Final Girl Games and DreadXP have announced their recently banned game Vile: Exhumed is now available to be downloaded and played for free. The title was banned from sale at the end of July due to “sexual content with depictions of real people.” It’s baffling knowing that there is nothing of the sort in the actual game. There’s no uncensored nudity, no depictions of sex acts, and no pornography present at all.
Cara Cadaver aka Final Girl Games commented on the decision to release the game for free after the ban. “This censorship of my work is a direct attack on creative expression and artistic freedom, and it will not stop with false accusations of sexual content. They will come for anything that speaks more loudly than they do. This is our response to being censored, and our rejection of the idea that horror can be defined as acceptable or not.”
Vile: Exhumed has now been launched independently through an official website. Players can donate money if they wish. DreadXP will be donating all of its profits, and Cara will be donating a portion of hers to Red Door Family Shelter, a Toronto-based charity that works with families, refugees, and women facing violence.
“As soon as we realized that the game had been banned, the conversation internally with Cara became about what we collectively could do to do right by her and her work,” said Hunter Bond, DreadXP’s director. “In the face of widespread attempted censorship, it didn’t feel like a time for half-measures and compromise, so we all decided that releasing the game into the wild where it could never be made unavailable by a single platform felt like the best option, and strongest message.”
We played and reviewed Vile: Exhumed. Yes, it is violent and it does touch upon a lot of uncomfortable themes. However, there is a much deeper message that should be embraced and understood. We said, “depending on your threshold for violence and sensitive subject matter involving domestic violence and rape, many will struggle with Vile: Exhumed. It’s not a game that comes along every day, but there’s so much more to it. It doesn’t glorify the horror, but opens your eye to a bigger message that needs to be paid attention to. People need to be held accountable for how they treat both celebrities and women, and while it is based in fiction, Final Girl Games has done something important here, and it needs to be played to be truly understood.
