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Female characters at E3 this year versus last year

Steel

Banned
I noticed that myself. Horizon girl aside, they're all white (not Faith - I missed the edit!) 20 something athletic brunettes.

Well, there's a white thirty-something space-marine protagonist trope too. Video games need more diversity in general.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
I really liked seeing this, especially from the big publishers. It'll be nice not to be looking at the same dude in every game. I loved the design of all of these characters.
 

Damerman

Member
Neither Fallout 4 or Mass Effect Andromeda really count, since while they're both Create-A-Character games they both saw fit to push the male main character (and in Fallout's case the blandest version of a male main character) in their marketing.


I know this is probably a multiple finisher or whatever it's called (if it'll even be in gameplay) but damn it this is so much cooler than a stupid gang brawl.

actually Bioware have said that the character we see in the trailer isn't the main character(our playable character)
 
I was surprised how little buzz the female character models in Black Ops 3 is generating. Was this previously known or something? I'm pretty far out of the loop on CoD news.
 

Damerman

Member
I noticed that myself. Horizon girl aside, they're all white (not Faith - I missed the edit!) 20 something athletic brunettes.

Honestly, I'm trying to convice myself that Horizon girl is super mixed considering this is 1000 years after the Apocalypse... she doesn't necessarily have all white phenotype.
 
H5G_Profile-Head_Vale.jpg



tanakagi.png


Don't forget the female spartans

I think my favorite part of these designs is how... normal they look. They just look like people. It's pretty great.
 

pantsmith

Member
Ignoring Gamergate and Ubisoft, this gen in particular has already been great in terms of handling female characters. Surprised we haven't read more about it.

Would like to see more push for well-written, well-designed minorities too.
 

Slayven

Member
Honestly, I'm trying to convice myself that Horizon girl is super mixed considering this is 1000 years after the Apocalypse... she doesn't necessarily have all white phenotype.

I was thinking the same time, shit went to hell and everyone got down with the swirl. And you will see mixture of people and cultures. the main character's people seemed to be Native American influenced, but they showed a another faction that was a bit more industrial.
 
I believe Gears 4 also had a female companion. I was also going to make this thread but it's good to see many people noticed. I was extremely just excited to see all the female characters, all lead roles, BA breaking rules. Even better, was more... Ugh... Just overwhelming emotion to see two black women on stage. That was huge for me. It could have been a marketing trick, idc... The fact that black women was actually there and included just meant a lot so yeah
 

Damerman

Member
I believe Gears 4 also had a female companion. I was also going to make this thread but it's good to see many people noticed. I was extremely just excited to see all the female characters, all lead roles, BA breaking rules. Even better, was more... Ugh... Just overwhelming emotion to see two black women on stage. That was huge for me. It could have been a marketing trick, idc... The fact that black women was actually there and included just meant a lot so yeah

are you talking about UBI presentation with Angela Bassett and Ubi Host?
 

Neidii

Member
This one made me laugh when people started cheering that you could play as a female character in a Fallout game. You could do this in all the other Fallout games too, including the originals.
Hahaha yeah, I thought like okay calm down people, isn't this supposed to be a thing that exists already. It's not that revolutionary to have a female character in fallout. Though I did feel disappointed that they chose to show the male character for the demo and only showed the female character for like a second.
 

dab0ne

Member
There was also the female companion in Gears of War IV, but we've no idea how big (or little) of a part she plays in the game.

Im pretty sure Rod Said her name was Kait during an interview with Geoff while sitting on the couch but I cant find a link to the interview. Sorry. Other than that I don't think we know anything.
 
Hahaha yeah, I thought like okay calm down people, isn't this supposed to be a thing that exists already. It's not that revolutionary to have a female character in fallout. Though I did feel disappointed that they chose to show the male character for the demo and only showed the female character for like a second.

I feel the reaction was mostly due to the introduction of player character voice acting. Voice acting isn't cheap, and hasn't been done in a Fallout before (for the player character), so there was worry you would be locked into a predefined protagonist.
 

Steel

Banned
I was thinking the same time, shit went to hell and everyone got down with the swirl. And you will see mixture of people and cultures. the main character's people seemed to be Native American influenced, but they showed a another faction that was a bit more industrial.

She totally looks straight Irish/Scottish.
 
I think its utterly hilarious that in response to Gamergate and Reddit MRA's horrendous actions that the Games industry had a great number of women everywhere in E3. Microsoft conference and Ubisofts specifically.
 

Neidii

Member
I feel the reaction was mostly due to the introduction of player character voice acting. Voice acting isn't cheap, and hasn't been done in a Fallout before (for the player character), so there was worry you would be locked into a predefined protagonist.
Hm, yes good point! :) I do feel hyped about the voice acting part, I hope it'll be good for the female character too.
 
Emily from Dishonored 2 is the only one I feel excited for to be honest but that's because I'm just a fan of the series. The rest just seem, I don't know, like they won't be special or anything. But hey so were the male characters shown so I guess we made it.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
I would say many, many of the NE asians (Japan, Korea, Taiwan, Northern China) are incredibly white (IE Pale skin complexion)
The hell is this? Now Asians aren't "POC enough" or something?

Which of course raises the question: can anyone argue that this is just some natural trend that picked up critical mass this year or is it explicitly a product of all of the criticism around this very thing the last few years?
Thanks, Anita!

Hate to be "that guy" but all of this progress means nothing if the characters aren't written well.

Fuck that.
I disagree. Progress is progress.
 

Kinyou

Member
Hate to be "that guy" but all of this progress means nothing if the characters aren't written well.
They'd have to do something abhorrently bad. If they're just not well written they fit to all the thousands of badly written male characters.
 

Damerman

Member
And you will see mixture of people and cultures. the main character's people seemed to be Native American influenced, but they showed a another faction that was a bit more industrial.

this is a very exciting aspect and I'm hopping they go all out with the lore and writing for this universe. I heard they hired a writer from the witcher 3 team, so the expectations are high.

EDIT: the writer is actually from New Vegas... so expectations are still high.
 
I was surprised how little buzz the female character models in Black Ops 3 is generating. Was this previously known or something? I'm pretty far out of the loop on CoD news.

In a nutshell, nobody cares about CoD anymore and more exciting and insane things happened yesterday than the yearly CoD reveal.
 

ChamplooJones

Formerly Momotaro
I disagree. Progress is progress.

We'll see. Would be a shame if this turns out to be a phase then everything reverts back to status quo.

They'd have to do something abhorrently bad. If they're just not well written they fit to all the thousands of badly written male characters.

Devs have shown more often than not that they cannot deliver. Hopefully these games prove otherwise.
 

Kinyou

Member
I was surprised how little buzz the female character models in Black Ops 3 is generating. Was this previously known or something? I'm pretty far out of the loop on CoD news.
It was known previously and Call of duty had female characters since Cod ghost. Though this time you can also play as one in the co-op campaign
 

Kinyou

Member
Never said they were, not sure where this tone is coming from.
The point is that progress means that female characters are equal to male characters. The quality of writing doesn't really factor into that because most male characters are badly written as well
 

charsace

Member
Aloy surprises me the most because she's... kinda ugly actually. Also has a stocky body type that actually fits to the physically demanding stuff she has to do.

Red hair + bow + powerful female protagonist reminds me of Brave :D


AC female character is their safe bet. Apparently you only play as her in some missions (and maybe even optionally) so she's not actually the main character and her impact on the plot remains to be seen.

You and anyone who thinks the character is ugly are nuts.
 
I definitely took notice of the amount of female characters, nice and refreshing. A lot of variety in their archetypes too which makes it even better. More diversity in general between what has been shown so far as well.

Not a lot by as a whole standards but the tide is showing its change finally.
 

Dreavus

Member
I noticed they had a female Crusader option in the For Honor gameplay trailer. Not really a notable character or anything since it's a multiplayer focused game, but it could have easily been all dudes. Ubisoft's trying to atone for their sins.
 
Hate to be "that guy" but all of this progress means nothing if the characters aren't written well.

Fuck that.

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I think my favorite part of these designs is how... normal they look. They just look like people. It's pretty great.

I think this has to do in part with the advances in mocap we've seen, as well; while Vale didn't have a prior description in terms of her appearance, Tanaka looks fairly different compard to her incarnation in the comics. She's East Asian / African, and while she looks predominantly black in Escalation she looks a lot more mixed in-game. I think this has to do in part with both Vale and Tanaka looking a lot like their mocap actors, though. Probably easier to go with designs that have features closer to those of the women that are doing the animations to avoid any potential jankiness in keyframing, etc.

I was thinking the same time, shit went to hell and everyone got down with the swirl. And you will see mixture of people and cultures. the main character's people seemed to be Native American influenced, but they showed a another faction that was a bit more industrial.

This is also part of why I think Halo's cast is interesting. You do have some characters from Earth that have pretty pedestrian nationalities (the best example is Sergeant Johnson, who's black, American and from Chicago) but there are much more ambiguously mixed characters elsewhere; the Halo Reach cast featured a mix of characters with hints of black, Slavic and Hungarian features (the aforementioned dude of color having been born on Chief's homeworld and not Earth), you can always find Hispanic and Aussie-sounding Marines in the campaign missions, etc.
 

ChamplooJones

Formerly Momotaro
The point is that progress means that female characters are equal to male characters. The quality of writing doesn't really factor into that because most male characters are badly written as well

I disagree, quality of writing absolutely plays a role into raising standards. If one area of writing improves it opens the doors for another to improve, and so on.
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
The point is that progress means that female characters are equal to male characters. The quality of writing doesn't really factor into that because most male characters are badly written as well
I guess I can see what they mean if, by "badly written" they mean those characters just end up being tired cliché sexist tropes. That would impede the progress. But, I don't think that's likely to be the case for the ladies posted in the OP.
 

Cleve

Member
I noticed that myself. Horizon girl aside, they're all white (not Faith - I missed the edit!) 20 something athletic brunettes.

Okay, outside of the white bit, which is valid, and an issue in just about all media at this point, and one which hopefully will be addressed going forward. What sort of body type and age bracket are you expecting from action heroes?
 

monlo

Member
came to the thread looking for a comparison of female characters from this year to past years

only found OP has a picture of a few characters from this year, and nothing from years past (as the title suggested). Pretty epic post
 
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