Last week, gamers were shown a spectacular array of games coming to Sony’s next-generation console at the PlayStation 5 reveal event, one of which was the action-adventure role-playing game Little Devil Inside. Shortly after the trailer was revealed though, it received some controversy for one specific aspect. The tribal design of one of the enemies shown in the trailer has received criticism for its alleged usage of stereotypical and racist depictions for the “tribal” character. The developers behind the game Neostream responded to this issue on Facebook stating that they had not intended to promote any such racist stereotypes and that they were unaware of the connotations of their design. The developers have stated that their ” design intention was to create characters who are protectors/guardians of a particular mystic region in the world of Little Devil Inside.” The developers also stated that they had not used any Afro-American or any various African ethnic groups as a reference for their designs. Neostream claims that their designs were meant to be based more on the Kakamora characters from Disney’s Moana.
The developers have apologized and stated that “regardless of our intentions if any people were offended in any way, we sincerely apologize. We will be making the following fixes to the current characters but if it ends up not being suitable to the game as a whole, we may change the design entirely.” The Developers intend to remove the dreadlocks, change the bold lips, change the skin tone, and change the blow dart design “so it looks less like a joint.” Not much more is known about the issue at the moment, but more information will likely be revealed soon.
Little Devil Inside will be released at an unknown date and it will be available for the PlayStation 4, PC, WiiU, Xbox One, and the PlayStation 5.