Superhot VR gets review-bombed following the removal of suicide scenes

Superhot VR has been review-bombed on Steam following its removal of scenes involving the player harming or killing themselves.

One now-removed scene involved the player motioning the controller like a gun in order to shoot themselves, while another scene had the player jumping off a high-rise building. It's the type of thing we might see regularly when there's a level of separation between the monitor and ourselves, but the extra immersion brought with something like VR can cause scenes like these to be distressing for some.

While a previous update had added a toggle to 'skip disturbing scenes,' last week saw them removed entirely (thanks, Kotaku). A short blog post from the Superhot team explained their reasons for changing the toggle to a straight-up removal, saying "considering the sensitive time we're living in, we can do better than that. You deserve better. All scenes alluding to self-harm are now completely removed from the game. These scenes have no place in Superhot Virtual Reality. We regret it took us so long."

The decision hasn't sat well with a chunk of the player base, who have resorted to tanking the game's rating on Steam from very positive to overwhelmingly negative. Steam's picked up on the discrepancy and booted its review-bombing tech into action.

The wave of angry messages and abuse from fans includes calling the removal "virtue signalling," and others claiming that the scenes were "integral to the game's story" and has left it without major plot points. There's been no word from the developer since the removal of the scenes.

Mollie spent her early childhood deeply invested in games like Killer Instinct, Toontown and Audition Online, which continue to form the pillars of her personality today. She joined PC Gamer in 2020 as a news writer and now lends her expertise to write a wealth of features, guides and reviews with a dash of chaos. She can often be found causing mischief in Final Fantasy 14, using those experiences to write neat things about her favourite MMO. When she's not staring at her bunny girl she can be found sweating out rhythm games, pretending to be good at fighting games or spending far too much money at her local arcade.