Wild Timeline We're Living In Right Now...
In the latest saga of an (eventfully) never-ending culture war in gaming, Warhorse Studios co-founder Daniel Vávra has gone all-in against writer and self-proclaimed 'defender of Christian values', Jon Del Arroz. The head butting all started over Del Arroz's outrage at Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 featuring an optional side quest with a... heavily gay romance scene involved. A scene that I dared to witness firsthand on a livestream:
Jon Del Arroz took to Twitter with a lengthy thread to discuss the scene involved with all the brushback from a good chunk of the gaming community, declaring to all that:
"Kingdom Come: Deliverance II is one of the biggest insults to gamers and Christians in recent years. It was all about trying to be subversive and woke, promoting DEI, and lying to gamers along the way"
His criticism drew the ire of Vávra, who isn't new to firing back at anyone he disagrees with, as we discovered when he pushed back against Rev Says Desu's coverage of the return situation pre-launch. In my humble opinion, that take from Vavra wasn't the best look, because based on his reaction and calling Rev a 'grifter', he clearly either didn't watch Rev's video, or knowingly ignored the facts presented in it. The reason I bring that situation up is to stress that this isn't the first time Vavra has fought his own battles.
In this situation with Del Arroz, Vavra highlighted past tweets, including an extensive history of posting some very strange and lewd 'furry' content alongside allegations of domestic violence - it was pretty wild to see this all coming from someone in Vavra's standing, but as stated earlier, we shouldn't be all that surprised based on how he's handled PR for the game in the past.
Vávra didn’t hold back at all, tweeting:
"Defender of 'Christian values' against appearances of those evil homosexuals in games sharing some spicy furry gay asses... These Anti Woke Warriors are even more funny than good old Social Justice ones :) Did I just make a name for them? Could we call them AWWs?"
He attached a... somewhat questionable image of Lucario, which had originally been posted by Del Arroz. This tweet sent the debate into overdrive, with everyone taking notice. He continued with another, stating:
"Are those species gay?"
...and attached another wild image of Lucario being embraced ever so delicately by MewTwo.
The real nuclear moment came when Vávra responded to Del Arroz’s lengthy thread/rant by simply replying, "Is this you?"—attaching a screenshot of a public hearing for a Domestic Violence Restraining Order tied to Del Arroz.
This single tweet threw the entire conversation to blow up into a frenzy, shifting the focus from Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2's alleged "wokeness" to Del Arroz's very own credibility.
To be clear, I’ve spoken to Del Arroz personally about the above mentioned allegation, and he has vehemently denied them, stating that they're misleading and out of context. But regardless of what Del Arroz tells me, public perception doesn’t operate on nuance, and when someone positions themselves as a moral authority, any skeletons in the closet are bound to be exposed... and fast.
It raises the question: Was it out of line for a studio co-founder like Daniel Vávra to engage in an aggressive mudslinging battle online? Or should he be allowed a voice to the platform just like anyone else? Either way - waking up to this situation was not something I was expecting... by any stretch.
The previous night, I had streamed IGN's review and walkthrough about the gay scene and then discussed at length with friend of the channel Hypnotic about the sentiment behind all of this. Ultimately I personally concluded that the game, while having a gay scene in it, is not a 'gay' game. It's not woke per se, at least... not with the current information on the table. If something breaks and there's a smoking gun exposing Warhorse for placing that into the game for reasons beyond 'creator's vision', then yeah... I'd have a major issue with it at that point.
Looking at the bigger picture, Kingdom Come: Deliverance 2 doesn’t strike me as "woke" simply because it includes an optional gay side quest. This is the same kind of choice-driven content has existed in gaming for decades. Looking at Mass Effect 3, or Mass Effect Andromeda - all the way up to Baulder's Gate 3... to so many others - Gay chartacter relationships have been done in gaming before, and it will continue to happen in the future. As long as a player has a choice to avoid it and go a different direction, I don't have too much of an issue with it - but at the same time, totally see where others do. It's been done before without much fanfare because of choice. Games like Dragon Age: The Veilguard went wrong because it was the storyline. it was forced. There was no way around it.
When people treat culture war battles as a business strategy rather than any kind of real investment in keeping the gaming space the gaming space, it becomes pretty damn transparent... It's always (and will forever be) rejected by actual gamers.
In this case, Daniel Vávra (a known outspoken developer at this point) didn’t hesitate to punch back hard. Whether anybody sees it as justified or excessive, one thing's for sure in all this: the battle over gaming’s culture war isn’t slowing down anytime soon.
So uhh... Grab your popcorn and enjoy the ride.
~ Smash
