The hate for this game is so Forced.

[Tanaki..:)]

I see people calling South of Midnight "woke trash," saying it’s DEI or throwing around all sorts of other filth. So, what exactly makes the game “woke”? Is it simply because the protagonist is a woman? Or—heaven forbid—the worst offense of all: that she’s Black?

When you confront these guys about it, they quickly pivot to “Sweet Baby Inc.,” as if that’s the ultimate gotcha, like it’s some universal metric of a game being bad. Spoiler: it’s not. There are plenty of successful games that had Sweet Baby involved—God of War, Spider-Man 2, Baldur’s Gate 3—the list goes on.

Honestly, though, I do have a weird sort of respect for the racists who just outright say they hate it because Hazel, the protagonist, is Black. At least they’re not hiding behind lame-ass excuses. But I’ve noticed this trend: whenever a Black character gets revealed in a video game—especially nowadays—the reaction is immediately “woke,” even when no one knows ♥♥♥♥ about the actual game.

Someone once told me that these days, words like “woke” or “DEI” are just coded language for the n-word when it’s about a Black person—and a catch-all for anything they don’t like if the character is a woman or POC. And honestly, ♥♥♥♥ like this is why no one can take real criticism or have serious conversations anymore. These anti-woke clowns ruined that, too.

Anti-woke content creators are just grifters—most of them don’t even know or understand what they’re talk about but want to force themselves as some authority. They’re just out here rotting people’s brains to make a quick buck. And honestly, these people aren’t even happy. They’ve got sad, miserable lives and seem hellbent on spreading that same sad existence to others. Let's be honest here, even you who consumes this content is a sad sap too.

I used to watch that kind of content too, but I eventually woke up and realized how toxic it was. So, I cut that ♥♥♥♥ out of my life completely—and I’ve been better for it, you should too.

[SquidgyKnows]

I'm inclined to agree with you, I've just watched the new trailer and thought it looked great, amazing art, well acted cut scenes and funny as well. Looking forward to giving a try sometime and I'm white, middle aged and as straight as they come. But having visited comments section etc. it is disgusting. I've come to the same conclusion as you, the comments sections / forum are just full of unnecessary hate and quite honestly some vile people. But, I suppose its the internet internetting.

[LEGUSOR]

The developers of the game were late with the release of one president of the United States.

[Dapper Tardigrade]

There are games that are full blown woke, and then there are ones that simply feature a diverse cast in a setting where that makes sense. This appears to be the latter.

[MGB | Screaming Internally]

Find a game in 2025 that is not considered woke and die trying.

[StacySweetie❤]

The discourse comes from the fact that Sweet Baby Inc is involved. Now whether the game is woke or not is up for debate and frankly not my main issue. Most people don’t like Sweet Baby because they advocated a harassment campaign against the Steam curator that lists off the games the consultant firm has worked on, all of which were public information. They also desperately wanted to ban the Steam user who created it. It’s one of the many controversies that Sweet Baby has seen themselves in and lots of people are not willing to support a company like that.

Also quick correction: Sweet Baby did not work on BG3

[Neoafter]

Another correction SBI did not work on god of war, they did work on god of war ragnarok.

A game that SBI worked on is a good indicator that the game has some forced DEI story in it, not gameplay focused along with high change that the development team are not hired for merit but to tick a diversity box.

[StacySweetie❤]

DEI in general is disliked amongst many because of how companies use it in such bad faith. They only care about the programs because there’s a financial incentive to it from Blackrock. They most likely don’t actually care about being more inclusive, rather just want a good ESG cheque

[Proxy-senpai]

I'd argue the praise for this game is forced as well.
All I've seen from it is them showing the setting and the art style, and even if the gameplay looks fine, there's just not a lot of it out there for the general public to be interested in it.
It seems more competent, at least to me, but this is looking to be just the middle term between Forspoken and Redfall, and I think people who are praising the game don't really have a leg to stand on outside of "setting unique" and "art style pretty".

[TheSlayerNL]

Many people seem to use the term "Woke" as a sticker to put on anything they disagree with, even if it actually is NOT Woke at all, and I really am getting tired of this stuff to be honest.

If you have a new IP, and you have stuff that makes sense and is fully designed around a specific character, then WHY is it immediately woke.
Back in the day nobody had a problem when forced being a specific character, heck you are the same character in Halo and Crysis in each game ... nobody cares.
So yeah, its definitely hating because they can, and that is just wrong.

I myself look forward to this game, it looks quite interesting and definitely nice, I also noticed it only is 40 euro so that is not too bad either.

[Zio]

(I think it's more likely OP is just baiting for awards but I'll reply either way because it's still relevant)
It's the usual shtick. Anything those types "disagree with" is of course unnaturally shoehorned in. There are excuses for everything. The usual one is "We're not against X we're just against forcing it into existing franchises!" and then you get fresh new products and they act exactly the same. It's all storefront bullshittery...or as they recently seemed to have started to add to their vocabulary, superficial, or sophistry, all just means to cover their racism, white supremacy, generally just plan ol' fascism. Most of them are just not dumb enough to be super obvious about it. Still, some of them do yap about things like the bs replacement conspiracy theory and other stuff. It's happening time and again but time and again it's dismissed. Heck some even call other white folks race traitors when they're not in line with their interests as if this wasn't the most obvious sign of a racist.

And make no mistake, there is no "middle ground". People claiming they are somewhere in the middle are almost 100% on the (far) right but like to play pretend. Some of them are actually literally really delusional and fell for the whole crap. I'd almost feel sorry for those but they made their choices and refuse to accept contradicting facts or anything really. There's a lot of thinly veiled "I'm not racist but..." in the anti woke crowd. Don't think I have seen a single person who acted like them but claimed not to be one of them who could have been bothered to actually distinguish themselves from the worst types. Which truly speaks for itself.

One particualr occasion was with a guy who posed as a big Star Trek fan, and though I'm sure he thought he was, he was also bigly anti woke. As if Trek hasn't ALWAYS been that way. The dude even went as far as claim that modern "wokism" was the real problem and that everything before had been fine (well somewhat, explaining it all would get too long)... and while he propagated listening to different people he utterly REFUSED to even listen to Nichelle Nichols literally saying that Martin Luther King Jr.'s work, ideas, etc, are still as important and needed as they always have been. Not to mention other people who keep trying to claim King would be conservative/anti woke today (if they don't dismiss even him, of all people), including but not limited to completely dismissing even his daughter, the NAACP or civil rights activists all over the place. It's always the same. They're trying EVERYTHING to curb every bit of diversity or anything even remotely present or public. You get the idea.

Every now and then I check in on games like this and especially with every boost of visibility it gets I just know some fascist couldn't help themselves. And I'm always right about it.

[Wilmor]

I can definutely understand your point about anti-woke people. Some of these guys are really determined to make plots and narratives better, but others just scream ''Fight woke!" as if they know what`s better for all gamers. Sad to say, but now they are just becoming no better than the most agressive DEI activists. The conflict about this game is not just about Sweet Baby. The community manager of Compulsion Games posted a very racist message saying she hates gamers and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like that. This is why people got more mad and started burrying SoM. I`m really upset about the fact that this passionate studio which is loved for its previous games is getting hate not just because of SBI, but because of one dumbass` post. For me the main reason to play this game is because I love Compulsion Games and wish all the best for them. I know the team has changed since 2018 and there are not so much of the old developers left. But the art director Whitney Clayton is still there, and her artstyle in SoM is great. The creative director David Sears is still on board. And the studio director Guillaume Provost is leading this project. These people gave me Contrast and We Happy Few, which is one of the best game experiences in my life. And I really hope South of Midnight will be at least on the same level. I hope the familiar style of Compulsion is still there and people will appreciate that. This is not about the culture war, guys. This is about a good developers getting a chance to show a good story, so let`s give them that chance.

[Skyswimsky]

I'm one of those 'anti woke' people and don't think the game is 'woke' from what I seen. The Combat looks a tad slow(as opposed to the guy saying it's fast and responsive?) but some slick designs and I dig the voice acting.

Also you have extremists on either end, but in reality it mainly from the fact that if you spend your limited time/focus/resources on "Do we have a non-binary character in our story yet?" instead of "is this story gonna be cool? What's missing?", it'll reduce game quality --> overall appeal. That, and fear to offend anyone. And titles that don't do this on purpose get caught in the cross fire. Like this one?

That said you can obviously create a game to market to a specific audience, but there's zero right to be surprised if it doesn't have too many sells and even less to blame the audience.

Funnily enough despite the internet connecting people more than ever, there are also more radicalized, because you meet more terminally online people who spend too much time in their own conforming bubbles and call anything that disagrees with them woke, bigoted, Nazi, or whatever else.

Originally posted by Wilmor:

The community manager of Compulsion Games posted a very racist message saying she hates gamers and ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ like that.

Although even if I think the game looks appealing to me, I'm not going to buy that if I that is true. (Wasn't even aware until now)

[Iwantacookie]

Originally posted by Skyswimsky:

Also you have extremists on either end, but in reality it mainly from the fact that if you spend your limited time/focus/resources on "Do we have a non-binary character in our story yet?" instead of "is this story gonna be cool? What's missing?"

And the problem with this is the vast majority of the time none of the anti-woke crowd knows if this was actually the case when the accusation is thrown. I often find its just assumed based on largely two criteria in my experience:

1) the color of character, sexuality or politics present is something they find off-putting and/or against the norm.
2) the game looks bad based on the usual criteria. Gameplay, story, dialog etc.

[Zio]

Has there ever been a commercial game that was more bothered about the identity of one or several of its characters rather than the game? Or any game?
One may have the impression because different identities feel so alien to them that the inclusion MUST have been a forced one. But for woke folks inclusion is natural, thinking outside the binary is basically a given. One can argue and reason with people who have minor concerns, but the people who keep coming with their fearmongering about "woke" cannot be reasoned with because their "concerns" are not rational. Like thinking (or rather, claiming) devs worry more about the identity of a character than the game.

This manufactured outrage and CRIKEY! MY PEARLS! pearl clutching over someone saying "Gamers were a mistake"...seriously this just shows how absolutely zero understanding there is of anyone who talks like this. It's a quip, not a proposal as additional law of physics. It's a very simple and common joke to say xy was a mistake, it's only meant half-seriously, like the abridged Miyazaki quote about how anime was a mistake. Though let's be honest here, nobody is that clueless to not know this so it's clearly just petty pearl clutching for the sake of fake outrage because these usual types have a vested interest in making people look bad that they don't want to see.

[kodiak]

people like you are why the words "grifters" and "incel" dont hold any meaning any more, yall threw them around like candy, at any thing that rubbed you the wrong way, like every games journalist in the west, its like a cult in the woke community. Iv literally been watching my favorite franchises burn for the last year and its all because of DEI, if its not just straight up dei, its either the creator of a game or someone on the dev team that HAS to say SOMETHING on social media that hurts the game, to many activists and prideful people in the gaming world these days.