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[BigBooper]

Tons of CRPGs have done it in the past. There's also games like Deus Ex, the Half Life series, Tomb Raider, Uncharted, Monkey Island, Anachronox, Assassin Creedies, Grand Theft Auto, The Longest Journey series, Fahrenheit, Freedom Fighters, Freedom Force, Hitman, Max Payne, Prince of Persia. The list goes on.

 

[LaughingStock]

It's 2021. I'll assume any game made in the west nowadays with non-white/male/straight characters is most likely due to woke pandering. Sorry.
I don't mind diversity when it makes sense. Black Norse gods or Vikings don't make sense.

 

[Keihart]

My only problem with Forspoken is the characters voice doesn't fit the character

I like how most of the animations in that game are looking, but the lip sync (talking and emoting animations) is horrendous, everyone looks like some bad anime dub or worse.

 

[Fredrik]

What is woke? Dark skin tone? Woman? Why is it even a problem? We’re talking about a new game and new characters. Only reason I would even notice it is if they changed old iconic characters, like changing Lara Croft so she was black or made Master Chief a woman.

Making Samus Aran a man would annoy me just as much. Would that be woke?

Is Project Eve woke?

 

[BigBooper]

What is woke? Dark skin tone? Woman? Why is it even a problem? We’re talking about a new game and new characters. Only reason I would even notice it is if they changed old iconic characters, like changing Lara Croft so she was black or made Master Chief a woman. Making Samus Aran a man would annoy me just as much. Would that be woke?

I know it when I see it.

 

[reksveks]

How's that working out? Do you think that race relations in the United States has improved, stayed the same, or degraded over the last, say, 20 years?

You admit yourself that such multicultural inclusion is not natural, so placing in media in an attempt to mold people is a very large psychological\sociological experiment. Are the results positive?

It's also hard to exclude the fact that there is a 'natural' backlash to the prospect of being a minority population in the country which has stoked all kinds of fears.

 

[Onironauta]

I just wish not all games nowadays were made to appeal to american sensibilities, whether politically correct or not

 

[LMJ]

I could go on an entire rant of all the pandering, tokenism, force inclusion in videos games today.

But can there be pure, organic, natural diversity in gaming that highlights representation, wether that be race, gender or culture, without pointing those out unless the story or theme demand, it?


Are there characters and games that have / has done that?


Ill go as far and give a game like Forsaken an early benefits of the doubt and defend its tone it attempt. Hopefully game play is good.

QFT

Woke is a term that many seem to use incorrectly (putting it right up there ironically with hate speech, racism and homo/transphobia) in the cancel speech doctrine)

Take the latest Saints Row reboot CG trailer...that wasn't very woke (eh maybe that stupid haircut lol) but the dev talk after was dripping in "wokeness"

To me being "woke" is walking on eggshells to ensure you don't "offend anyone (see the Sam and Max remaster FYI) unless it a safe group (white men and women usually)

It's diversity for the sake of diversity, not due to talent or character, but simply because (you pick a minority of your choosing) _____ is a minority

It is taking existing franchises and rewriting them in a progressive manner due to "percieved" problems in attempts to create new fans at the expense of the old ones (see Star Wars, Saint Row reboot, HeMan etc)

It is the odd hatred of sex appeal and believing woman must be strong often at the cost of their femininity thus often making these characters (almost ALWAYS western studios FYI) appear uglier than they should or in comparison to their real life inspiration (Mortal Kombat, Horizon, Control etc)

Lastly it is the despicable nature of cancelation or going for peoples jobs etc at the drop of "wrong-think", it is the core belief that You the individual have the right to NOT be offended and if something does it must change to meet the sensibilities of the weak but VERY vocal few (see Twitter, Tumbler, Resetera)

I saw none of this in Forspoken, and the other thing is we can't demand the removal of "woke" things or we are just as bad as those who do fit the bill
Woke games life Life is Strange 2, Gone Home and TLOU2 all deserve to exist, they deserve to be played by those who want to, we can't try to silence those voices or thier games or we are no better than the "woke" we mock (see Goodbye Volcano High)

 

[SkylineRKR]

Its woke if it doesn't add up and if you can smell an agenda. Like WW2 setting with females and trans at the front? yeah no. Thats just an agenda. I don't buy it if an apocalyptic world with barely any population left like the one in TLOU2 seems to have a jewish, asian, lesbian, gay, white trash (the bartender) all in one tiny settlement. Then the way the characters have been uglified, while their real life models look good. Why not cast less looking good people in the first place?

This game obviously had an agenda and its also who's behind it. Druckmann is known for it. There is also too much SJW stuff going on that everyone is immediately suspect when something is shown. About 5 years ago it wouldn't cross my mind after seeing Forspoken in action.

 

[Flabagast]

Cyberpunk has one of the most diverse and inclusive cast of characters in recent memory. Basically every minority is represented, with great care.

however, go and ask resetera if they think cyberpunk is woke lol.

so I guess my answer to your question is yes

 

[cireza]

Forspoken in not woke. People need to calm down lol.

 

[supernova8]

My only problem with Forspoken is the characters voice doesn't fit the character

I think you put it more succinctly than I could. The actual character model and face etc. look good ( in a "not trying too hard to be cool, just looks normal" way ) and then the voice is so.... lame....

I'd say that Troy Baker's voice in Infamous Second Son wouldn't have matched the character but they gave the protagonist over the top facial expressions which worked fine with the over-done voice acting.

 

[Lupingosei]

You mean like this?

 

[Tschumi]

I think you've basically landed on what we would actually be thinking about these games if "woke" hadn't become a negative buzzword

 

[elbourreau]

Just write good interesting characters. Just make good appealing games...

You can put any skin colors, it will work.

 

[TonyK]

For me woke is when in Avengers Endgame all superhero girls reunite, but not the fact those superhero girls exists. So, you can put in a game any ethnic or gender and not being woke, is how you use them.

 

[TransTrender]

Yes, absolutely.

This is very much a recent problem because woke and industry pervasive cynicism.

 

[Mike Zhang]

That's one reason I stopped supporting playstation. California leftists ruined the brand.
I'm yellow, call me racist if you like

 

[Soosa]

And if a God of War was made with a a group of African gods, and any of them were shown as white, people would lose their minds. I think this hypocrisy, more than anything, is the reason for some much of the reactionary sentiment that is now brewing.

Game created by Eastern Europeans and based on their mythology - people complain about the lack of characters with darker skin.

Movie casts almost exclusively people of African descent - gets praised for 'diversity' of all things.

The hypocrisy is obvious, and people are going to notice.

Yeah that black girl is obviously black because of "woke", because black people (or any other race/nationality) + nordics wont mix naturally, at least in sense of history.

20 years ago I saw maybe 1 non-white person in a year in my country, and still on most smaller towns 99.99% of population is white.

Forced diversity is shit. And then people whom lack education / intelligence rage when some historical european game have pure white characters, when it's just historically accurate on most parts of the europe. Like some people cried about Kingdom come: deliverance.

How many games have had Swedish, Finnish, Estonian, Bulgarian etc characters? There are real minorities on earth, like Finns with one of the rarest genetic cocktail, which makes us real minority, yet only Finnish devs have Finnish characters.

Add native europeans from 10 different country and there is more diversity than you can even guess, only racists think that colour of the skin makes things diverse. And to them only black people are diverse, while there are so many smaller nations that are almost never seen on games.

 

[Crocwrangler]

Just tried Hades and was surprised by the diversity of the cast (Athena and Ares being black, Orpheus and Chaos looking "non binary" to me, Eurydice looking somehow asian....). Not that it matters even though we're talking about Greek mythology because characters are well written and nothing seems too forced. The game is fun and even though i'm tired by the woke vision of things sometimes, i think that the cast of the game is fitting really well.

 

[sol_bad]

I could go on an entire rant of all the pandering, tokenism, force inclusion in videos games today.

But can there be pure, organic, natural diversity in gaming that highlights representation, wether that be race, gender or culture, without pointing those out unless the story or theme demand, it?


Are there characters and games that have / has done that?


Ill go as far and give a game like Forsaken an early benefits of the doubt and defend its tone it attempt. Hopefully game play is good.

What makes something pandering and what makes something organic?

 

[Bernd Lauert]

I have a good bullshit detector. Forspoken doesn't seem woke. It's a bit cringe, but not woke.

 

[MilkyJoe]

State of that trailer. If that's how it is in game...

 

[mansoor1980]

nope

 

[old-parts]

Bethesdas (Arkane) Prey was a good example of of how to do it (or even Dishonoured) with subtlety and nuance, you don't even notice it.

What really annoys people is the now militant posturing and shoehorning in of this stuff into games were its so crudely obvious.

 

[Hoppa]

I find both sides equally stupid but I've developed a sense that goes off whenever I see things I know will set people off. Like the PS event today when I saw the black girl in GoW I expected to see posts in Gaf and when I saw the camera pan around the characters bulbous cloaca in Eve I knew there would be posts on ResetEra

 

[Black_Stride]

My only problem with Forspoken is the characters voice doesn't fit the character

I think you put it more succinctly than I could. The actual character model and face etc. look good ( in a "not trying too hard to be cool, just looks normal" way ) and then the voice is so.... lame....

I'd say that Troy Baker's voice in Infamous Second Son wouldn't have matched the character but they gave the protagonist over the top facial expressions which worked fine with the over-done voice acting.

So what you are saying is they should have hired the actress to do the model then hired another actress to do the voice?

 

[kyussman]

Of course they can....but if the game is coming form a US dev at this current moment in time.....then wokery will probably be the driving force behind it all.

 

[Bernd Lauert]

So what you are saying is they should have hired the actress to do the model then hired another actress to do the voice?

Damn she hot. Why not hot in game?

 

[Fredrik]

I find both sides equally stupid but I've developed a sense that goes off whenever I see things I know will set people off. Like the PS event today when I saw the black girl in GoW I expected to see posts in Gaf and when I saw the camera pan around the characters bulbous cloaca in Eve I knew there would be posts on ResetEra

The solution is right there, make all characters have tons of sex appeal!

Would anyone scream ”Woke!!!1!!” if Project Eve’s curvy strong asian female lead was a lesbian?
Nope.
Or if Forspoken had a black curvy mega hottie female lead?
Not likely.
Or if Ellie and Dina were two total bootyliscious feminine gym babes in yoga pants?
Nah

Diversity with sex appeal - That’s how you bring peace to the galaxy

 

[Ulysses 31]

Damn she hot. Why not hot in game?

That evil male gaze.

 

[UnNamed]

GAF sees wokes everywhere lately.

This is the problem when you have highly polarized opinions. Trying so hard to stay away from shitty and extreme positions, like those on Resetera, Kotaku, Vice, etc, leads some people here to stay at the very opposite side seeing conspiracy and agendas everywhere.

It's not different, it's the same shit, it's the same "but you don't UNDERSTAND!".

 

[Fredrik]

That evil male gaze.

That girl has the female gaze cranked up to 11, she’s very clearly on the hunt for meat, apex predator

 

[FunkMiller]

The amount of whining on this site about wokeness has reached ridiculous proportions. A lot around here sound as idiotic as their opposites on ResetEra.

It‘s wrong to force something into a game purely to fulfil a political or social agenda. It’s wrong to change existing characters or stories just to force inclusion or diversity.

It’s perfectly fine to include characters in games that aren’t white straight dudes, and explore themes around those characters.

Don‘t like those games? Don’t buy them.

And stop whining so much.

 

[Kokoloko85]

Forspoken isnt woke. It just had cringe dialogue.

I see people claiming its woke are just too far on the other side of the SJW, woke side. They need to take a chill pill

 

[Infested Goblin]

Aren't whites like minority in global population scale? Funny how diversity works nowadays. People of colour are like 15% of usa population yet from todays media you could think they are majority. I love to see good written diverse characters but it's hard not think that 90% of such characters in gaming and especially movies are written as a token diversity bonus points

 

[FunkMiller]

Hiring someone who clearly hates original Star Wars and its fans to rewrite a classic Star Wars game?

Now, that’s woke.




This person hasn’t been hired to create an exciting narrative.

 

[ghairat]

As being someone from Central Asia. I require Santa Monica to include a bearded Afghan person in God of War Ragnarok. Else there is no diversity

 

[Ceadeus]

It's funny but kind of crosses the line , I'm not sure you can post this kind of stuff

 

[MilkyJoe]

GAF sees wokes everywhere lately.

This is the problem when you have highly polarized opinions. Trying so hard to stay away from shitty and extreme positions, like those on Resetera, Kotaku, Vice, etc, leads some people here to stay at the very opposite side seeing conspiracy and agendas everywhere.

It's not different, it's the same shit, it's the same "but you don't UNDERSTAND!".

Are you lost, here let me help ...clicky

 

[NikuNashi]

We need more diverse people in the development workforce

What do you mean when you say this?. My company in Tokyo is 80% Japanese and 20% foreign (numerous countries in Europe, Asia and south America). What is it that you are looking for with this statement?

 

[ParaSeoul]

State of that trailer. If that's how it is in game...

Hoping its not gonna be a Sunset Overdrive/Ratchet and Clank 2016 situation........

 

[Boss Mog]

Being woke isn't about having a diverse cast. Movies like the Fast and the Furious franchise have extremely diverse casts yet they never felt woke. Basically they don't talk about race or try to push some political agenda down my throat, they're just entertaining and fun. To me entertainment is an escape and I don't need it to always talk about race, gender or politics. We get enough of that in our daily lives. Plus it's usually cringe as fuck. I've had friends, classmates, coworkers from all races in my life and when we exchanged or hung out we never talked about our races. I guess things are different now but when i was growing up we were taught to not look at race and judge people based on their character.

When they race swap or gender swap existing established characters that's also a sign of wokeness in my eyes. They do it solely to virtue signal and to send a message that their political agenda is the law now. It's just as easy to create new characters that they can make however they want but they'd rather pervert existing ones.

So yeah as long as they're not doing the things I mentioned above then they can have as "diverse" a cast as they want and I won't consider them woke. Deathloop has two black leads but none of the videos I saw mentioned race or "social justice" so it looks good to me.

 

[Cutty Flam]

They can, but people can tell when a game's developers made it an objective; that it should be woven into the game's makeup to appease a certain crowd...

Nobody respects pussies who pander to specific minorities in their work, it's just a fact. Make the best game you possibly can and everything else takes a backseat

 

[supernova8]

So what you are saying is they should have hired the actress to do the model then hired another actress to do the voice?

OK let me rephrase it, what I meant to say was that the very relaxing/muted facial expressions don't match the over the top-ish voice.

For me there are three options:
(1) Re-work the facial animations to make them more over-the-top to match the over-the-top voice acting.
(2) Re-do the voice work (with the same voice) to make it more subdued so that it matches the subdued/muted expressions.
(3; nuclear option) just change the voice actor completely.

 

[DenchDeckard]

We need more games like Forspoken. I'm sure there will be some stumbles but the more that inclusion is explored the quicker we will get to where we need to be. IMO

 

[sircaw]

Damn she hot. Why not hot in game?

Fs, I hate having to agree with you on ANYTHING , but yer she is hot.

Her Game version looks crap.

 

[TGO]

So what you are saying is they should have hired the actress to do the model then hired another actress to do the voice?

No, I've obviously worded it wrong.
The voice is okay, when she's talking in gameplay that's fine.
It when see the character talk, there's a disconnect.
Something seems off if you know what I mean.

 

[sircaw]

No, I've obviously worded it wrong.
The voice is okay, when she's talking in gameplay that's fine.
It when see the character talk, there's a disconnect.
Something seems off if you know what I mean.

when i heard her speak i thought the video and the lipsync were not matched up, it really stood out to me, in a very bad way.

 

[pratyush]

It's funny how some here laugh at ERA for being woke but then follow it with misogyny and homophobia.