The sequel to the cult-favorite Deadly Premonition has had a poor reception. Deadly Premonition 2: A Blessing in Disguise has had poor critical reviews and hasn't seemed to be able to capture the off-beat magic of the 2010 original. With that said, the game still has time to work its way into the hearts of players, but the title is now facing a setback. The title has offended some because of its handling of a transgender character.
Much like the original title Deadly Premonition 2 is an open-world survival horror game that takes inspiration from the likes of Twin Peaks to create creepy tension. Unfortunately, Deadly Premonition 2Â has had bugs that have impacted its gameplay and it now seems that deeper issues are in the game.
The character Lena Dauman is continuously misgendered in the game and despite the lead character, Francis York Morgan, claiming that they should be accepting of all people, the character goes on to misgender Dauman continuously. In fact, Deadly Premonition 2 goes further than deadnaming and also suggests that the transgender character is sexually incestuous. As a result many players have been offended, and the mishandling of pronouns can be seen below.
In response, the director of Deadly Premonition 2Â has now apologized for the way the character was written, and using Google Translate, explained the situation. The director wrote "I realized by pointed out from friends, I might have hurt transgender people in my scenario. It wasn't intentional. I'm sorry for that." The post goes on to promise rewritten sections as soon as possible. Given this news, many will hope that an update to the handling of the character is delivered with the latest Deadly Premonition 2 patch which is intended to address the radical frame rate drops in the open-world game.
The director has now stated that they will block people who will send messages without permission, likely in an attempt to stop conversations about this topic which are not to the director's liking. The fan base appears to be divided with some saying that this is a positive step in addressing the problem and others believing that no change should occur. Either way, the character in question was not handled carefully or in a way that a lot of people saw to be appropriate.
Many will hope that this issue in one of the biggest releases of July will be fixed alongside the other problems that have plagued Deadly Premonitions 2.
Deadly Premonition 2Â is available now on Switch.
