99% of Viking population weren't warriors, why even have the character be able to fight?
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Assassin's Creed and female representation
- Thread starter Persephone
- Start date
99% of Viking population weren't warriors, why even have the character be able to fight?
*reads 'about' section in user profile*
Goddamn you beautiful dog, but you made me read it.
I think I'd rather see more variety and changes based on your choice, rather than removing the choice entirely. These games are increasingly becoming RPGs about choice, it would be strange to regress away from that now.
Isn't it funny that despite being the super villain, I'm not the one calling a woman demanding lmaoYeah...ok
Odyssey showed they can have a story work regardless of the gender of the main protagonist. I would argue they don't even need to go through the lengths they did in Odyssey (that being having the other sibling exist in the world) and it sounds like that is the route they're going in Valhalla - and that's because the story of modern AC games can work regardless of what the gender of the main character is. i'd argue the only real games where it made a difference was Ezio's trilogy, and that's only because they made so much of the sequels be about him, not about something else. Odyssey had a personal level to its story telling, but it was done in a way where it would work regardless of who was in those positions. I expect valhalla to be the same way. You can have a character-driven narrative done in a way where the finer details of the character (that being race, gender, etc) isn't as important to be set in one particular way. Giving players choice and making cheap, easy acknowledgements of those choices is a good thing.
Let people play who they want to play. Let women be able to enjoy a game playing as a character that looks like them. It makes no difference to the plot and makes the game more inclusive to people.
And whoever plays the "HISTORICAL ACCURACY!!!" card for any assassin's creed game in 2020 goes straight to my ignore list.
Let people play who they want to play. Let women be able to enjoy a game playing as a character that looks like them. It makes no difference to the plot and makes the game more inclusive to people.
And whoever plays the "HISTORICAL ACCURACY!!!" card for any assassin's creed game in 2020 goes straight to my ignore list.
Thank you!
I was reading the few gay Alexios responses before and I was confused, playing as gay Alexios should've highlighted what op is asking, and not "I want more of this".
What the OP is asking for are ways to differentiate between the genders in the writing and quest design that pays homage to the real life struggles women had to endure at the time (and over the millennia) whilst also allowing for designing gameplay solutions to tackle the problem (where the whole "this is a game that straddles the line between fantasy and history" comes into play).
Educating people on the hardships of those once considered second class citizens and/or minorities do not have to mutually exclusive in settings of power fantasies. It needs to be done with proper context, honesty and sincerity.
All in all, it would have most definitely required AC's quest design and narrative team to put in extra hours with pre-existing character select option. And so an argument can be made that, for the same/similar amount of effort, having a female only lead set against that kind of historical backdrop could have allowed for greater detail/more focused character development to flesh out Kassandra whilst still providing dialog options (reminiscent of HZD as an example).
*reads 'about' section in user profile*
I went back to read it and ..... Oh... OH!
Great OP.
After Syndicate I was certain a full-fledged female protagonist would be a thing from there on out. Cue Origins with Bayak as the protag, with a little bit of Aya I suppose. Genuinely one of my biggest disappointments of this generation and I didn't play Origins because of it, even though Ancient Egypt is right up my alley.
And now Valhalla is revealed. For the longest time I was sure that, after the success that was Kassandra, this would be the Assassin's Creed to feature a sole female protagonist.
Instead we got Gruff McBeard.
Even if there will be a female protagonist, it will be the dude who will have his beard plastered all over the box art, the splash screen, the marketing, etc. It will be the dude that the writing defaults towards and it will be the dude that gets picked by 80% of the player base. Because that's how it always goes. Same shit, different Assassin's Creed.
After Syndicate I was certain a full-fledged female protagonist would be a thing from there on out. Cue Origins with Bayak as the protag, with a little bit of Aya I suppose. Genuinely one of my biggest disappointments of this generation and I didn't play Origins because of it, even though Ancient Egypt is right up my alley.
And now Valhalla is revealed. For the longest time I was sure that, after the success that was Kassandra, this would be the Assassin's Creed to feature a sole female protagonist.
Instead we got Gruff McBeard.
Even if there will be a female protagonist, it will be the dude who will have his beard plastered all over the box art, the splash screen, the marketing, etc. It will be the dude that the writing defaults towards and it will be the dude that gets picked by 80% of the player base. Because that's how it always goes. Same shit, different Assassin's Creed.
If anything, Ubisoft should be commended for having the option to choose.
The majority of action games you will be locked into a character the dev has chosen for you. They actually went through the EXTRA work to provide options. By providing Alexios and Kassandra they appealed to a wider audience. I really don't see a problem with it.
The majority of action games you will be locked into a character the dev has chosen for you. They actually went through the EXTRA work to provide options. By providing Alexios and Kassandra they appealed to a wider audience. I really don't see a problem with it.
Representation is going to be handled poorly when extraordinarily large franchises like this shoehorn it in for pandering reasons. You even touched upon how meaningless Jacobs bisexuality was, and Morrigan has mentioned how meaningless Kassandra actually being a women was, within the context of the story.
if you want good representation you need to support developers who actually want to tell those stories. And support the programs in place which aid said developers.
if you want good representation you need to support developers who actually want to tell those stories. And support the programs in place which aid said developers.
Ten bucks you fight an honest to gods troll, dragur, jotunn, or maybe even Jörmungandr. Assassin's Creed games have been a fantasy title using historical settings as a backdrop for a while now.
that's not entirely true.
These aren't "political" conversation, they are quantitative surveys. You take a game concept and ask thousands of people, and that data helps influence decisions. In mass market entertainment, it's actually considered NOT political to make decisions based on quant results. Because you are designing entertainment for large demographics, find them and ask them preferences.
It's more considered "political" (usually we say "making a statement") if you deliberately choose to go against the data you have. Example if 80% of your target player base says they only want to play as a male and youintentionally decide to only offer a female, you're making a statement. Not the other way around.
thayd high risk mass entertainment.
Many projects are more artistic and don't data collect so you get more vartiety butnrisks are usually lower
No.
First: HISTORICAL FANTASY as people have mentioned.
Plus, just because nearly every goddamn society on earth has been male-dominated doesn't mean women warriors didn't exist.
Because there were badass viking women fighting. They had to defend their homes when the men where away viking. They went out to new lands with their families.
Gudrid? Freydis? Birka? Lagertha?
Historically the women were there. Women have always been there. Historically, men just refuse to see them.
Then I'd be asking why can't people be allowed to play a lesbian if they want to. I don't think the answer is "just give up on created characters and make someone defined". That's wack.
At this point you're just arguing that created characters are bad.
Ubisoft games recently have been doing wonders in terms of female representation, in my opinion. Although I agree they lack in regards to putting default female leads in their games, every single game by Ubisoft I played in the last years have tons of female characters in a wild array of roles and in almost all the games they are pivotal to the story, in a very normalized, realistic way. In The Division, the leads of the military groups, soldiers, field agents, most of them are all women. Assassins creed Odyssey has Kassandra, but it also has tons of women who play key roles either being elite soldiers, scholars, manipulators, thieves, political figures, and all the spectre of characters you can have in a video game, with diverse goals, sexual orientations, etc.
Plus, I think they even go further, more than most games are willing right now, they put women as actual enemies you fight, normalizing their abilities and capacity without making a fuss out of it. Syndicate had female gang members there were not a "special" kind of soldier, they were just the same as the male ones, equally fearsome. Odyssey has elite mercenaries, and most of them are not just "men but with a different body model", they have backstories, some were farmers, some priestesses, anything you can imagine.
Plus, I think they even go further, more than most games are willing right now, they put women as actual enemies you fight, normalizing their abilities and capacity without making a fuss out of it. Syndicate had female gang members there were not a "special" kind of soldier, they were just the same as the male ones, equally fearsome. Odyssey has elite mercenaries, and most of them are not just "men but with a different body model", they have backstories, some were farmers, some priestesses, anything you can imagine.
I already did. It's hard not to remark with a short snark when the same talking points defending elective protagonist as the panacea for poor res presentation of women arise again and again. So, if you find that offensive please feel free to report my post.
We will not be engaging further. Cheers.
My feel is that this comes down to poor timing when it comes to the franchise itself. Each title takes awhile to develop now, (compared to 2 years before). And the franchise itself shifted away from cinematic storytelling in general in favor of being an RPG. AC was a franchise that back in the day, gathered a lot of fans who're were women in spite of it's "our target audience is straight white dudes first and foremost" style of marketing and tone. Because amongst a sea of super gruff badass hypermasculinity, something that this franchise started with:
you had this dude front and center as the protagonist of the series:
someone who thanks to a lot of factors was portrayed as more relatable and likeable than the usual video game protagonist archetype that was popular at the time. And because of that, the franchise itself appealed to more than just the straight while male demographic. And as the series grew in popularity, so too did the requests for more representation as the industry itself progressively became more progressive.
They did in some way answer this interest by making a spinoff title and releasing alongside their, at the time, biggest AC project ever, by developing what was THE showcase title for a new platform
but we all know how the vita turned out in spite of this attempt. In short, in spite of them being happy with performance, not many people played the game and it's release was overshadowed by AC3.
This all came to a head in 2014 where, when debuting co-op for the first time, it was decided that they would like to marry the concept of a player avatar with having a heavily customizable main protagonist when it came to outfits and such so that the co-op feature in question would feature distinguishable characters, but the issue was that they were all male. Because for Ubisoft's developers it wasn't a question of, (just put on a woman model and voice, like in far cry 5), it was:
in a project where they were running into trouble with everything else they set out to do, a dev later referring to it as a "perfect storm" and were making heavy cuts. Meanwhile, at the same time you had a different studio developing a project seemingly without those same issues. And with different leads and ideas for the IP in general.
"Oh, we need to adhere to strict lore and canon rules, oh, here are some twins, because diversity is important to us and what we wanna do"
That same team ran into budget issues and had to unfortunately scrap one of Evie's questlines to get the project done.Making the game, even if you choose to play as Evie for 90% of it, make it seem like it's about Jacob first and foremost and that Evie was a late development decision instead of one they insisted on trying from the start. That leaves us with AC Origins, which actually IS first and foremost about Bayek, and didn't have the development issues of the last two titles. Aya is relegated to shorter story segments because it's a game about Bayek.
At the start of these two projects, (Origins and Odyssey), it was decided that the series should shift entirely to an RPG. So no more set protagonists after Bayek, instead, letting us choose and quite literally doing what they said it would be:
"double the voice and animations"
vs. what you tend to get in bioware titles where your characters body contorts to fit animations made with the male physique in mind.
The creative leads also seemingly had very little input over the marketing materials as it again, made it seem like first and foremost, Alexios was thought of first and Kassandra a late addition. When the intention from the very start was, "man and woman."
So where does this leaves us. Well, it leaves us with a franchise that, in spite of it's attempts to appeal to everyone NOW, has a fanbase comprised of women who don't feel like they ever got THEIR main title. To be blunt, those fans got the short end of the stick and it's not ok. And when coupled with things like the dlc blunder, makes for a less than ideal situation where it's perfectly understandable that people like OP would feel slighted in some way. And it's not just because there's a lack of women leads in AC specifically, Ubisoft in general hasn't really made a AAA game, in the same vein as their big titles like AC where they spend tens of millions to develop it, with a woman as the lead. It's usually their smaller titles that get that treatment.
So they have absolutely contributed to the issues that we see in gaming when it comes to representation of women in spite of their some of their successes and stances when it comes to being progressive. As some of the decisions made absolutely do make it seem like they still wanna appeal to straight white guys first and foremost as if it's still 2007. I disagree that the end result is an experience that feels male centric, as that wasn't the intention
and the way Greece is presented is a metric fuckton more progressive than Greece actually was not just because people don't constantly berate you for being a woman but because it's a historical fantasy where, as long as you're a mercenary no one cares about who you are. But I can see how it can be perceived that way and why there is a desire for it to be more of an immersive experience where it does take into account who you chose to play as beyond some small dialogue changes.
And I too was disappointed by the cover once again not being gender neutral. A cover like this would do wonders for the AC series:
and this should've been the default cover:
Small thing regarding Jacob's sexuality in AC:Syndicate. It wasn't really a JK Rowling confirmed on twitter and not at all in the game moment, it's more along the lines of Bill in TLOU where it's quite on the nose but it's the type of things you very rarely see in gaming that it's easy to completely miss it until it's scrutinized.
You can see the writer, a gay man himself, talking about it here:
All that said. I sincerely hope that the marketing of this game, if the option to play as both returns. Isn't as male focused as it was for Odyssey.
you had this dude front and center as the protagonist of the series:
someone who thanks to a lot of factors was portrayed as more relatable and likeable than the usual video game protagonist archetype that was popular at the time. And because of that, the franchise itself appealed to more than just the straight while male demographic. And as the series grew in popularity, so too did the requests for more representation as the industry itself progressively became more progressive.
They did in some way answer this interest by making a spinoff title and releasing alongside their, at the time, biggest AC project ever, by developing what was THE showcase title for a new platform
but we all know how the vita turned out in spite of this attempt. In short, in spite of them being happy with performance, not many people played the game and it's release was overshadowed by AC3.
This all came to a head in 2014 where, when debuting co-op for the first time, it was decided that they would like to marry the concept of a player avatar with having a heavily customizable main protagonist when it came to outfits and such so that the co-op feature in question would feature distinguishable characters, but the issue was that they were all male. Because for Ubisoft's developers it wasn't a question of, (just put on a woman model and voice, like in far cry 5), it was:
in a project where they were running into trouble with everything else they set out to do, a dev later referring to it as a "perfect storm" and were making heavy cuts. Meanwhile, at the same time you had a different studio developing a project seemingly without those same issues. And with different leads and ideas for the IP in general.
"Oh, we need to adhere to strict lore and canon rules, oh, here are some twins, because diversity is important to us and what we wanna do"
That same team ran into budget issues and had to unfortunately scrap one of Evie's questlines to get the project done.Making the game, even if you choose to play as Evie for 90% of it, make it seem like it's about Jacob first and foremost and that Evie was a late development decision instead of one they insisted on trying from the start. That leaves us with AC Origins, which actually IS first and foremost about Bayek, and didn't have the development issues of the last two titles. Aya is relegated to shorter story segments because it's a game about Bayek.
At the start of these two projects, (Origins and Odyssey), it was decided that the series should shift entirely to an RPG. So no more set protagonists after Bayek, instead, letting us choose and quite literally doing what they said it would be:
"double the voice and animations"
vs. what you tend to get in bioware titles where your characters body contorts to fit animations made with the male physique in mind.
The creative leads also seemingly had very little input over the marketing materials as it again, made it seem like first and foremost, Alexios was thought of first and Kassandra a late addition. When the intention from the very start was, "man and woman."
So where does this leaves us. Well, it leaves us with a franchise that, in spite of it's attempts to appeal to everyone NOW, has a fanbase comprised of women who don't feel like they ever got THEIR main title. To be blunt, those fans got the short end of the stick and it's not ok. And when coupled with things like the dlc blunder, makes for a less than ideal situation where it's perfectly understandable that people like OP would feel slighted in some way. And it's not just because there's a lack of women leads in AC specifically, Ubisoft in general hasn't really made a AAA game, in the same vein as their big titles like AC where they spend tens of millions to develop it, with a woman as the lead. It's usually their smaller titles that get that treatment.
So they have absolutely contributed to the issues that we see in gaming when it comes to representation of women in spite of their some of their successes and stances when it comes to being progressive. As some of the decisions made absolutely do make it seem like they still wanna appeal to straight white guys first and foremost as if it's still 2007. I disagree that the end result is an experience that feels male centric, as that wasn't the intention
and the way Greece is presented is a metric fuckton more progressive than Greece actually was not just because people don't constantly berate you for being a woman but because it's a historical fantasy where, as long as you're a mercenary no one cares about who you are. But I can see how it can be perceived that way and why there is a desire for it to be more of an immersive experience where it does take into account who you chose to play as beyond some small dialogue changes.
And I too was disappointed by the cover once again not being gender neutral. A cover like this would do wonders for the AC series:
and this should've been the default cover:
Small thing regarding Jacob's sexuality in AC:Syndicate. It wasn't really a JK Rowling confirmed on twitter and not at all in the game moment, it's more along the lines of Bill in TLOU where it's quite on the nose but it's the type of things you very rarely see in gaming that it's easy to completely miss it until it's scrutinized.
You can see the writer, a gay man himself, talking about it here:
All that said. I sincerely hope that the marketing of this game, if the option to play as both returns. Isn't as male focused as it was for Odyssey.
I should point out, AC Liberation at launch might have been the most expensive Vita game. The game was THE Vita title in 2012. They didn't have you play as Aveline just because they expected the game to not set the charts on fire, everyone involved assumed the vita would be a success. Ubisoft, more than any other 3rd party studio is always all over new hardware. Even stuff like google stadia.
Bruh this isn't a documentary. We're gonna be parkouring around while wearing heavy armor and a ton of weapons. People have a right to be disappointed if there aren't any options, or even that the MC isn't a woman only.
As someone who works in marketing, the marketing department tends not to make the final call on what gender the main playable character should be in a game :) If ANY marketing department has that much power, that company has a whole host of problems it needs to solve.
What a marketing team will do is provide market research, comparable products, and other factoids that the project owners will use to make the final decision. A marketer might say that a game starring a male protagonist would be easier to market for reasons X, Y, and Z, but they should never be the ones actually pulling the trigger on the decision.
Blaming the mythological marketing team for these decisions is shirking the blame from the people who ACTUALLY made the decision on these projects. And when it involves games being designed too much from the male perspective, we need to focus on the people that actually have final say on these decisions.
My experience with marketing team, they give STRONG PROPOSITIONS that kinda really are orders to be followed by the dev team. When I say "marketing team" I think of a rather large group including User Research teams.
That said, your team is lucky to have you, you seem to understand what you are talking about, but most importantly you seem to care. Again in my opinion, it's rare.
The weirdest thing is that the most hardcore AC fans I know of are women. Several in fact, not including the lady who snapped up several AC Collector's Editions I listed on Facebook Marketplace recently.
As someone who also works with marketing i wish we had that much power to be honest. You'd be surprised by how many times our "strong propositions" are completely ignored over gut feelings or just the strong arm of someone above the command chain who feels they know better. And yes the "knowing better" in a gaming sense probably most of the times default to "use the safest, blandest, tested routes like white male snarky protagonist instead"
Having a female lead protagonist kinda feels like a bigger step than what Ubi is willing to take. I don't think it's because they don't want to, but because of the toxicity that will ensue if they fail. We know how much the gaming community can be toxic when they think there's some kind of agenda going on.
Personally, I think Ubi should take the risk with an already stablished character like Evie or Aya. Both of them have charisma, I would say on par with Aloy. These characters are perfect to have an story of their own. I think this is the way of Ubi to take this next step without a risk.
However, they don't seem to care to continue storylines anymore and that's a shame because these females characters will go to waste while Ubi goes more and more into the direction of a character creator from an random RPG. I don't think this freedom means representation.
Regarding the fact that the lead would be a female and all the implications that historically sexism is such a present thing, etc. I believe that's something that should come as natural from the game story itself, that's what I believe is the most important: normalization. If the game is set on a period where woman are very oppressed, show the protagonist fighting as part of the story. If the game is set on a period with more liberties, then let the character be free to make its own story.
Personally, I think Ubi should take the risk with an already stablished character like Evie or Aya. Both of them have charisma, I would say on par with Aloy. These characters are perfect to have an story of their own. I think this is the way of Ubi to take this next step without a risk.
However, they don't seem to care to continue storylines anymore and that's a shame because these females characters will go to waste while Ubi goes more and more into the direction of a character creator from an random RPG. I don't think this freedom means representation.
Regarding the fact that the lead would be a female and all the implications that historically sexism is such a present thing, etc. I believe that's something that should come as natural from the game story itself, that's what I believe is the most important: normalization. If the game is set on a period where woman are very oppressed, show the protagonist fighting as part of the story. If the game is set on a period with more liberties, then let the character be free to make its own story.
curious because I have a unique perspective, but from your POV where would you say the sexism lies? With the audience for responding to personal surveys stating their preferences, from the research team who compiles the results and presents recommendations, from the game developers who have a sales mandate and decide to design to the audience responses, from the marketing team who uses the data to design their packaging, from the execs/producers who decide what projects to fund?
not being snarky, just genuinely curious.
professional perspective aside, personally I very rarely pick male characters when given an option mostly because I already am one and find the POV pretty dull :🤷: - I always push for more inclusion, data aside, but like I said different projects have different risks
I was on the Assassins Creed Twitch early today and... man, can´t believe the degree of sexism and racism in the XXI Century. Sometimes it seems like ... is getting worse?
Talking about AC specifically, what are the chances of them ever doing a single protagonist again? Obviously they should've done a mainline female-led AC by now (still wish Syndicate was just Evie), but considering AC is so quickly embracing RPG mechanics, I wonder if we'll ever even make a one character AC game again, let alone a female-led one.
Regardless, the issue still stands. It sorta makes me wish these games didnt rely so much on voice acting in a way, PC rpgs have such an easier time of having a character creator while crafting gender specific dialogue and scenarios because it's all text. Then again, Divinity Original Sin 2 has most of its dialogue voiced iirc so maybe that's no excuse for Ubi
Regardless, the issue still stands. It sorta makes me wish these games didnt rely so much on voice acting in a way, PC rpgs have such an easier time of having a character creator while crafting gender specific dialogue and scenarios because it's all text. Then again, Divinity Original Sin 2 has most of its dialogue voiced iirc so maybe that's no excuse for Ubi
Now that the serie has gone the full rpg with choices route, I don't see how a single gender protagonist could happen. Even more so when they're including romance options in their games (Horizon Dawn and Tomb Raider don't include any romance for a reason).
Given the choice, I personally will always take a male in a rpg with choices. That being said I didn't start playing AC for that kind of experience and wouldn't mind them ditching that aspect going forward. If Syndicate had us choosing our character at the start, I would have regretted playing as Jacob as Evie was a far more enjoyable character for me.
If their next game had us playing as a woman like Lagertha from the Viking show with a story written around her, I would definitely play it day one.
But as the game will let us choose and have a "neutral" story, I will play as a Ragnar instead.
Given the choice, I personally will always take a male in a rpg with choices. That being said I didn't start playing AC for that kind of experience and wouldn't mind them ditching that aspect going forward. If Syndicate had us choosing our character at the start, I would have regretted playing as Jacob as Evie was a far more enjoyable character for me.
If their next game had us playing as a woman like Lagertha from the Viking show with a story written around her, I would definitely play it day one.
But as the game will let us choose and have a "neutral" story, I will play as a Ragnar instead.
Looking at the AC series, if given an option to chose between male vs female protagonist, I will chose male, especially if the dialog options and story arent altered by the choice.
Lets take Odyssey for example, if Chosing Alexios vs Kassandra ultimately led to a "bad" ending because he wasnt the cannon DNA strand to follow, I more than likely would have replayed as Kassandra to get that ending.
Ubisoft should just pick a gender for the character and stick with it, i have no problems with playing Avelin in Liberation or let's say Aloy in HZD. They honestly write a better character if they just made up their mind.
However I do want to add that some of us in the AC community, myself included, play for the overarching modern day storyline, so whoever the historical figure is, honestly doesnt matter, as longas we get something to the stire "we" follow. And Although Ubisoft is dropping the ball on this, we have gone from Desmond Miles, to faceless gamers/employees to Layla Hassan as the the modern day protag. And boy is she terrible as a character. Poorly written, attitude is all over the place, and Desmond is miles (ha) ahead of her, to the point that I actually felt something for him when he sacrificed himself. Layla however has let her arrogance allow herself to let her new friends and allies die.
Now Ill assume Layla will continue to be the protag in this game, unless rumors of it being Berg are correct, but we shall see.
Lets take Odyssey for example, if Chosing Alexios vs Kassandra ultimately led to a "bad" ending because he wasnt the cannon DNA strand to follow, I more than likely would have replayed as Kassandra to get that ending.
Ubisoft should just pick a gender for the character and stick with it, i have no problems with playing Avelin in Liberation or let's say Aloy in HZD. They honestly write a better character if they just made up their mind.
However I do want to add that some of us in the AC community, myself included, play for the overarching modern day storyline, so whoever the historical figure is, honestly doesnt matter, as longas we get something to the stire "we" follow. And Although Ubisoft is dropping the ball on this, we have gone from Desmond Miles, to faceless gamers/employees to Layla Hassan as the the modern day protag. And boy is she terrible as a character. Poorly written, attitude is all over the place, and Desmond is miles (ha) ahead of her, to the point that I actually felt something for him when he sacrificed himself. Layla however has let her arrogance allow herself to let her new friends and allies die.
Now Ill assume Layla will continue to be the protag in this game, unless rumors of it being Berg are correct, but we shall see.
After reading some comments in the live stream chat of the reveal I can kinda understand the decision to focus the marketing on a bearded guy instead of a woman. Personally I would have preferred some badass female viking being the main character but oh well...
Yeah. It was bad. I think The Last of Us 2 fiasco made things worse. But I saw a bunch of morons saying they were going to boycott the game if you could play as a female. A CHOICE. Not if the lead was only a woman, but if you could pick a sex.
But, Internet chat is always the worst of the worst. We shouldn't let bigotry make these kinds of decisions. If we listened to these morons, every game would just be a GTA Halo sequel, anyway.
This is our current situation, sadly. A badass Viking woman as a protagonist could be great, but by how this looks... most people are not ready for such a scenario.
Jacob was bi? That's nowhere to be even noticable in Syndicate. 5 years later and you learn something new
Well, of course I'd like a fully gay man as the protagonist, with a decent story, but realistically that ain't happening anytime soon. The OP wants to remove what little representation I have though, and that's what I'm saying no too. Taking that away from a massive IP like AC is a huge step back.
I don't think Ubisofts primary motivation for having choosable protagonists is "not upsetting bigots". Moving to a choosable protagonist is in lockstep with a host of other RPG mechanics they have implemented in their games in general and AC specifically. Choosable dialog, loot, skill trees etc.
This is true for pretty much all of their AAA series, not just AC. This type of character customisation is also pretty popular in general. RPG's that don't have it are routinely dinged for it.
Still, a set protagonist does allow for more specific storytelling. Games with customisable protagonists do tend to take the POV from an observer rather than going through their own complex arcs.
On the other hand, a set protagonist also allows for only one POV. Despite some disonance and shallowness, giving the choice enables dev to give a bit to everyone to some extent.
This is true for pretty much all of their AAA series, not just AC. This type of character customisation is also pretty popular in general. RPG's that don't have it are routinely dinged for it.
Still, a set protagonist does allow for more specific storytelling. Games with customisable protagonists do tend to take the POV from an observer rather than going through their own complex arcs.
On the other hand, a set protagonist also allows for only one POV. Despite some disonance and shallowness, giving the choice enables dev to give a bit to everyone to some extent.
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I see your point. But I also don't see why they can't offer a choice of gender, although if they do so, I think it would be best to nuance each. like a female warrior viking would be a really unique character. Don't just make her interchangeable with the male character. I do think there are increasing amounts of games where females take the lead though. Horizon, Control and TLoU, Gears 5, etc. But yeah, in this series in particular, if they did go for one cannon lead, I think it would be good to go with a female, they have had so many male leads obviously. I do think they have to make it plausible as well, which speaks to your point a bit more. Better to construct a story which gives some honesty to how gender relations operated in those historical contexts, and how a woman might overcome those to become powerful. It certainly happened, although they faced more barriers than a man with equivalent traits.
While your points on characterization are 100% accurate (so far), all this results in is like 5 straight/undefined AAA female protagonists a generation, and like 1 Lesbian AAA protagonist in the history of videogames. So no, pass, every game a choice please, same with romance options. They should focus writing quality to accommodate this, I see this as a more attainable and faster solution than them alienating the dudebros (unfortunately)
There were a lot of gay romances to have. I slept with at least 5 people, one of them was a long staying side character. It was super fun.
I want them to be whatever makes sense for the character. Whatever they are though, I want them to be bespoke characters that don't have to feel like one size fits all in their writing or dialogue. Either that or the writing team better have the time and ambition to make the characters feel unique and interesting whether male, female, or non-binary.
I guess really what it comes down to for me is that I haven't really enjoyed blank avatar "make them whatever you want them to be" style characters ever. At best I can ignore it.
Id much prefer an Aloy, Ellie, or Arthur Morgan style character. Characters with somewhat specific character trajectories and developments. It just makes for a more interesting story, and at this juncture in my life, I probably most appreciate good story and character development.
I guess really what it comes down to for me is that I haven't really enjoyed blank avatar "make them whatever you want them to be" style characters ever. At best I can ignore it.
Id much prefer an Aloy, Ellie, or Arthur Morgan style character. Characters with somewhat specific character trajectories and developments. It just makes for a more interesting story, and at this juncture in my life, I probably most appreciate good story and character development.
Syphilis is part of role-playing a person in ancient times before anti-biotic.
The irony of them complaining about politics in games but having an avatar of FF7, where you start in a group of eco warriors.*reads 'about' section in user profile*