“I understand we live in a time where a meow from someone who has different beliefs as you is scary and frustrating, confusing and controversial”
Edmund McMillen and Tyler Glaiel’s cat breeding roguelike Mewgenics came out earlier this week to an overwhelmingly positive reception and plenty of early success. However, one aspect of the game has left folks on the fence – this list of pretty… complicated internet personalities who’ve voiced the copious amounts of meows emitted by in-game cats. So, to get a better picture of how those cameos came to be, I reached out to developer McMillen.
Here’s a brief rundown of the people included that some potential Mewgenics players on social media – principally in this thread that’s been hanging out near the top of ResetEra, the past couple of days – have voiced unhappiness over.
The presence of YouTubers Ethan and Hila Klein of h3h3Productions has drawn criticism from those who don’t agree with their views on the Israel-Palestine conflict. Mewgenics also features a voice performance from Matan Even – that’s the 15-year-old stage invader from 2022’s Game Awards, who appeared on far right conspiracy podcast InfoWars when he was 12. There’s also Christine Chandler – an autistic trans Youtuber who has been the subject of considerable online bullying. She was arrested on a charge of incest in 2021 that was dismissed in 2023.
According to McMillen, the list of cameos is a kind of cross-section of internet culture during the game’s development, with an emphasis on featuring people from across the ideological spectrum. “When we added most of the people on the list it was ages ago, like Ethan was included a good four years back,” he told me over email.
“I wanted the game to feature a huge array of iconic voices I’ve been hearing echoing across the internet for most of my time making games,” McMillen added. “As some probably noticed I was [pretty] all over the place when it came to cameos and did my best to include and keep ones that clashed or kinda counterbalanced each other.
“The inclusion of Ethan and Hila was counter balanced by iDubbbz and Anisa,” he pointed out. For context, iDubbbz and Anisa are Youtubers and streamers who have publicly supported Palestinians during Israel’s invasion of Gaza. iDubbbz and Ethan Klein are former friends who are now locked in a public feud, after iDubbbz released a ‘Content Cop’ video criticising Klein for his stance on Israel.
“I made sure to contact both to make sure they were ok with the others’ involvement so it didn’t feel like a weird gotcha on release,” McMillen explained. “They were both very adult about it and said they had no issue with the other being added and I really respected that, since I know they have been publicly feuding for a while now. It’s hard to explain without revealing aspects of the game people haven’t really experienced yet, but the inclusion of people with clashing ideologies felt appropriate.
“I understand we live in a time where a meow from someone who has different beliefs as you is scary and frustrating, confusing and controversial…” McMillen continued, “but it felt interesting so I decided to explore it. Also, I should probably point out that I don’t share the same opinions as, well probably any of the people we included, if I only included people who share the same exact opinions as me, I’d be the only one meowing in the game. I included Chris but also liquid Chris (those who know, know)…I didn’t [realise] Matan was controversial, I mean a lot of these people are characters doing bits.
“It’s sad that some people might read this or other articles and be so put off by the idea of an inclusion of someone they don’t like so much that they will never play the game,” he concluded, “but I’m not sure someone who would be that upset by a ‘problematic meow’ would really enjoy the game that much anyway. Honestly the thing that bothers me the most about all this is, if a cat appears with the voice of someone you hate…you can literally throw it in the trash…or worse! People need to get more creative with their hate!”
McMillen also pointed out that once Mewgenics has full mod support, modders may well have a go at offering players the means to remove any meows they aren’t fans of, and possibly add in their own custom meows.
In our review of Mewgenics, Callum wrote that “McMillen and Glaiel’s brand has long been stapling together obsessive gameplay loops with juvenile potty humour and more than a sprinkle of morbid horror.” He noted in conclusion that “Whatever happens, I know I’ll come back with a corker of a story. And it’ll almost certainly involve poo.” That spirit definitely seems to have carried over to the voice-casting, too.
