hand, is able to solve puzzles with her AI and assist him in other ways. Bearing in mind that so far I’ve only played the demo, I see that Hugh has a paternal relationship with Diana, even though she/it is simply a robot, yet is portrayed as an overly cute child with blond hair, wherein lies the perceived problem.
Most commentators agree that Capcom took somewhat of a risk by portraying Diana in such a way, but they forget that this scenario is familiar – a child atop a robot or adventuring with an older man – with Bioshock and The Last Of Us being examples. But we live in over-reactionary times where the internet allows unfounded and outlandish opinions to fly around like confetti. Most people who have played the game will agree that Hugh and Diana’s relationship is symbiotic, not just paternal on Hugh’s part. They need each other to survive, and that is the device, emotive though it may be, and the way the game is played. Others are suggesting that the paternal aspect of Hugh’s relationship is helping dads bond more with their kids, and even suggesting that it’s prompting men to suddenly want children. Well, get on with it then, you know where the bedroom is!
Folks, it’s just a video game, and if you find it uplifting, all well and good. On the other hand, if you’re offended by it, find yourself a shrink because you probably need one.
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