Some of you might have noticed something pretty remarkable about this year’s E3 presentation. No, I’m not talking about the Elden Ring trailer or Avatar announcements, although they were both pretty great.
What was remarkable about E3 2021 was the sheer volume of downright wholesome games that were showcased over the four-day digital event. Games like Soup Pot, Riders Republic, and Life is Strange are all entirely devoid of shooting, punching, kicking, or stabbing (although Soup Pot does include chopping, vegetables don’t really count as violent).
In fact, according to analysis from GamesIndustry.biz, a full third of the games shown off at E3 and Summer Game Fest this year were non-violent. Which, in the analysis from GI.biz, means no killing or harming of a living creature, no graphic/realistic violent acts, no cartoon violence, no contact sports, no references to unseen violent acts (like investigating a murder scene), no games about ordering violence (such as a grand strategy or RTS game), and generally minimized representation of actual conflict (card games like Hearthstone are okay).
Diving into the numbers, of the 349 games presented at E3, 115 of them were non-violent. That’s basically a third of the games shown and almost double the percentage of games considered non-violent in 2019.
The vast majority of those came from Wholesome Direct, which isn’t particularly surprising. The Wholesome Games collective specializes in exactly what it’s named for, bringing wholesome indie titles to wider audiences.
Just 15 of the non-violent games came from major publishers or were featured during the major presentations. Of the big names, Nintendo came out first with 6 out of 27 games considered non-violent, or 22% of its E3 lineup.
Just behind Wholesome Direct was Devolver with 3 out of eight games shown considered to be non-violent. That’d be Inscription, Tumble Time, and Phantom Abyss. Wizard with a Gun, unsurprisingly, did not meet the requirements of non-violence.
Wholesome might even be mainstream. Of all E3’s presentations, Nintendo got the most viewers, and Devolver was putting up numbers that even beat Capcom and Bandai Namco.
