The developers of Ion Fury, Voidpoint, have defended their transphobic messages by arguing that they’ve been removed of context.
Ion Fury was only released on August 15, and already the game’s developer is being massively scrutinised for shocking and offensive transphobic comments. The fowl remarks about transgender people and SJWs were unearthed on ResetEra, and the developers have received warranted backlash for their distasteful messages.
Masses of people on social media platforms such as Twitter, ResetEra, and Reddit have responded to the leaked skeletons from Voidpoint’s closet by questioning whether they should even buy Ion Fury anymore.
This comes in-spite-of it receiving glowing reviews from the likes of Game Informer and PCGamesN, as well as it boasting an overwhelmingly positive review aggregate on Steam.
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What is Ion Fury?
Ion Fury is a first-person-shooter developed by Voidpoint and published by 3D Realms.
Rather than elevating the genre to newer and greater heights, Ion Fury‘s goal is to instead be a throwback to the classic Duke Nukem titles that made gamers feel like Arnold Schwarzenegger in their bedrooms.
Players control a female protagonist named Shelly “Bombshell” Harrison, and the game’s 8-10 hour narrative is a standard and predictable affair carried by its 90s aesthetics, its frantic gunplay, and its main character’s expertly delivered one-liners.
However, while the experience is no doubt an amazing throwback for both older and newer gamers to experience together, the transphobic messages from employees at Voidpoint have sullied its reputation.
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Ion Fury transphobia
As reported on by both GameRevolution and The Gamer, ResetEra has unearthed disgusting and fowl transphobic messages on 3D Realms’ public Discord server.
The messages that have been criticised the most were made by Voidpoint employees, as evidenced by the blue usernames.
One of the many insulting messages includes Ion Fury developer ‘Daedolon’ referring to sex reassignment as “mutilating a perfectly healthy body.”
Really convinced by your words there buddy, especially when one of your devs described transitioning as mutilating a perfectly healthy body pic.twitter.com/7NbV8d1Oa3
— Twenty5Thousand (@Twenty5Thousand) August 17, 2019
The same employee also complains about “the whole SJW concept” being about “getting upset on behalf of other people”.
Voidpoint has responded on Twitter by claiming that the leaked remarks have been taken out of context thanks to crop tools in editing software such as Photoshop.
That’s your choice, but you should probably do your own research before coming to that conclusion. The crop tool in Photoshop has always been just as much about what you are removing as what you are keeping.
— Voidpoint’s ION FURY out NOW (@voidpnt) August 17, 2019
Following the disappointing leaks, people on Twitter have started to criticise the developer for following certain accounts, meanwhile others have taken time to refute their weak defence about context.
On Twitter they follow some, uh, interesting accounts associated with or beloved by the usual suspects pic.twitter.com/wOSrMJCIgT
— Ana Valens @ FlameCon (@acvalens) August 17, 2019
Since the #IonFury devs are screaming about “CoNtExT!!!!” have an extensive look at their discord thread in which one of their devs (Deadolon) spouts right wing transphobic talking points. pic.twitter.com/VHDhisfsPr
— RestlessDreams (@DreamsRestless) August 17, 2019
Regardless what anyone thinks or says about the less than perfect ResetEra, it’s impossible to see Voidpoint as the victims thanks to the heinousness of their leaked conversations.
Ion Fury is a fantastic experience that warrants a purchase through everything pertaining to the game’s undeniable quality, but it’s easy to understand why large groups of people are no longer supporting it.
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