I can't remember the last time a game canceled a character because fans hated them so much, but Love and Deepspace just sent a wolf boy to a farm upstate

I have found Love and Deepspace developer Infold Games guilty of fur-degree murder. The werewolf tech executive who was meant to become the dating RPG's sixth love interest on July 9 is instead face down, tail up in a puddle of blood after fan controversy led to his cancellation – and a moratorium on any future love interests coming to the game where only five sets of six-packs are clearly not enough.

Infold says in a June 30 letter to players and accompanied by the macabre hashtag #LADSValkoCanceled, "We have decided to cancel both the launch and any further development of the new love interest. We also commit that no additional love interests will be introduced in future content plans."

I've been destroyed by this. I was seriously considering buying a new phone just to have more storage for Valko, who, according to a promotional trailer revealed only a few days ago, experiences "INSTINCTIVE ATTRACTION" to my buttercream-sweet main character and is "GENETICALLY LOCKED FORCED TO OBEY" my expensive whims like a good doggy with a Rolex. I was really looking forward to riding side-saddle on this unconventional tech executive's Vespa Primavera, but some Love and Deepspace fans thought he was a symbol of patriarchal violence and an allusion to a real-life murder.

Why don't we pause there… People sometimes tell me they feel like they're having a night terror when I talk to them about Love and Deepspace, on account of it being a period tracker where you can plant Calla lilies and have PG-13 pool sex before marching off into a violent battle against alien mecha. But don't run from this.

I'll explain. Infold won't – it vaguely cited "conversations and feedback across all platforms" for its decision to stab and skin Valko, and it sort of alluded to fan controversy earlier this week in another apology on June 27, in which it said, "The way information about Valko was presented did not give sufficient consideration to your expectations and concerns." But, from my perspective, all that really happened was a few tumbleweed conspiracy theories kept gaining ground, and it turned into an avalanche.

One of these theories involves a tagline Valko received in Chinese promotional material, which, according to a fan's translation on Reddit, joked about cooking and "Rule No. 1: Never bathe in the pot." Warning: the next sentence contains details of a real murder. In their post, the fan explains that Chinese players worry this line references a real domestic violence case people call the "Iron Pot Wife Murder," in which a woman's abusive husband shoved her face in boiling soup, torturing and drowning her.

The fan says, "Infold's blatant disrespect for its female player base cannot be ignored." And I want to take a moment to acknowledge the disgusting nature of the Iron Pot Wife Murder, whose victim I wish peace upon, and the nauseating fact that, according to the UN in 2024, 137 women and girls on average were killed daily by their own family members. This statistic and other evidence of the way women are abused and discarded – some of which I am personally familiar with – sickens me. At the same time, I think it's important we all remember this started as a discussion about a fictional werewolf CEO. He has a hoodie that sort of leaves space for two fuzzy little doggy ears.

Another theory some fans had was that Valko looks too much like Infold CEO Yao Runhao, and that his name in Chinese, Ao Yin 敖尹, sounds like the CEO's name, too. I don't want to spend too much time on this theory, because one of these guys looks like a normal 38-year-old man with glasses and the other looks like an anime statue of Apollo with a slutty smirk and perfect nose for sniffing girl pheromones on account of the fact that he's a werewolf tech genius. I'll let you figure out which one's which.

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Ultimately, I think the controversy surrounding Valko is baseless. I understand why women may feel the need to be extra vigilant when it comes to video game content, since it's historically so hostile to us, and upskirt-oriented. But I don't think my mathematical genius puppy husband should be blamed for his father's and forefathers' sins. He isn't like them. He's completely hairless, even though it's thematically confusing. Nonetheless, since he's a werewolf, both he and my period cycle are ruled by the full moon. Doesn't that still mean something?

World's most popular horny RPG with over 50 million downloads gives up on decorum in "divine" update that's probably illegal somewhere: "WAITT WHATT??? FROM BEHINDD?"