After reports of intermittent effects in a boss battle.
The platform game Balan Wonderworld was released today, but the launch day was disturbed by reports that the final fight with the boss contains a potential risk of epilepsy. Square Enix publisher has now confirmed that this is a bug in the uncorrected version of the game and has warned players to make sure they have the first day patch installed.
The warning comes in response to a video by YouTuber Bigdaddyjende, which showed some potentially dangerous flashing lights in the final game boss battle. (There is a link here, but note that the footage contains a potential trigger for epilepsy, so watch carefully.) It has the form of a flashing white light, covering the entire screen with a strobe effect. Other videos of the same battle with the boss, however, did not show the flashing light effect – leading some to speculate that it was some kind of bug.
According to Square Enix, the flashing is not intentional and is caused by a bug in the uncorrected version of the game.
“Be sure to install the patch for the first day before playing Balan Wonderworld,” Square Enix told Eurogamer. “We received reports of a risk of photosensitive epilepsy from a potential flashing bug if you play the game without a patch. The first day patch avoids this problem, as well as improves the overall gaming experience.”
While it is good to know that the effect was not designed to be that bright, it still poses a risk to anyone who is playing the physical version of the game and has not installed the patch. Whether the bug appears consistently in all unpatched versions of Balan Wonderworld, or only in rare instances, remains to be seen – but questions will certainly be asked about how the bug was not detected at an earlier stage.
In December last year, Cyberpunk 2077 faced criticism for the design of its effects and braindance sequences, which were bad enough to trigger an epileptic seizure in a reviewer. CD Projekt added an epilepsy warning to the game and ended up modifying the effect to reduce the risk of inducing symptoms.