Superhot VR Review-Bombed After Patch Removes Self-Harm Scenes

Earlier this week, Super hot VR received an update which removed all scenes where the player was injured or killed. The developers explained that these scenes had “no place” in the game and apologized for taking so long to remove them. In response, hundreds of gamers shouted at them and started bombing the game on Steam.

The update for Super hot VR went live on July 21 and with that, the developers of Superhot Team explained in a short message why the self-harm scenes were completely removed from the game. The removed scenes involved the player shooting themselves and jumping off a building.

“The ‘Ignore disturbing scenes’ toggle was added in a previous update. [the] sensitive period in which we live, we can do better than that. You deserve better. All the scenes referring to self-harm are now completely removed from the game. These scenes have no place in super hot virtual reality. We regret that it took us so long. Were [committed] to send this update to all VR platforms.

As you might expect, many Steam users have responded with anger and hostility to the news of the update. Many upset with the update started to to give Super hot VR negative reviews, triggering Valve’s anti-bombardment technology to initiate and filter the flood of bad faith reviews.

By reading the comments under the Very hot The Developer Update Note is like scrolling through a war zone, with participants launching angry attacks on the developers, the game, and society as a whole.

A popular commentary suggested that the “snowflakes” were to blame and predicted that Grand Theft Auto Games will then have all the blood and violence removed. If that seems like an overreaction to a developer making a small change to their own game, you’d be right. There was no evil cabal forcing the developers to update a four-year-old game to remove a few scenes featuring acts of self-harm. The reality is that people change, and the developers may have looked back at what they did and felt uncomfortable today, 2021, having their name attached to a piece of content describing self-harm. So they decided to remove it.

Kotaku contacted Superhot Team regarding the removal of the scenes.

Currently, only the Steam version of the game has removed these scenes. However, the team mentioned in their note that Super hot VR on other platforms, like Oculus Store, will be updated in the future to remove these scenes as well.

Anyway, yeah, it starts again : Players are angry that some developers have decided to change their own game. This is not the first time it happened and unfortunately it probably won’t be the last.