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 value 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 copy. Ew.
Developed by ProX.staff, The Hidden and Unknown is the newest indie Steam sport to seize among the web’s consideration for a handful of causes. Yeah, it truly 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 fully unskippable. These aspects alone make the sport considerably curious for players like myself, these keen on what’s occurring on Valve’s PC distribution platform. Nonetheless, it’s the thesis of the opening sequence that has me elevating my eyebrows because it posits that “most western males at this time are female” and “incapable of taking the lead.” In different phrases, soy boys are a no-no.
“There’s 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 won’t be the identical as they was once. Whereas beforehand solely a small portion of individuals may afford being weak, the scenario is completely different at this time. Most western males at this time are female, whereas a lot of the western girls at this time are masculine. Males mistake being weak as being good so they don’t offend females, whereas girls tackle the extra masculine position 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? Nicely, 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 together with his associates (who you additionally don’t see), and performs browser-based video video games. The one distinction is that, after Brian grows disenfranchised from his associates as a result of the (equally unseen) women are making enjoyable of him, he someway turns into linked to the Tremendous Synthetic Intelligence 2123, which is definitely simply Brian from the long run making an attempt to save lots of this digital world from the brink of extinction as a consequence of a scarcity of child making. You see, Brian, now disillusioned and indifferent from everybody and all the pieces, isn’t keen on relationships or reproducing now that his boys have turned on him and the women are mocking him. 2123, this AI that supposedly strikes a stability between masculine and female energies, desires to assist Brian make associates once more and, finally, discover love to forestall “this extinction-level hazard” that’s non-population development.
There’s a lot to unpack right here, I don’t even know the place to start. Nonetheless, should you’re accustomed to 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 comparable to Adin Ross, all of which principally advocates for males’s place on prime 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 simple life” will likely be weak, ThePro stated, breaking down how the sport has been acquired to this point and what they’ve discovered.
“I’ve heard the world has change into a lot worse than it was once, however I admit that I choose doing my very own analysis earlier than leaping to conclusions and the reception positively proved to me that individuals are too consumed by the unsuitable issues,” ThePro stated. “They make a giant deal out of a price ticket that doesn’t have an effect on their life in any means, as an alternative of specializing in enhancing not solely themselves, however the lives of individuals round them.”
ThePro stated they concern 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 folks, or every other group, so long as they’re able to respect me as properly,” ThePro stated. “Individuals which have been accusing me confirmed me no respect and went straight to conclusions, which doesn’t make a superb picture for them. It’s unhappy to see now we have to stay in a world the place everybody grows aggressive immediately, 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 in the course of the present local weather.”
ThePro then went off on a protracted tangent in regards to the “many potentialities” 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 in regards to 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. In case 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’d topic your self to such a boring and, frankly, philosophically barren sport is past me.
