Hidetaka ‘Swery’ Suehiro has reached out to gamers to apologize for the way that Deadly Premonition 2 has handled a trans character in the new Switch game. The character is repeatedly deadnamed in dialogue, and incorrect pronouns are often used to refer to them.
Both Swery and the Deadly Premonition franchise are pretty weird, but this is something else entirely. Swery responded to fans via Twitter, which can be seen below.
“I realized by pointed out from friends, I might have hurt transgender people in my scenario,” he said in a post published to Twitter. “It wasn’t intentional. I am really sorry for that. Some scenes will be sanity checked by a team that includes diversity. And I will rewrite that scene ASAP.” This announcement doesn’t come with any details, so we don’t know how the scenes will be rewritten, but we can assume that the deadnaming in the game will be removed.
“Deadnaming” is the act of using a name or signifier for a trans person that they no longer identify with. Rather than using the name they have post-transition, some people attempt to invalidate or otherwise attack trans people through deadnaming. Seeing it in games can be pretty disheartening, even when used as a narrative device because it feels like cheap manipulation to use transphobia as a way to anger or otherwise manipulate the player emotionally.
Deadly Premonition 2 is out now for the Nintendo Switch.
