No no, mainstream gaming media definitely knew about it. But they were too busy shilling the game and trying to “own the chuds” or whatever it was they were doing with some of those articles to bother with actually reporting on what was happening with the game.

Plus the American mainstream news media has been obsessed with pushing/covering politics for the last 6 or 7 months, and both political parties are giving the media massive stockpiles of ammo for ragebait-fuelled ad revenue. Why would they ever cover video games, something mainstream media outlets have historically blamed some of the worst tradgedies in American history on, when it will neither give them free ad revenue, nor continue to villanize video games?