The BAFTA Game Awards 2026 are currently ongoing at the time of this writing, and while the only game awards show that regularly includes announcements for upcoming games in between the actual rewards is Geoff Keighley’s The Game Awards, the BAFTAs were going to try doing a bit of that this year. They were going to try, at least, with a trailer for The Quiet Things, a first-person narrative game telling an autobiographical story about trauma and child abuse, debuting at this year’s awards. Until someone decided the trailer’s content wasn’t right for the show.
That’s what Alyx Jones, founder of Silver Script Games, the studio behind The Quiet Things was told by the organization as she headed to attend the nominees’ party that took place ahead of the show last night. “Last night, on my way to the nominees’ party, I got a phone call telling me that the trailer for my indie game The Quiet Things had been pulled from the BAFTA Games Awards 2026 due to its content,” Jones writes in a post on LinkedIn, spotted by Kotaku.
Jones has since posted the trailer publicly, which you can see below, and decide for yourself if the trailer’s content was too severe for the awards show. The trailer’s place at the show was not only meant to be an opportunity for the game to be shown globally, but to also reveal its release date, which is set for May 6, 2026. It’ll be coming to PC via Steam and Xbox consoles, and you can wishlist the game now.
“I then walked into the nominees’ party after crying and cleaning myself up, and heard BAFTA on stage, paraphrasing from memory, talking about how proud they were to champion games that deal with difficult and challenging subject matter. That was very hard to hear,” Jones continues.
“I was so hopeful that this tiny indie game might actually be seen by a huge audience. Finally, a break. To have that pulled from under our feet the night before the show was devastating, especially after revising the trailer to remove imagery BAFTA flagged as potentially reading as ‘weapons and violence’ (an object inspection of a craft knife and a statue breaking out of a mirror), and being thanked for my speed and the quality of the trailer.”
“The reason I was then given for it being pulled was that there wasn’t enough time to put the appropriate warnings in place for the audience. I offered to make immediate further changes, but was ignored. What has upset me so much is not just the decision, but how this happens to me over and over, doors close because the subject matter might upset people or make them uncomfortable. I’ve stayed quiet to maintain relationships. I’ve taken the hits. I’ve tried not to burn bridges. I’m sick of it.“
“The Quiet Things is deeply personal to me. It’s my story. It’s about trauma, abuse, survival, and giving survivors a voice. It’s about people being shut down and silenced, and what that does to them. So there is something deeply painful about reliving that again now. Art should make people feel something.“
A BAFTAs spokesperson said that the decision to remove the trailer was made “in consideration of [its] guests,” in a statement sent to Kotaku. “We made a compliance decision not to show a trailer of an unreleased game that contains themes that may be a trigger for some, in consideration of our guests as we were not in a position to sufficiently warn them. We fully support games that engage with difficult subjects, and we made the decision in relation to our event only and with the wellbeing of all guests as our priority.“
That will likely be the story that the BAFTAs organization sticks to today, and going forward whenever this situation is brought up, but it’s not one that flies when the developer made it clear they were willing to change as much as possible to include the trailer in the presentation, and when the reality is that a short trigger warning is something that actually takes no time at all.
You either champion artists telling their stories or you don’t. The BAFTAs clearly chose which side they sit on.
About the author: David has been writing about videogames, technology, and culture since 2020, with a focus on reporting daily news across multiple publications, including GameDaily.Biz, GameSkinny, and PlayStation Universe before joining Wccftech in 2025. David started contributing as Canada/US reporter for Wccftech’s gaming section in 2025. Besides being up-to-date on the industry’s movements, he loves interviewing developers, reviewing games, and writing intricate essays about the symbolism and layered meanings to be found in rich narratives as he’s done for publications like GamesIndustry.Biz, LostInCult, and others. Outside of games he loves movies, music, theatre, his hometown, and his family, though not necessarily in that order.
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