When I was a kid, there were only two female characters you could play as, and one of them looked like a robot and stripped down to her bra and panties if you beat the game. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Samus Aran has become a lot more developed since then, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Lara Croft is still going strong, but they have been joined by a plethora of other characters. 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us Part 2 was led by Ellie and Abby, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Horizon’s Aloy is one of the most recognisable new characters of the decade, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Bayonetta just came back with a bang, and the next Witcher game will likely be led by Ciri. But we still can’t play as a bitch, and that feels like a major oversigh😼t.
It’s rare that I agree with the chuds of the world, but in being angry about everything, they have found a salient point. When the trailer for 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Super Mario Bros. Movie was revealed, it showed a kick-ass Princess Peach in h🐠er Mario Kart outfit, wielding a poleaxe. Though she has been gaining agency in the games recently, this was a step beyond. YouTubers who make their money from grift videos named ‘BIOWARE = GAY STUFF?!’ were outraged, and compared her to Rey from 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars and Little Bo Peep from Toy Story, amongst others characters they call Mary Sues without much knowledge of wha▨t the term means. But for mostly the wrong reasons, they were right.
We are seeing a trend of female heroes emerging over the past decade. When Avengers came out in 2012, Black Widow was the only character with no merch line. Now one of Marvel’s biggest sellers for movie tie-in junk is Scarlet Witch. Corporations have realised that women have money too, and so women are placed front and centre. However, there’s stil💯l something of a demographic trade-off.
Let’s talk in broad gendಞer roles, just for a little while. If you have a man in a movie acting like a man, men will go to see it. If you have a woman in a movie acting like a woman, women will go to see it. But women will also go to see a man acting like a man, and if you want to ratchet the number of female viewers up, you add a woman to the formula too. Unfortunately, men will not go to see a woman acting like a woman, so you get around this by having a man acting like a man be joined by a woman acting like a man. You lose a couple of angry YouTubers in the bargain, but you get the best demographic split that𒈔 way.
I’m using movies rather than video games because movies at least have examples of the sorts of characters I mean. When we think of gaming for women, we think of the hyper-cutesy, non-violent games like The Sims, 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stardew Valley, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Animal Crossing, but none of these🍌 are for women at all. They’re gender neutral, but that’s the best women have to settle for. You can either play as a fearless female warrior, or you can be mayor of a town ꦕfor frogs. There’s nowhere near the range afforded to male characters.
There’s no gaming equivalent to the likes of Last Night in Soho, Lady Bird, Jennifer’s Body, or Thelma & Louise. No Suspiria, no DEBS. Movies have much more variety when it comes to heroines. Gaming has increased in both quality and quantity, and neither of those are to be derided. But variety has to be the next goal. I’ve already written about my desire to have a game with the energy🅷 of Birds of Prey, and this is just that on a larger scale.
It doesn’t mean I want Hair-Braiding Simulator where all your characters are Barbies. There are some fantastic characters who are allowed to be feminine in gaming, but they’re often either in hero shooters or supporting cast members. Think Isabela and Leliana in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Dragon Age, Aerith in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Final Fantasy 7 (Tifa is a little more typical), Dorothea and Mercedes in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Fire Emblem, or D.Va in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Overwatch. Characters like tꦆhis, but given the reins to star in 𒐪a game, is what I’m looking for.
Of course, there are lots of examples of this in the indie scene. It’s reductive to discuss gaming as a whole down to the six or seven biggest triple-A titles that come out a year, but I know the indies will always have my back, and I want to see bigger games widen the net too. Whenever these specific indie games come out, we’re pretty good at highlighting them - 168澳洲幸运5♎开奖网:Citizen Sleeper was our Game of th𒅌e Year, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:it was The Forgotten City last year.
But unfortunately triple-A games take up the oxygen, so we need them to try something fresh. There are more opportunities than evℱer to play as a woman in video g𒀰ames. The next step is to let me play as a bitch.
