You started moving toward the root of the problem in that second sentence. The problem is a cultural one; not with 'woke' developers or publishers but with a community that was already notoriously immature and misogynist and in recent years is being increasingly pandered to by the right wing to turn them into rabid reactionaries who will swarm on anything that offends them (typically anything that appeals to any group they hate) like bloodthirsty piranhas. It's important that developers don't give in to the hate mobs but we also need to find a way to get better at reaching the disaffected youth or the divide will only continue growing larger.

That said, I don't see Yotei getting anywhere near the hate other games have gotten unless the main character turns out to be LGBT or something. Personally, I hope we get a Blue Eye Samurai outfit. ^^

Most of this is overblown. 

The Last of Us Part II did very well despite backlash. 

Concord was going to be a disaster regardless of anything. 

There was immense disappointment, when they showed the game play trailer of Concord for just being a paid 5v5 hero shooter. Most of the Reddit threads of the reveal trailer had more down votes than upvotes. plenty to people on Era were pretty certain that the game was DOA, way before the complainers even noticed the game. 

Is the $10 upgrade for Horizon permanent or a limited time deal?

Sadly everywhere were news about the game are posted I see a very decent share of the posts revolving around the world "woke".

Be it official Sony/Playstation posts on social media or reddit threads, youtube videos and streams, everywhere it already is a decent amount of the "feedback" the game is getting.

Saw some people getting questioned what about the game was supposedly woke or if it was just because the protagonist was a woman, and them those idiots went on to rant about the game being a DLC of the original, or other made up in the spot shit to try to justify them hating on a woman when they get called out.

I even just learned what was DEI and Sweet Baby Inc because those are already mantras being passed on to hate on the game "wokiness", to the point I can guarantee most come from a very few same places where this is being pushed.

Funny enough, Ghost of Tsushima was the game being used to stir hate on TLoU2 on big youtube channels back in the day, sadly channels I got to know because of that. GoT was a kind of counter argument about what a good videogame was used to hate on another Sony exclusive, TLoU2, and now GoY is being hated... just because the protagist is a woman now too.

I watched the recording of Asmongold live reaction of the SoP, and it had a mostly very good reception, aside from Horizon remaster that is, up until they realized GoY protagonist was a woman, than his chat turned into a shitshow. He spent a good few minutes reading all the posts after the SoP livestream finished, and it was overwhelmingly dominated by that. First I think he was making fun of his chat, I still think that to a degree, but the video ends without it being clear, but it was crystal clear the unnanimous hate about a woman being the new main lead in the sequel.

You can check for yourself any kind of comment section on any social media, threads or videos about the game, it's already one of, if not the, major points of "discussion".

@The -pi-guy I hope you can get tagged too, sorry if not.

TBH this Ubisoft one-leg debacle is a reason you hire consulting firms. SBI is far from the only one out there and they have been around a long while. People just decided SBI was their poster boy punching bag. There is an auto shop in my city with a logo that is similar to a nazi symbol with NI. I don't think it was intentional. It's just it helps to do research or consult professionals. It's not about pushing some agenda. It's about not doing a Ubisoft. Nintendo could have avoided needing to reprint cartridges of Ocarina of Time had these options been more available back then.

One thing I want to say about GoY, is that I hope stealth has received decent attention. I'm actually ok with no other gameplay element being changed if they can at least make stealth a little better (with some MGS5 feel to it)

It's obvious the original game wanted to do more: there are items that are stealth based, lots of small corridors to enter and exit buildings from. But they don't really do a lot with it. 

If anything, I hope the stealth missions are more open in terms of how they can be done. A NG+ of GoT shows these missions being the most linear of the bunch.

Nothing yet. But I imagine it'll be there at launch, if not soon after. Big live service potential with that tbqh.

All Sony PS4 games that have PS5 upgrades are $10. That price won't change.

I read it as an attack on those idiots who scream woke at everything, I thought BraLoD was being a little sarcastic in saying that people all of a sudden have stopped enjoying Assassin's Creed just because it's a black man as the lead.

I knew it was coming, I'll be honest, I find actually talking about videogames fucking insufferable on the internet nowadays, I'd rather go back to the days of console wars, now you can't take one foot inside gaming communities without some idiot screaming "THIS IS WOKE! THIS IS DEI!" at seemingly every single videogame and I'm tired, I'm at the point I may just stop talking videogames entirely online and go back to just ignoring this shit and enjoying my videogames while bitter people scream into the void on the internet (do they even play games?).

I will counter and say that these people do not have the power to make a game fail, Concord failed for a whole bunch of reasons, the vast majority of people don't give a fuck about the pronouns or would even notice them, Overwatch is more "woke" than Concord and a bunch of very successful videogames have pronouns, heavy LGBTQ+ themes, etc. But Concord was an easy punching bag as it failed in a whole variety of ways so the angry bigots could latch onto it and use it as their "win" against the "woke industry"

Ghost of Yotei will sell millions, vast majority of people won't give a fuck about it being a female character nor notice this discussion because the vast majority of gamers aren't plugged into YouTube communities and gaming forums. It's a bit like how Call of Duty is absolutely blasted every year on video-game forums but it still sells the most every year, Lol.

I think we need more positive role models but sadly positivity doesn't get you clicks, YouTube is full of rage-bait content nowadays and it's why I've personally often avoided getting too deeply into YouTube or Twitch, less people click on a video called "This game is awesome" than they do "This game is the worst thing since Hitler!" or some dude ranting for 60 minutes in his uncleaned bedroom about something he hates.

Dragon Age is the most recent attack of the angry "WOKE" brigade, I'm pretty sure a lot of these people are bots or straight up grifters who have never touched a game in their life because often games they attack have always been "woke" by their own logic, I haven't even played Dragon Age but I know it was a pretty progressive franchise with LGBTQ+ themes throughout most the series, David Gaider was head writer for all 3 Dragon Age games, no longer with Bioware, even he is calling out these people as idiots who have never played Dragon Age (I'm paraphrasing his words here). Bioware were one of the first AAA studios to allow same-sex relationships in videogames.

Saw Warhammer being called woke recently cause it had a lady commander, Lmfao.

It's just becoming "anytime there's a female or non-white it's woke"

IT's not even specifically that, it's 'whenever it's not a cishet white male badass'. Because that's what the manchild grew accustomed to and the industry catered to for the first 30 odd years of its life. 

These anti-woke morons straight up think history began and ended when it was most convenient for them any anything outside of that specifically perfect-for-them bubble is woke. Bad. Progress is bad. Diversity is bad. 

At least for a while they TRIED to PRETEND it was about how forcing inclusion was impacting the quality of the games so it was marginally harder to argue with their dumb-assed takes. But since we always knew it was just masked bigotry they just gave up on that and are just screaming about how anything outside their bubble is woke and bad and damaging. IT's always just been about the racism and sexism but with modern politics (Read: Modern conservatives) being so brash about how much they hate immigrants and queer folks and women they don't have to skirt around the edges of what they're actually trying to say. 

Anti-woke is pro bigotry. Just like anyone who's Anti-Antifa is pro Fascism. They just know they're angry that they're not the ONLY focal point of the world anymore and are lashing out. Put them in time out where the petulant, misbehaving children who can't get along with others belong.

I feel like I'm somewhere in between people calling everything woke, and people yelling at people calling everything woke. (Hopefully that doesnt get me banned here). The above "anti-woke is pro bigotry, anti-antifa is pro-facism" I completely disagree with (at least the 2nd part), but no need to get super political here.

For me personally, there are some games that go to far, and Concord was one of those for me. However, having a female lead is awesome. Having a black/PoC lead is awesome. Mix it up. Make it historically accurate. Whatever, its all good. I'm not vocal about it (this is probably as vocal as I've gotten about it), but I wont buy games that push values I don't think are healthy, or are adamantly against my religious beliefs (which is a whole separate thing, not related to the woke stuff). Everyone has their own personal limits for stuff. My guess is some people wouldnt buy a super Christian game (if a good one ever got made) that pushed mainline Christian values.