Spiders and players with arachnophobia - whose answer is more likely?
Of course, I mean the presence of spiders in the game and players with arachnophobia
This question, or rather a discussion, is not my only case.
The Fallen Order is a game included in the canon of Star Wars, so it could do without new creatures like spiders. The simple thing is that the presence of these arthropods in this game is a conscious movement of the creators, because in no other game or film there is even a mention of the presence of these creatures. And because of their presence for players with arachnophobia the game is practically impossible to play. Here's my question: can the community count on any other reaction from the creators on this issue than just emails that they will look into this problem and take it seriously, or maybe it's the modders who will have to help on a "fan to fan" basis?
Unlike previous Star Wars games, the game was not developed in the Frostbite engine, but in the Unreal Engine. This engine is much more accessible to the "average blacksmith", so modifications to this game are already being made, but mainly focus on improving graphics or adding more "skins" for the main character. And the community could manage on their own, but it would be nice if the developers would react to this problem somehow, even if this reaction would be a message where we would get information that EA and Respawn will not do anything about it.
I had to give up many games by the presence of spiders like Skyrim and the Witcher, and in my time even Minecraft. But there is one game in which the developers have perfectly coped with this problem - Satisfactory. There are several creatures in this game, including spiders, but the people from Coffee Stain Studios thought of players with arachnophobia. Well, in the settings there is an option "Arachnophobia mode". When enabled, this mode turns all spiders into 2D pictures of cat heads and disables spider sound effects. By the way, Satisfactory is also done in Unreal Engine.
Someone may say "but spiders are an important part of this game (SWJFO) and removing them means removing part of the game" Well, yes, but on the other hand, their presence is a factor that creates a problem for arachnophobic players. And the option itself, which would replace spiders with something else, would be possible rather than mandatory, so that not everyone would have to "suffer" from this change, and so that the game would finally become playable for the rest of the players. I'm not saddened by the fact that the creators added creatures that evoke phobias to this game, but I'm saddened by the fact that there is no official reaction from the creators. For me, the lack of this reaction is a lack of respect for the players who bought this product. It doesn't matter what kind of reaction it would be, whether it would mean that something will be done or not.
And now the question to the community: does anyone know if someone is already working on a modification to remove spiders from this game?