And that doesn’t mean we condone that at all.”Īs he wrote on Twitter, “It’s just acting, y’all. “ Sometimes you have to play bad people that do very realistic, bad things. They are a dark, mystical witch suffering a great loss, and in severe need of some emotional support. Of course, this means they are always accompanied by their avian friend, Crowley. “It’s been said before, but I hope it really takes root,” Gross said. Boyfriend Dungeon’s Rowan (Scythe) Rowan is the second non-binary character you meet, and they were designed by the creator of Haotoful Boyfriend. Something that’s not in dispute, however, is that Gross is not the character he voices in Boyfriend Dungeon. Even after the moral panics and Supreme Court decisions, there are still debates over the limits on what type of content companies like Valve should allow to be sold through its platforms and the ways in which creators are responsible to their audiences for making their games more accessible. Games have long been at the heart of disputes over what kind of art should be made and how it should or shouldn’t be engaged with. “I think having the content warning is the most you can do, especially if it’s the story that the developers want to tell you, if this is the story that they want to put forward.” “This is such a very tricky subject,” he said. I don’t condone what the character does.” “It was part of a longer paragraph message or something, and that confused me because, you know, I’m thinking I took the job because this is what I love doing. “There was one that I got, and I actually quoted this one, it was like, ‘It reflects badly on you for portraying a character that does these kinds of things,’” Gross told Kotaku in a phone interview. While some of those conversations around content warnings and trauma triggers are relatively new, others about artistic freedom and distinctions between what art tries to represent and what it actually endorses are very old, even when the internet makes them feel like they’re happening again for the very first time. “I know he sucks.”Ī lot of games have come out this summer, but few have had a discourse around them take on a life of its own like Boyfriend Dungeon, a game about dating people and using the weapons they transform into while exploring dungeons. “Hey I can’t believe I have to address this, but please don’t send me hate messages about my character in Boyfriend Dungeon,” he wrote on Twitter.

Other players wanted Eric to be an optional part of the game altogether, and a few have apparently gone so far as to try and shame Gross for even voicing him in the first place. These potentially triggering behaviours are referenced in developer Kitfox Games initial content warning for the dating sim, but following complaints that it wasn’t explicit enough, the studio is now updating the warning to be more specific. While seemingly innocent early on, Eric goes on to be emotionally manipulative and stalks the player repeatedly throughout the game. Gross plays Eric, a weapon nerd who is the villain at the heart of the discussions surrounding Boyfriend Dungeon.

Boyfriend dungeon villain