IGN Writer Rebekah Valentine Writes Hit Piece Attacking Video Game Life Is Strange: "Hidden Nazi Symbols"

The woke are eating their own in video games as nothing is woke enough for the IGN inquisition. The lady who wrote the hit piece on Black Myth: Wukong goes at Life Is Strange.

Life is Strange: Double Exposure released yesterday, and while many who have played this game in early access have been giving it very positive reviews on Steam, there is now cause for concern that this game will be extremely divisive among longtime fans. While these titles have obviously attracted the attention and admiration of the "modern audience," recent accusations of bigotry and inappropriate behavior among upper management at Deck Nine Games have cast this upcoming title in a less than favorable light.

The first Life is Strange title was developed in 2015 by Dontnod Entertainment and published by Square Enix. The game was released in episodic fashion, with a total of 5 episodes all coming out in the same year. Deck Nine Games was then brought on to make a 3 episode prequel in 2017, and Dontnod returned for their final entry in the series, Life is Strange 2, which launched in 2018. After the departure of Dontnod, Deck Nine fully took the helm on this narrative driven series, developing Life is Strange: True Colors in 2021.

While it wasn't brought to light until an IGN article in April of this year, there was allegedly an internal struggle between management at Deck Nine and many people in the narrative department. Overshadowing the success of these titles are recent allegations of "sexism," "misogyny" and "transphobia" from current and former Deck Nine employees. (It can also not be stressed enough that the author of this IGN "hit piece" was the same Rebekah Valentine who attempted to smear the team at Game Science, the Chinese developers of Black Myth Wukong, as misogynists and sexists in her article in November of 2023.)

According to an anonymous source that spoke with Ms. Valentine, Square Enix allegedly shied away from acknowledging Alex's bisexuality in True Colors until it was widely praised by the fans, at which point they confirmed that the character was canonically bisexual. Some of the other people she interviewed blamed Square Enix for crunch, labeling Square Enix London specifically as "bullies."

"Others I spoke to expressed frustration at Square Enix for a different reason: it was far too hands-on with the script. Sure, Life is Strange is a Square Enix’s owned IP, but sources told me Square Enix seemed oddly reluctant or outright hostile to the diverse themes and ideas that Life Is Strange fans love. For instance, multiple people recalled an incident during True Colors development where Square Enix told multiple developers it didn’t want Life Is Strange to be thought of as the 'gay game'."

It's worth noting that Deck Nine and Square Enix have never shied away from virtue signaling to left-wing and liberal ideologies, with the former posting support for such things as Pride Month and "Trans Rights" on their Twitter/X account. However, the IGN article would go on to describe a myriad of issues; an overly hostile programmer, an unwillingness from upper management to "reign in" the Narrative Director of True Colors, and alleged "Nazi/white supremacist dog whistles" being snuck into their games.

In terms of Narrative Director and future CCO Zak Garriss, the article by Ms. Valentine tried to paint him as a bigot, misogynist, and overall creep. Former Lead Narrative Designer Mallory Littleton detailed some examples of his behavior;

“He would walk me to my car, I’d open the door, say goodbye, and he’d sort of linger. We’d keep talking, I’d sit down, and he’d linger again next to the open door. He never made a particularly overt move, it was always subtle enough. It felt like it was maybe always just a vibe that I was getting. I felt stupid, first of all, for ending up in that situation with him in the first place. But because he never clearly made a move, maybe I was just reading too much into the whole thing. It wasn’t until I explained it in great detail to others that someone clued me in.”

He was also massively disliked by many of the more progressive writers and employees who were angry that he removed a transgender character from the script and called BLM a "hate group." Former Producer Mallorie Tate claims that in terms of whether or not he felt representation mattered, Garriss responded “I don't necessarily identify with every white man protagonist, and so other people shouldn’t identify with characters because they look the same.”

Garriss eventually left of his own volition and spoke out about the level of hostility he faced from his writing staff. “In all of my career, I have never worked with writers who were as creatively inflexible, antagonistic toward difference, or less inclined to listen or compromise as a select few of this group.” He even claimed that True Colors was on the verge of being cancelled before he took over as Narrative Director. “Their conduct became unprofessional, more antagonistic, and accusatory toward me of the toxicity that, from the perspective of many people in the studio, was in actuality a result of their behavior.”

While none of these things seemed to greatly impact the overall reception of True Colors (the game received both the GLAAD Media Award for Outstanding Video Game and Games for Impact at The Game Awards), a noticeable shift has taken place inside of Deck Nine Games. While previously being a studio that was able to create empathetic, progressive titles without becoming completely consumed by woke ideology, there now seems to be an ever increasing number of activists taking hold within the company.

Current Narrative Director Felice Kuan has publicly supported "trans rights" via her Twitter account, reposting accounts pushing back against so-called "anti-trans legislation." Double Exposure Lead Writer Deandra Fallon Warrick is himself a transgender individual, which is likely what led to the existence of a transgender character in Double Exposure, voiced by transgender actor Rachel Crowl. 

Also on the writing team for Double Exposure were James Wright, Giselle Francis and Elizabeth Ballou. Elizabeth has previously written for various media outlets, such as Vice, Kotaku, Girls on Games, etc. Giselle Francis most notably worked as a writer at Red Thread Games, the studio behind the now infamous DEI disaster Dustborn. James Wright is an LA based writer who did freelance work with Sweet Baby Inc on their upcoming flop, South of Midnight. None of these writers had worked on Life is Strange prior to Double Exposure. 

Most of the Steam reviews are listed as very positive, despite the almost 200 negative reviews that Double Exposure currently has accrued. Many of the negative early access Steam reviews have cited crashes and overall performance issues being a major issue, but have also expressed frustration with how several of the characters have been altered from their original portrayal. With the changes in leadership at Deck Nine and a focus on a more agenda driven approach, it's no surprise to see that storytelling in Double Exposure has been negatively impacted.

From Steam user Baysen: "This might be the worst case of character assassination I've ever seen. I didn't want to believe it, so I had to see for myself, but the criticism was all valid: They nuked Chloe's character from orbit, ignored all character development that happened in the previous games (for both Chloe and Max) and just made her act like a childish a**hole to get rid of her for this game.
And then comes the cherry on top: Seconds after we get to learn what happened between them, we're forced to flirt up a new girl, even though we get a fake choice that we 'don't like her.' It's basically saying 'Hey forget about that blue haired b**ch, here's some new chick we like better'."

"The dialogue is also horribly cringe and cliché and not the cute and well done kind of Max cringe we've seen in the past, just actual cringy line after line. I've counted 6 horny remarks and choices in the first 30 minutes alone. How is that Max?"

Another woke activist who was brought on for the development of Double Exposure was so-called "accessibility consultant" Laura Kate Dale. Laura, who is another biological male that identifies as a transwoman, has been a writer for sites such as Kotaku and Polygon, and created a bit of a controversy back in 2019 when he published an article accusing a song in the Super Smash Brothers DLC pack for Persona 5 of using the word "retarded." Virtually all mention of this has been scrubbed from the internet, and Kotaku has even edited the linked article to one that was written by Stephen Totilo.

Accessibility, in terms of accommodating people with genuine handicaps, is a genuinely noble cause to champion. Unfortunately, based on Laura Dale's own writings, as well as his obsession with "representation" and gender ideology, it is not a stretch to imagine that he was only brought on to consult on this game due to the increased level of activism that currently has a death grip on Deck Nine Games. 

The Life is Strange series has always been fairly progressive. This is not being contested, and most people have not had any issue with that up until now. But like all things do once the woke mind virus has taken hold, Deck Nine Games will not be long for this world if someone in upper management doesn't take action to remove these activists before it's too late. 

This article is written by Minimal Effort Gaming’s Tebow who you can support here.