Steam will get a bunch of recent video games on a regular basis, however one has been making headlines this week for its absurdly exorbitant $2,000 price ticket. That sport, The Hidden and Unknown, isn’t precisely price your time, although, particularly contemplating that it has this extraordinarily lengthy opening textual content crawl all about males’s rights and “the human cycle” of replica. Ew.
Developed by ProX.staff, The Hidden and Unknown is the newest indie Steam sport to seize a few of the web’s consideration for a handful of causes. Yeah, it actually is $2,000. Yeah, it actually takes lower than two hours to complete. And yeah, it actually does have a Star Wars-like opening scroll that’s eight minutes lengthy and utterly unskippable. These sides alone make the sport considerably curious for avid gamers like myself, these fascinated about what’s taking place on Valve’s PC distribution platform. However, it’s the thesis of the opening sequence that has me elevating my eyebrows because it posits that “most western males immediately are female” and “incapable of taking the lead.” In different phrases, soy boys are a no-no.
“There may be an thought known as The Human Cycle which can’t be stopped so long as humanity continues to exist,” begins The Hidden and Unknown’s opening textual content scroll. “This has been the case for the reason that inception of civilization, nonetheless, with unprecedented developments in science, issues may not be the identical as they was once. Whereas beforehand solely a small portion of individuals might afford being weak, the state of affairs is completely different immediately. Most western males immediately are female, whereas a lot of the western girls immediately are masculine. Males mistake being weak as being good so they don’t offend females, whereas girls tackle the extra masculine function as their males are pathetic, weak, and incapable of taking the lead.” This goes on and on for eight minutes straight, y’all.
However what’s The Hidden and Unknown? Effectively, it’s a non-interactive visible novel about some child named Brian, whom you by no means really see. Brian is like most children in that he performs soccer, goes to high school, sleeps in his bed room, hangs out along with his buddies (who you additionally don’t see), and performs browser-based video video games. The one distinction is that, after Brian grows disenfranchised from his buddies as a result of the (equally unseen) ladies are making enjoyable of him, he one way or the other turns into related to the Tremendous Synthetic Intelligence 2123, which is definitely simply Brian from the long run making an attempt to avoid wasting this digital world from the brink of extinction as a result of an absence of child making. You see, Brian, now disillusioned and indifferent from everybody and all the pieces, isn’t fascinated about relationships or reproducing now that his boys have turned on him and the ladies are mocking him. 2123, this AI that supposedly strikes a stability between masculine and female energies, needs to assist Brian make buddies once more and, in the end, discover love to forestall “this extinction-level hazard” that’s non-population progress.
There may be a lot to unpack right here, I don’t even know the place to start. Nonetheless, should you’re aware of males’s rights activism, a political motion centered round the notion of structural discrimination towards males, then these speaking factors ought to come into focus. It’s harmful rhetoric peddled by the likes of self-proclaimed misogynist Andrew Tate and propped up by streamers such as Adin Ross, all of which principally advocates for males’s place on high in a horribly patriarchal society that also exploits girls.
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In Discord DMs with Kotaku, a The Hidden and Unknown developer identified solely as ThePro stated the sport is “loosely following my very own experiences,” although it’s not “a precise copy.” ThePro defined that, although the sport calls “most western males” female and weak, they don’t essentially imagine that “males typically are weak.” Nonetheless, “anybody who has had a straightforward life” can be weak, ThePro stated, breaking down how the sport has been obtained up to now and what they’ve discovered.
“I’ve heard the world has grow to be a lot worse than it was once, however I admit that I want doing my very own analysis earlier than leaping to conclusions and the reception positively proved to me that persons are too consumed by the unsuitable issues,” ThePro stated. “They make an enormous deal out of a price ticket that doesn’t have an effect on their life in any means, as an alternative of specializing in bettering not solely themselves, however the lives of individuals round them.”
ThePro stated they worry we would “[lose] the one factor that makes us all human,” however refused to expound any additional on what this might imply. As a substitute, they merely defined that “each women and men have testosterone and estrogen” and that these energies ought to be balanced.
“I’ve been accused of being ‘transphobic’ and ‘misogynistic’ and extra, nonetheless, I wish to let everybody know that I’ve no downside with males, girls, trans individuals, or some other group, so long as they’re able to respect me as nicely,” ThePro stated. “Folks which have been accusing me confirmed me no respect and went straight to conclusions, which doesn’t make a very good picture for them. It’s unhappy to see we now have to dwell in a world the place everybody grows aggressive right away, nonetheless, I wish to have a constructive perception that if we begin working collectively as an alternative of towards one another, we’ll discover a method to escape the risks of extinction that are very attainable throughout the present local weather.”
ThePro then went off on an extended tangent concerning the “many prospects” that would contribute to or trigger human extinction: nuclear warfare, international financial woes, the overuse of lithium, estrogen in plastic merchandise, etcetera. On the finish of the day, it appears ThePro is utilizing The Hidden and Unknown to propel some type of ideological rhetoric concerning the want for males to “take the lead” as a result of, if not, we’re all doomed. What a revelation.
So, yeah, you don’t want to take a look at The Hidden and Unknown. When you had the cash and beat it in lower than two hours (which is completely doable), you may get a refund as per Steam’s refund coverage. However why you’ll topic your self to such a boring and, frankly, philosophically barren sport is past me.