I would much rather have a well written specific female protagonist than a choice where your gender makes no difference because they need to write for both. Gender plays a part in someone's character, and that element was mostly lost in Odyssey because it wouldn't be practical to write two different characters.
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Assassin's Creed and female representation
- Thread starter Persephone
- Start date
I don't disagree with this take...but I don't agree with it either? I dunno. Like, I feel like a ton of people played Alexios who were women, because they thought he was hot. And a ton of people played Alexios because you could romance men, and so that was gay representation. I don't think either of those reasons are wrong reasons for playing a male.
I played Kassandra because whenever I'm given the option to play a woman, I always do. (Exception being to Mass Effect: Andromeda, where I played a male to woo Cora...and wound up dating PB anyway...) But if Ubisoft's idea going forward is to allow everyone to play the game their way, I don't think that's a bad goal. So long as they stick to it, and hopefully this game has done so.
I played Kassandra because whenever I'm given the option to play a woman, I always do. (Exception being to Mass Effect: Andromeda, where I played a male to woo Cora...and wound up dating PB anyway...) But if Ubisoft's idea going forward is to allow everyone to play the game their way, I don't think that's a bad goal. So long as they stick to it, and hopefully this game has done so.
I dont think we are ever going back to fixed protagonists, I fully expect the next AC to have a CaC.
Going full rpg with maximum choices means more representation is available. Why would Ubisoft take out the option to play as a Bi or gay man now?
I chose to play as Kassandra, and I think they did a fantastic job with her. She certainly wasn't treated as an afterthought. Honestly I'm perfectly fine with Assassin's Creed games offering the player a choice, and think that's the best way forward.
Given the way AC games always change settings and periods, there's no need for a specific character to star in each game.
Now Prince of Persia's different. I'm totally down with seeing a woman lead.
Given the way AC games always change settings and periods, there's no need for a specific character to star in each game.
Now Prince of Persia's different. I'm totally down with seeing a woman lead.
Man they should just pick one and go with it. Now I will have to go back on forth between the 2 to see which I prefer.
Is there ever any true proof that female protagonists effect sales?
Is there ever any true proof that female protagonists effect sales?
To this specifically, I'm gonna say yes; Ubisoft are cowards. Their whole marketing campaign in AC: Ody was pure cowardice.
Kassandra was the 'canon' protagonist in name only, they still advertised and promoted the fuck out of Alexios, or just made the marketing gender-ambiguous. (Heck, even looking up the game on Amazon, the character on the cover is... deffo Alexios. But I don't remember what it looked like in person so that could be some weird asset oversight on Amazon's part, I guess.) Kassandra basically got the ME3 femshep treatment in her own game.
AAA games in particular seem too afraid of losing the sexist bro demographic so I remain pessimistic about the future.
The potential for gay male representation shouldn't be ignored considering that's even rarer, but then again Ubi kinda screwed that up with Odyssey's DLC anyway, and in general the Animus conceit makes it very hard for them to do same-sex relationships justice because at some point a biological baby has to pop out
There absolutely should be a choice of gender, and the female protagonist should get top billing for once, or at the very least equal part exposure during the marketing. Sometimes it feels like the game devs are pretty progressive but Ubi's marketing department is stuck a decade in the past.
There absolutely should be a choice of gender, and the female protagonist should get top billing for once, or at the very least equal part exposure during the marketing. Sometimes it feels like the game devs are pretty progressive but Ubi's marketing department is stuck a decade in the past.
I played as a gay man and I was really really glad I could. If they removed the male character I would lose that representation, which in OP words isn't representation at all but it's all I'm going to get. I'd prefer if they didn't take it away from me to be honest.
The problem with that is that in Odyssey the character's father explained how they could do that. He only had sex with a member of the other race to make sure the bloodline survived. So you can still have a same-sex relationship with the character knowing full well that they have to somehow make sure the bloodline keeps going but no love is involved. That would make a damn good romance plot.
They should do a Legend of Zelda deal where the title of the game refers to the character you actually have to rescue, rather than the character you play as.
That way, they can also do perfectly corny namedrop "I must save the Prince of Persia."
Thanks OP for the great post. I agree with pretty much everything you mentioned. The more mainline gender representation we get in games large and small, the better.
I would say another bummer about the reveal today is that I was at least hoping that even if the next game also has both genders, that they at least have the woman main character be front and center for the marketing this time. That would at least mean they have a little bit more bite to their bark, unlike when they announced Kassandra was cannon while Alexios adorned just about every piece of promotional media.
I would say another bummer about the reveal today is that I was at least hoping that even if the next game also has both genders, that they at least have the woman main character be front and center for the marketing this time. That would at least mean they have a little bit more bite to their bark, unlike when they announced Kassandra was cannon while Alexios adorned just about every piece of promotional media.
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Yes, definitely. They really don't want to take side (even if they failed to understand that most of their games are right wing minded, but for so much people, right wing politics is "normal").
What I want to know is who it is in these focus groups who keep saying "yes, keep making them bigger, bigger, bigger, the last AC game was just too small!" lmao
This thread is most appreciated. I really can't overemphasize just how on point the OP's statement regarding "opt-in" character selection goes against the notion of representation in general. It is a half-measure sold as a full one.
Representation is about walking in the shoes of people who are ethnically and/or sexually and/or gender-wise dissimilar from the trend/norm.
On a tangential note, I thought that Liberation (that PSV title) was a mainline title. Another tangent: The last Ubisoft game with a female lead that I can recall is Beyond Good and Evil.
Representation is about walking in the shoes of people who are ethnically and/or sexually and/or gender-wise dissimilar from the trend/norm.
On a tangential note, I thought that Liberation (that PSV title) was a mainline title. Another tangent: The last Ubisoft game with a female lead that I can recall is Beyond Good and Evil.
What male options were there in Odyssey? It seemed like it was easier to be a lesbian icon.
I'm a gay male, I was fine with what was done in Odyssey regarding the romance sections because the character's sexuality didn't matter! it wasn't relevant to the story in a meaningful way and in most stories the characters sexuality isn't important , I was happy that we had the option.
Would have forcing everyone who bought the game to play as a gay character really have done anything to make my life better? NOPE! I can totally enjoy stories about straight people, it was totally drawn in with the family story in Origins and with Ezio's exploits in his trilogy.
There are far more women who are the leads in games than gay men, hell I don't think there has been one at least not in a game that I played and I'm not sitting here complaining about it, I couldn't care less. If the game is done well and fun to play that's all that should matter, you don't need to see your "face" or your perceived experiences reflected back at you in a product that's meant for the masses for crying out loud.
Would have forcing everyone who bought the game to play as a gay character really have done anything to make my life better? NOPE! I can totally enjoy stories about straight people, it was totally drawn in with the family story in Origins and with Ezio's exploits in his trilogy.
There are far more women who are the leads in games than gay men, hell I don't think there has been one at least not in a game that I played and I'm not sitting here complaining about it, I couldn't care less. If the game is done well and fun to play that's all that should matter, you don't need to see your "face" or your perceived experiences reflected back at you in a product that's meant for the masses for crying out loud.
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About 4 or 5 I think. One was a bit more fleshed out than the others.
You bring up a valid point and why that sometimes having two protagonists can lead to issues where stuff isn't thought out and that's a problem, because it always seems to follow the male focused writing. Any one remember Far Cry 5 when John Seed rips open your shirt to torture you? Yeah, that has very, very, very different connotations when it happens to woman and it's never mentioned at all. I use to think two options was the better of the two, but it's really not.
I really thought the final mission from Origins was them laying the groundwork for the next game to be in Rome/Italy and you setup up the Brotherhood there as Aya to hunt down the cult there. Nope, just a one off mission.
I really thought the final mission from Origins was them laying the groundwork for the next game to be in Rome/Italy and you setup up the Brotherhood there as Aya to hunt down the cult there. Nope, just a one off mission.
This is why I prefer defined characters. Geralt and Max from Life is Strange are the characters that I feel like I have "identified" with the most this gen, becuaxuse they felt authentic in their depiction and the way the world reacts to them, and the choices you can make as them feel more like getting to the heart of who these particular characters are.
When characterisation is reduced to essentially an aesthetic choice, I actually feel less connection not more, because while my character might superficially "represent" me more closely, their story is by necessity shallower, because this is a videogame, not D&D.
I also agree on the tendancy of games to whitewash historical oppression and the differences of experiences. Being a "strong female character" shouldn't always mean being an action girl who is treated like one of the guys.
When characterisation is reduced to essentially an aesthetic choice, I actually feel less connection not more, because while my character might superficially "represent" me more closely, their story is by necessity shallower, because this is a videogame, not D&D.
I also agree on the tendancy of games to whitewash historical oppression and the differences of experiences. Being a "strong female character" shouldn't always mean being an action girl who is treated like one of the guys.
I am on part 2 of the Atlantis DLC as Kassandra and have only seen 2 (not including the awkward mandatory one in the First Blade DLC). I will have to check it out.
All of the options I came across were really shallow, so I skipped them.
Great post OP, i have to say that not many companies have the balls to put a female in the cover, unfortunately we still live in a society were despite having made great steps towards full equality some ignorant people still believe a man should be at the forefront of everything.
I see this thread didn't take long to attract arguments about historical accuracy in a series where you jump 500 feet into a knee-high stack of hay, are completely okay, as you pursue mind-controlling objects left behind by an ancient super-advanced society and occasionally face hidden bossfights against giant monsters.
Fucking gamers...
Fucking gamers...
I don't know if the answer to years of females being forced to play male leads in order to play games is to force males to play females. Odyssey and the ability to choose what you wanted to be represented by seems like a lot better path forward. 1/3 of gamers - myself included - played as Kassandra, and that seems like a positive step forward. If you want representation to be fair, demanding they swing the pendulum over to the other extreme and stop having male leads doesn't seem to be moving toward that goal at all.
I remember atleast one instance of dialogue where the NPC referred to Kassandra as beautiful, something not used when playing as Alexios. Also remember a dialogue where Kassandra says "Better sending a woman (than a man)". There are other lines like that so it's not totally gender neutral but most of it is as it, which I assume is more to save them the hassle of rerecording.
Kassandra was in a ton of the footage they showed before Odyssey so I don't know what you mean there. I agree there should always be a choice if possible but I have to say that anyone looking at an AC game for representation needs to step back and think about what they are saying. This is a series where you play as someone who climbs buildings like Spider-Man, jumps 30 feet down and kills people, regardless of gender how is that really representation of anyone real? These characters aren't representations of ourselves they are fictional characters we go in and play as to experience their stories not our own and it seems like a vocal minority has forgotten that.
Ubi does a lot of female representation outside of AC btw, Siege for instance probably has more female characters than male or atleast it's 50-50 now. But the character in a somewhat leader role is a woman (probably cause she's also the most played operator in the game cause of how broken she was/is, talking about Ash here).
The OP did not say that. And the select your character is a half step forward because while choice is definitely better than no choice at all, there is absolutely zero impetus for people who have seen themselves (race, sexuality and gender) be dominantly represented in the games that they have played for the longest time to suddenly give it up and choose to play as someone dissimilar to them (sans exception). It is the reason why "1/3 of gamers" played as Kassandra, the "canon" character per Ubisoft, as opposed to 2/3rd of gamers who played as Alexios who got majority of the advertisements.
So, no, saying choices level the playing field is short sighted because we reside in a skewed social system. This argument is reminiscent of people who tend oppose BLM by saying All lives matter. It's a false equivalence because we don't live in an egalitarian society.
Well they did say that, by saying that giving people a choice isn't representation. What they want is games with only female leads...even though they ignored that there was a game in the franchise that DID do that - AC3: Liberation.
Very true! there is no agree button option at the bottom so I just replied instead lol.
(I just wish the gif had him springing out of the pile of hay afterwards, like he just woke up.)
I noted the absence of Liberation as well from the OP. Later I surmised that it, akin to AC Chronicles, may not be considered a mainline AC title.
As it is, the lion's share of AC titles are headed by male leads and even a choice is supposedly provided, the marketing department skews promotion heavily towards to the male version.
Overall, if AC games can survive a string of mediocre and/or technically broken (at launch) titles, it can most certainly survive a few more titles with female leads.
I mean, there's women who want what AC Odyssey is offering. My partner fucking hates it when she's watching a movie or playing a game and the focus is on women overcoming sexism. She just wants to see women as leads without gender being the focus, because currently it overwhelming is (even if there isn't enough female-lead media, the little there is tends to be similar) and something like Odyssey ignoring gender is what she likes. Granted I think she's in the minority here.
(Personally I hate character creators because I find it dilutes storytelling, I would prefer it going back to singular protagonists w/ defined characters and writing of any gender)
Imagine someone asking that after 10+ AAA mainline AC games to get a solely female led title and call it demanding lmao
(Personally I hate character creators because I find it dilutes storytelling, I would prefer it going back to singular protagonists w/ defined characters and writing of any gender)
I mean OP literally brought up historical accuracy in regards to women and the Olympics, etc. There actually is a consideration to balancing accuracy and immersion and inclusion here, it's the point of the thread.
They didn't say that and man I can't help but read these posts with that avatar and struggle to take them seriously
Imagine someone asking that after 10+ AAA mainline AC games to get a solely female led title and call it demanding lmao
You mean a game that was originally released as an exclusive entry to a handheld that wasn't exactly lighting the charts on fire, and then got a port that didn't improve a lot on gameplay that was already quite dated on release? (and better to not even talk about the PC port)
I loved Kassandra, easily my favourite lead in AC, I agree thought I wish the Gender choices did have more impact.
It sold better than many of the non-mainline games.
Yeah...ok
People going on about not being able to be a gay man are missing the point. It's not "make people play women just cus".
If there was an assassin's creed with a gay male protagonist as the only choice, it would be a far better written gay character with far better and more in depth gay relationship stories than what's presented in Odyssey or most similar "choose your dialogue" games.
Cus yes, Odyssey does have gay options. I did all the romances, they are all shit-tier at best, laughable for the most part.
If there was an assassin's creed with a gay male protagonist as the only choice, it would be a far better written gay character with far better and more in depth gay relationship stories than what's presented in Odyssey or most similar "choose your dialogue" games.
Cus yes, Odyssey does have gay options. I did all the romances, they are all shit-tier at best, laughable for the most part.
Just choose a character FFS. I really hate the Commander Shepherds. They are a husk of a character. They have shitty dialogs and zero personality. The little character they have are often to the extreme to reflect "choices".
AC is not Skyrim. You don't craft your character. You just decide from bad to worse dialog choices.
Just write one fully fledged character, can be whatever gender as long as it's well written. Guerilla did this right. A female lead with the depth of Origins characters would be totally fine and a step up from Odyssey.
(also to the people who are bringing up BFV, the majority of the complaints had nothing to do with gender. Fans were pissed that DICE was tone-deaf and ruined the immersion with countless stupid decisions. Funny enough, the game flopped hard and it's basically on life support, which is ridiculous for a BF game. Not everyone who wants an immersive game with some sense of reality has a problem with women with video games. In fact women didn't have any effect on BFV. It was a good addition that should've happened with BF4.)
AC is not Skyrim. You don't craft your character. You just decide from bad to worse dialog choices.
Just write one fully fledged character, can be whatever gender as long as it's well written. Guerilla did this right. A female lead with the depth of Origins characters would be totally fine and a step up from Odyssey.
(also to the people who are bringing up BFV, the majority of the complaints had nothing to do with gender. Fans were pissed that DICE was tone-deaf and ruined the immersion with countless stupid decisions. Funny enough, the game flopped hard and it's basically on life support, which is ridiculous for a BF game. Not everyone who wants an immersive game with some sense of reality has a problem with women with video games. In fact women didn't have any effect on BFV. It was a good addition that should've happened with BF4.)
User Banned (Permanent): Sexism, trolling. Long history of infractions for trolling and disruptive behaviour.
I think we need to look at historical context before we jump gun blazing because our feelings were hurt. The existence of shield-maidens is recorded in very few instances and when you make a game about Vikings and their historical conquests we need look closer to history and the Norse traditions. Norse society were male dominated and in make sense to have a male protagonist in this historical context. (More about Norse society here http://www.hurstwic.org/history/articles/society/text/women.htm)
Why? This game isn't going to be historically accurate to a T. Better to have female representation while we're at it, than use a male lead character but have him fighting against fantastical beings. The line CANNOT be drawn at "make sure we use a dude" if fantasy is present.