The most abstract joke I've heard this year is that game face models must play the game.
Along with the massive success of Resident Evil Requiem, not only did the aging but still charismatic tough guy gain attention—he already holds a significant place in fans' hearts as an old friend—but also the new heroine Grace, who dominates nearly all the horror segments of the game.
Some say Grace was portrayed extremely successfully, with a complete character arc; others love her character design, admiring her abilities and courage. As a title using live-action facial capture technology, many players projected their affection for the character Grace onto the face model herself, a Polish-American model named Julia Pratt.
Just as drama fans follow the actors and anime fans follow the voice actors, a large number of Grace fans flooded Julia Pratt's social media comment sections. A quick scroll reveals people calling her Grace and asking when she plans to stream Resident Evil Requiem.
This is actually a very normal phenomenon. After all, she performed her duties excellently as a face model and gained traffic from game fans, which is a reasonable path. Capcom completed the puzzle for their character creation, and Julia Pratt increased her visibility. It looks like a win-win situation.
But here lies the problem: fame brings controversy. As more attention focused on the face model, some began criticizing Julia Pratt for being "uninterested in the game."
Initially, some overseas Resident Evil fans noticed that Julia Pratt hadn't posted any content related to Resident Evil Requiem on her social media accounts, believing she was too indifferent toward the game: "Grace's face model doesn't care at all. Although she attended the launch event and took photos with everyone, she didn't post anything about Grace, only a few stories. I'm very disappointed by her indifferent attitude."
Next, critics began listing previous face models from the series, such as Sasha Zotova, the face model for Jill in Resident Evil 3 Remake, and Ella Freya, the face model for Ashley in Resident Evil 4 Remake. They pointed out that these models actively interacted with game fans and expressed gratitude for their roles.
Indeed, interactions between game face models and the games do exist. Ella Freya once posted a photo of herself alongside Ashley from the game. Notably, when portraying Ashley, she often cut her hair short to match the character, showing considerable dedication.
Jill's face model, Sasha Zotova, can even be called a true gamer. Her YouTube channel features various game playthroughs, with the most popular being Resident Evil 3 Remake, in which she served as the face model.
Additionally, including in the Resident Evil series, many games use different models for face and body capture. Face models handle facial capture, while body models handle motion capture and sometimes voice acting. For example, Ashley's face model is Ella Freya, while her body model is Peach Milky, who also follows the game and even cared about Leon's relationships after the release of Resident Evil Requiem.
Returning to the recent Resident Evil Requiem, Grace's body model and English voice actress, Angela Sant'Albano, also shared much game-related content on Instagram. Thus, in the eyes of critics, since so many previous face and body models had good interactions with the game, why did Julia Pratt treat it like just an ordinary job? This was the biggest exposure opportunity they could get—"This girl's posts barely get 1,000 likes."
Indeed, allowing real-life models to collide with in-game characters seems to have historical roots, and there are numerous successful examples of such collisions. A particularly prominent example, where the effect was greater than the sum of its parts, is the story of Silent Hill f and Konatsu Kato.
Konatsu Kato served as the face model for Hinako Shimizu, the protagonist of Silent Hill f, participated in motion capture as the body model, and provided Japanese voice acting for the game. Clearly, having done so much hard work, she can be called the human embodiment of Hinako Shimizu. At the request of fans, she rented (and later bought) a PlayStation 5 as a gaming novice to livestream playing Silent Hill f, resulting in many memorable moments and memes.
At one point, her livestream's popularity even surpassed the number of concurrent players on Steam for Silent Hill f. Wielding a steel pipe in-game certainly doesn't pack the same punch as watching her suddenly pull a real steel pipe out of nowhere during a livestream.
This popularity further boosted Konatsu Kato's career. After she became famous due to the game, even PlayStation Japan officially approached her, inviting her to be the brand ambassador for a collaborative clothing line.
This shows us that breaking the fourth wall with mutual enthusiasm can produce excellent results with just a little encouragement—benefiting both game publishers and the models themselves.
However, is it really necessary to play the game? While interaction between actors and games can be mutually beneficial, it's often just the icing on the cake. Forcing them to constantly talk about the game, demanding they play it, or even equating the actor directly with the character borders on moral coercion.
After all, face models cannot be completely equated with characters—even Konatsu Kato is no exception. The birth of a character often requires combining many factors; face models, body models, and voice actors are just some of them. For Konatsu Kato, her true charm lies in the authentic personal traits displayed during her livestreams. Although game fans were initially attracted to her livestream by her status as the "human embodiment" of the character, what kept them there was definitely not the idea of equating the face model with the character.
In fact, the idea of equating face models with characters is quite dangerous and has caused problems before.
In 2018, Eduard Badaluta participated in the production of Resident Evil 2 Remake as the face model for protagonist Leon. A year later, upon the game's release, many Leon fans tracked down Eduard Badaluta's social media accounts. However, many directed their obsessive energy towards Leon at the model himself, effectively driving him off the internet.
Subsequently, after the release of Resident Evil 4 Remake in 2023, since Eduard Badaluta continued as Leon's face model and the game gained even more popularity, more people fell in love with Eduard Badaluta through Leon.
Although they themselves don't know whether they love Leon or the model, they just want to create content. A huge number of "Leon X Eduard Badaluta" mashup videos were born. These videos mostly splice together similar angles of the game character and the model's real-life photos, creating a feeling that your husband has entered reality.
As a result, these videos stirred up Eduard Badaluta, who had wanted to ignore the matter. He reopened his Instagram account and sternly stated in the comments not to edit such content, ordering them to delete the videos. But—as seen in the mashup video still searchable today—his statement was largely ineffective. Moreover, because his response broke the unspoken rule of "face models and game characters getting along harmoniously," many foreign netizens criticized his attempt to distance himself.
After experiencing all this, Eduard Badaluta seems to have figured it out. He started using Instagram again but stopped discussing these topics. He reposted his photos and showcased his life, but he no longer explicitly responded to comments conflating him with the character. If you can't beat them, avoid them—but he couldn't quite escape. Nevertheless, he remains under the internet's spotlight, continuing to this day.
Just in the past few days, someone dug up Eduard Badaluta's past follow list and negative comments, accusing him of political and discriminatory views, calling on Capcom to cut ties with him...
However, this is actually old news from last year, recently brought up again by some forum users because he remains Leon's face model in Resident Evil Requiem. At its core, it's still the question of whether an actor can be equated with their character.
What these fans want is a flawless figure who satisfies their desires—whether through fanatical adoration, casual meme-ing, or pursuing the contrast between the model's identity and the game character. In essence, they are creating a god.
They fell in love with the character in the game and wanted that character to manifest in reality. Face models are the best and most ideal vessels for this. Therefore, you see many fans addressing models by their character names on social media and requesting interactions with the game.
However, being a face model is just one part of game production—just like voice actors for anime characters or actors for film roles. The mindset of forcibly binding characters to actors is extremely dangerous and ignores the many other creators behind the game. For the face model personally, completing the job fulfills their duty; anything else is extra goodwill.
Therefore, if models comply and cooperate, everyone can be happy, driving traffic to each other and creating industry success stories. However, if models do not intend to constantly talk about it or play the game themselves, there is no need for excessive criticism. Even if disappointed, such behavior should not be deemed guilty.
After all, games are games, and reality is reality. The charm of game characters mostly stems from the plot and character design. There's no real need to fully project emotions onto one aspect, ultimately leading to fandom culture.
Moreover, if the connection is too tight, besides characters affecting real people, real people can also affect the characters themselves. If the face model or voice actor gets involved in a scandal, the virtual work will be dragged down by reality.
For instance, a few years ago, when renowned voice actor Takahiro Sakurai was involved in a scandal, it affected the Mononoke movie, requiring re-dubbing and causing delays. His actions even impacted the character Kusuriuri to some extent, leaving some fans in a dilemma—this is the bitter fruit of overly tight connections.
Looking at it this way, the value of that famous quote by Koike-san keeps increasing.
