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The original was posted on /r/hobbydrama by /u/Philiard on 2025-03-31 17:28:31+00:00.
0. A Forewarning
This post extensively discusses instances of misogyny and harassment against women. The works featured in this post include frequent depictions of gore, extreme violence, and body horror.
If you are already familiar with Limbus Company, the lion's share of the drama begins in Section IV.
I. Introduction
Limbus Company is a 2023 gacha video game available on mobile and desktop through Steam. It is developed by Project Moon (or simply PM), a South Korean video game studio also known for their games Lobotomy Corporation (or LobCorp) and Library of Ruina. Their works are known for their intricate stories, well-developed characters, and an extremely depressing setting. All of their works take place in a setting known only as "The City," in which dismemberment, rampant death and destruction, and increasingly ridiculous methods of torture are always on the menu.
Limbus Company follows a group of thirteen "Sinners," a group comprised of people named for and based on literary figures. Unlike LobCorp and Ruina, which were full single-player games, Limbus is a constantly-updated gacha made explicitly for the purpose of making more money to fund Project Moon's future endeavors. Despite this, the game has garnered a reputation for its generosity towards non-paying users, the quality of its story on top of the fact that the vast majority of the content is permanent, and the quality of its character design.
Frequenters of gacha games will be familiar with the genre's reliance on "waifubaiting"; tempting users into spending on characters by playing up their attractiveness or their relationship with the self-insert main character. Limbus slides away from this, with the entirety of its main cast wearing some combination of dress shirts, jackets, waist-high pants, you get the idea. Fanservice is rare, and PM relies more on emotional connection to characters and the strength of their writing.
II. The Stars of the City
Limbus Company is still a gacha game at the end of the day, and many still tend to get attached to the characters for less-than-wholesome reasons. Some may be familiar with Outis, a woman whose ~~bootlicking~~ subservience to the main character, Dante (one of the Sinners, and non-playable), has drawn the attention of a crowd whose main interest in her is drawing her with comically large boobs.
Ishmael is another frequent target of thirstposting; she's a sailor known for her dry wit, calm demeanor, and extreme rage when it comes to anything related to her former captain. Ishmael was a popular character from the jump, and she was nearing her apex of screentime and fandom interest around when this drama took place, mainly due to her being set to star in the game's next story chapter. Naturally, fan artists and those who were simply horny for Ishmael were looking forward to any future content related to her.
Sinclair is kind of the opposite. He's never been particularly popular, and has in fact been decently controversial. Some dislike him due to his perception as Project Moon's "golden boy," due to receiving a number of meta-defining Identities that quickly made him an indispensable character. Others dislike him for more basic reasons. He tends to be a target of female attention in-game (the game's first big villain, Kromer, is obsessed with him), which gets in a way of those who want to kiss those pretty ladies themselves a tad.
III. All Aboard the Magic Hell Bus
"What is an Identity?", I hear you ask. Identities are the primary thing Limbus sells, being alternative versions of the twelve playable Sinners that have radically different skills, passives, and designs. They imagine what the Sinners may have become if they had walked a different path in life, and naturally, they're the primary thing players pull for when spending gacha currency.
Expectations for the Identities to accompany the Magic Hell Bus event, revealed on July 21st, were high. It's a beach episode, after all, though a non-traditional one; the Sinners are going to a radioactive beach infested by crabs while they wait for an upgrade to their transportation that'll let them get to where Ishmael's story chapter takes place. It was expected, then, that Ishmael would receive some special focus.
Sinclair would receive his Molar Boatworks Fixer Identity, featuring an open jacket and a choker, a nice little bit of fanservice if you think he's cute. Ishmael, meanwhile, would receive her own Molar Boatworks Fixer Identity, featuring a skintight wetsuit that pretty prominently shows off her breasts. You may not be able to actually see anything, but from Samus Aran to Solid Snake, most gamers are generally in agreement that skintight outfits are sexy.
Well, except South Korean gamers. They didn't take it as well.
IV. How We Got Here
Needless to say, Ishmael's Identity was controversial, but explaining why is a bit complicated.
First, the matter of censorship; it's not uncommon for developers of risque games to adhere to censorship by slapping a wetsuit or similarly covering clothing over top of scantily-clad women. Censorship is a hot-button issue basically anywhere, and Sinclair's Identity only fanned the flames; he gets a slutty swimsuit while our beloved Ishmael is covered up entirely? This is censorship!
Second, Limbus Company was in a pretty bad content drought at the time, and many were chomping at the bit to blow up at something. The Magic Hell Bus was the first piece of story content it'd gotten in months, and the "Uptie IV" update, which added an additional tier of power to each Identity, was seen as a huge resource sink for little reward.
Finally, let's not mince words: feminism is very contentious in South Korea. Women have to deal with many of the issues you'd expect, with lower wages, sexual harassment, and general misogyny all being problems they face. Men, on the other hand, do have to face two years of mandatory military service under pretty crappy conditions. As such, there is a large contingent of "anti-feminists" on the South Korean web who do not look kindly on anything they see as prosecuting against men. You may have heard of infamous instances of claiming that the "OK hand" gesture is a sneaky way of making fun of men with small penises.
V. Uninvited Guests
When the controversy was still in the cradle, a dedicated group of trolls raked through Limbus's credits, looking for any ammo they could use against PM. Naturally, they went after the artist of Ishmael's Identity, blaming him for the censorship and lack of sexiness.
Well, actually, no, that artist is a man. Instead, their target was Vellmori, a young South Korean illustrator PM had recruited to create CG illustrations. Her artwork (example) was known for its strong expression work and dynamic poses, even if it was a bit different from Limbus's normal art style. Most people may have not known her by name beforehand, but fans knew her style.
Some trolls have dug up a few scattered retweets Vellmori had made in support of South Korean feminist causes, like abortion and the Women's Party. Once evidence was solid that a dirty feminist was in their midst, attacks were swift and brutal. Disgruntled users collaborated on the South Korean forum DC Inside, and demanded that PM fire Vellmori and disown the "radical feminism" they had allowed to ferment in their office.
The most often talked about and infamous incident was when a crowd of seven men actually showed up at and entered PM's offices. This isn't unheard of in South Korea, but a lot of people, especially Westerners, took it as a pretty explicit threat. (I've heard apocryphal tales that they were also cosplaying as the main villains of Library of Ruina, but I've never seen solid evidence of this.)
VI. The Outcast
On July 25th, 2023, Project Moon CEO Kim Ji-hoon released an official statement. Long and short: they had fired Vellmori due to her personal accounts containing "content that could potentially bring harm to the company and its employee." While her prior work would remain in the game, any and all future content would not include her work.
Needless to say, a lot of people were extremely pissed off about this. The bad guys won, and Project Moon let them win. Fans were quick to retaliate, with boycotts and physical protests being organized against Project Moon. Limbus Company has a pretty staggeringly high player base of queer and female players, and they wer...
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