SAN DIEGO — A promising new hero shooter, “Slayers,” is looking as though it will outlive predecessors in its genre thanks to the ostentatious queerness of its roster, insider sources confirmed.
“We studied what made hero shooters like ‘Overwatch’ so successful and shooters like ‘Battleborn’ and ‘Concord’ such major flops,” “Slayers” lead developer Alexa Prone outlined. “We ultimately found out that the perceived gayness of the games’ rosters played the biggest role in whether or not they would survive past launch. At best, ‘Battleborn’ had straight women with hairstyles that gay men could live vicariously through, and look how that game turned out. ‘Overwatch,’ on the other hand, recently added a nonbinary character and still has hundreds of thousands of active players.”
The “Slayers” development team have reported the bulk of their time and resources have been spent curating the game to an LGBTQ+ audience, with hero balancing and map design taking a backseat.
“We really wanted to do away with the traditional roles of ‘Damage’, ‘Tank’, ‘Support’, and implement roles that better reflect our roster of characters as well as the audiences who play as them,” gameplay designer Francesca Gould stated in a gameplay trailer. “Our four main roles: twink, bear, butch, and femme, all offer unique stats that allow for some really efficient team composition. Twinks and femmes are best suited for diving, whereas bears are ideal on the front lines, and butch heroes are flexible. We’re excited to see what creative combos you come up with!”
Despite this enthusiasm from the developers, players have reported balancing issues plaguing the game and ruining the overall experience.
“There is absolutely zero balancing, not to mention there’s only one map: Bushwick,” frustrated gamer Devin Fractal ranted while livestreaming. “I still cannot tell the difference between the twink and femme heroes, the bears are just damage-sponges, and I can’t stop jerking off to the fanart of the butch heroes! I really can’t see a competitive scene coming out of this, it’s way too broken in this state. I’m just gonna play ‘Overwatch,’ it’s much more balanced and the porn scene is amazing.”
At press time, “Slayers” announced that its release would be postponed indefinitely among queerbaiting allegations.
