Resident Evil 4 Remake gets showcased, Silent Hill 2 gets remade, and Bayonetta 3 gets controversial - Renegade Arcade #27

Welcome back to the stage of history* called the Renegade Arcade, a podcast for the players! On this episode, Neoplasmic is joined by BioShocker and Organoid Zero as they discuss Capcom’s Resident Evil Showcase, Konami’s Silent Hill Transmission, the controversy surrounding Platinum Games’ Bayonetta 3, the release of WB Montreal’s Gotham Knights, and much, much more!

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*Any Soul Calibur fans out there? No? Just me? Okay.

It’s been a packed week for gaming news, which kicked off with Bayonetta actress Hellena Taylor’s revelatory videos on Twitter in which she claimed that Platinum Games and publisher Nintendo basically low-balled her by offering a paltry $4,000 for her work as the lead character in the game, which she claimed was insulting. She also seemingly referenced the actress who took over the role, Jennifer Hale (without naming her, of course), which then led to people spewing some hateful rhetoric Hale’s way. This was, of course, uncalled for and unfair, given Hale’s history as a supporter of voice actors’ rights and her role in setting up the union which handles contractual negotiations for many VAs in the industry. Also, Bloomberg reporter Jason Schreier then published an article within which several details came to light which seem to refute Taylor’s claims, as it was revealed that she would have received $3,000 to $4,000 per five hour session for five total sessions, which would have earned her at least $15,000 to possibly $20,000 for the role. It’s not exactly Hollywood A-list actor money, but it’s substantially more than she claimed Platinum offered her initially.

So, who’s telling the truth here? I doubt we’ll ever truly know, but as we all know, contract negotiations can be messy, and with these types of controversies, the reality often sits somewhere in the middle of both sides’ claims. Taylor’s videos did bring up a worthwhile conversation surrounding the way the gaming industry treats its talent, such as voice actors and others who produce, develop, and test video games, which she did break NDA to reveal, so there is a high risk to her career inherent in her speaking out. Jennifer Hale, for her part, also released a statement supporting voice actors’ rights to be paid fairly, and pointed out that she is under NDA, and therefore unable to speak about this specific issue publicly. Hideki Kamiya, producer of Bayonetta, also responded by calling the situation “sad and deplorable about the attitude of untruth” surrounding Taylor’s claims. Taylor has responded to the report cited by Bloomberg by calling it an “absolute lie” and stated that Platinum is trying to “save their ass and the game,” but has also said she’d “like to put this whole bloody franchise behind me quite frankly [and] get on with my life in the theatre,” which would probably be for the best at this point. We’ll keep following this story and let you know if there is a resolution in the coming days.

On a (hopefully) more positive note, we chatted about the release of Gotham Knights, which has been getting some mixed reviews, mostly surrounding its customization and leveling systems, but the narrative and playable character roster has seen favorable discussion. Personally, after replaying all of the Arkham games in preparation for this title’s release, I think I’m going to enjoy it for what it is, but I do have some reservations about the leveling grind and certain aspects of the presentation, such as character voices and that awful UI that WB Montreal settled on for this game, and of course, <sigh> the technical issues which seem pervasive whenever a new triple A game comes out on consoles and PC. We shall see how it all turns out once we’re all able to play it ourselves.

Edit: Having had the chance to spend a few hours with the game, I think it’s not bad so far. I’m playing on my Ryzen 7 2700X, RTX 2070 PC, and it’s working well enough at 1440p with medium graphical settings. Some stuttering and definitely not hitting 60 fps, but it’s playable. The visuals are alright, combat is certainly a bit floatier than I wanted it to be, but it’s decent. The open world is barren except for a few enemies and civilians stationed around. I do love the narrative and the musical score, though. We’ll talk more about it on the next Arcade podcast.

In addition to all of that, survival horror game fans were most certainly well-fed this week, as we received the news that Silent Hill 2 is getting remade by Bloober Team, and that Konami has partnered with various developers and publishers, including the likes of Behaviour Interactive, No Code, Annapurna Interactive, and Neobards Entertainment, to produce even more games in the Silent Hill universe. Silent Hill: Townfall looks to be a more indie-flavored title which was teased during Konami’s event, while SH: Ascension seemed more like a multiplayer-focused action/horror title in the vein of Behaviour’s other famous game, Dead By Daylight. Finally, the intriguing Silent Hill F closed out the Transmission showcase, featuring a Japanese setting and a very unsettling teaser video. Oh, and director Christophe Gans will be back at it, as he helms a forthcoming live action film titled Return to Silent Hill. As for me, I’m just glad Akira Yamaoka will be back to do the music for the Silent Hill 2 remake, because he’s awesome!

Finally, Capcom once again knocked our ever-lovin’ socks off with their Resident Evil Showcase, which featured Resident Evil Village’s Winters’ Expansion, the RE4 Remake, and some additional bits about RE: Verse and the cloud editions of REs 2, 3, and 7 all coming to the Switch later this year. While the bulk of their time was spent on RE4 (as it should have been), we also got some details on the Winters expansion, and RE: Verse actually looks a lot better now, too! RE4, of course, took home the crown for the most anticipated survival horror/action experience that’s coming up in March of 2023. Tyler, Brock, and I were extremely pleased with the new gameplay sequence we saw during the showcase, which featured Leon S. Kennedy’s mighty roundhouse kick, a side-splitting one-liner, and some brutal knife parries, including one where Leon stops a chainsaw with his knife! It definitely seems like Capcom is keeping the vaunted RE4 tone intact, and we couldn’t be happier about that!

That’ll do it for another episode of the Arcade! Thank you for listening, reading, and enjoying our content! Watch this space for more video game perspectives, and check out our previous episodes below for more! See you next time!

- Neoplasmic

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