Advertisement

But fans have had over a week to let their bad thoughts percolate, and so they had more to shriek about than Ada’s voice acting (though it continued to upset them too). For your convenience, here is a brief list of the most popular reasons why Metacritic users are slapping RE4 with fours, threes, and proud, yawning zeroes, according to the users themselves:

Advertisement

Resident Evil 4’s supposedly “woke” soundtrack

Things do seem to be brightening, though—the review bombs seem to have abated, and RE4 now has a “mixed” user score on Metacritic, settled at a solid 7.0, up from the 4.8 it was at this weekend.

Advertisement

In response, some people have taken their meltdowns elsewhere, including, enigmatically, to the Steam discussion sections for other games.

“Is this game woke?” a March 31 discussion post for the indie horror game Dredge asks. “Between Dead Space’s woke bathrooms, Hogwarts Legacy’s woke genders, and RE4's woke soundtrack I’m starting to doubt if I’ll be able to play any new games this year…”

Advertisement

I know, reading that sentence does feel like receiving a non-surgical lobotomy. But if you were wondering just what the hell “woke” soundtrack might even mean, pop culture writer Tauriq Moosa ventured on Twitter that it likely refers to music “that has elements from non-white countries” or is “performed by women.” Sometimes I forget how infrequently evil gamers go outside, but moments like this remind me.

Advertisement

Have you ever spoken to a human woman without crying before?

If you ask the evil gamers themselves, they don’t need the sun, a glass of water, or a therapist. They are crusaders against censorship, rallying for the purity of video games.

Advertisement

A noble cause. Or it would be, except “censorship,” in this case, refers to a maniacal need to see a sliver of sidekick Ashley Graham’s underwear at 57 FPS and hear protagonist Leon scoff and say something sexist, two elements Capcom had already removed in 2021 for its VR version of RE4.

Two years was not enough time for nerds—whom I like imagining as a troupe of Troll dolls that got stuck behind a washing machine—to mourn the loss of 45-FPS video game underwear and unfunny dialogue.

Advertisement

It also hasn’t been enough time for them to realize that, if they need to see 30-FPS underwear that bad, they can play the original version of the game on modern consoles, or that—and this is a real pro gamer tip—they can see real underwear in real life if they tried being a normal human being and bathing regularly.

Update 4/10/2023, 10:30 a.m. ET: Article updated to include actress Lily Gao’s statement.

Advertisement