With just weeks left before the release of Kingdom Come Deliverance 2, Warhorse Studio has found itself embattled by opposing forces over allegations of "LGBT content" being censored in the Saudi version of the game. Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 was poised to do extremely well at launch, at one point making it's way into the top 10 on the Steam sales charts. Unfortunately, this rumor that came out of a Saudi based gaming outlet has sent shockwaves through the fanbase, with many opposing any potential depictions of gay characters in the game, despite the previous game having several non-explicitly gay characters in it.
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— سعودي جيمر (@saudigamer) January 12, 2025
لعبة Kingdom Come: Deliverance II لم تُمنع في السعودية 🇸🇦
⚜️ التأكيد جاء عبر @HattanTawili مسؤول الألعاب في هيئة الإعلام المرئي والمسموع
⚜️ ناشر اللعبة Deep Sliver لم يُقدم اللعبة للتقييم السعودي حتى اللحظة.. لكن..
⚜️ لكن هذا لا يعني حظرها من السوق السعودي - خاصةً… pic.twitter.com/eLv61HsUYF
While not everyone is bothered by the potential inclusion of gay characters or storylines in the sequel, the response, or lack thereof, by the studio has left many supportive fans of the series questioning whether or not the studio has broken away from their previous pro-gamer stance in order to chase the "modern audience." This would not be the first time we have seen seemingly "based" developers and studios try to reshape their image to virtue signal to a more progressive player base.
Now today, we have seen not one but two responses, one from the Steam Community forum, and the other from the head of the studio himself, Daniel Vavra. The Steam forum for KCD2 made the knee-jerk decision to implement a brand new code of conduct policy, with many people noticing the obvious leftwing bias in the language that was used. It has since been revealed that the code of conduct was likely created by PLAION's community manager, not by Warhorse themselves. PLAION is the publisher of KCD2 and is a division of well-known and largely disliked Embracer Group.
The plot thickens around Kingdom Come Deliverance 2 and their lack of an adequate response to rumors and allegations. The Code of Conduct changes for their Steam forum were implemented by the community manager for @PLAION who is another leftwing activist!! Credit @Grummz https://t.co/rSivAU4qeb pic.twitter.com/unUwfLLjrF
— Tebow (@MinEffortLive) January 17, 2025
Daniel Vavra shared a post earlier today in which he once again tried to reassure fans that no one had pressured him into making any changes to his game, and that every decision that was made was a deliberate choice by his team. He didn't address the rumors regarding LGBT content, but left some with more questions than answers, with many people worried that Henry is going to be retconned and allowed to have homosexual relationships, whereas in the first game he was canonically heterosexual.
Turns out that we are once again in the middle of a rather bizarre "culture war", this time from the opposite side than usual :) So here's a statement, but I'd hate to spoil the plot of the game for the sake of it. pic.twitter.com/MDgbY7WD7A
— Daniel Vávra ⚔ (@DanielVavra) January 17, 2025
While there is still no confirmation from anyone at Warhorse that there will be a "minute long, unskippable gay sex scene," many gamers are choosing to not support this game financially, now that there is a significant amount of doubt that this game will not stay true to it's predecessor.