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[SonicVolcano]

Return to Castle Wolfenstein had them, too.

 

[ActWan]

God of War had alot of female enemies and bosses

 

[Enco]

No. Violence against women in any form is evil.

lmao

you're right m'sir.

edit: that being said, no need to add them just for the sake of balance. If it makes sense, sure.

 

[kinggroin]

I find your unease concerning considering you are A-OK with doing it to a man.

Concerning? Really? Oh ffs, his mentality is simply a good intentioned (if old fashioned) chivalrous hold over.

It doesn't mean he's a male targeting sociopath or any kind of "path" that's cause for "concern".

And yes OP, we need equal representation ACROSS the board. There were female bad guys in my games in the 90s, they sure as hell better be there today. Equal is only equal until it's not.

 

[Ratrat]

I'm pretty certain that a couple of the Batman games do have you fighting women.

Those appear for like 5 seconds in one side mission right? They aren't really counterparts to the regular grunts.

 

[Pau]

Yeah I'd be down.

 

[RoadHazard]

I wouldn't feel comfortable with that.

Why? It's a game. Do you have trouble separating fiction from reality? Actually being uncomfortable with what happens to a bunch of polygons on your TV is foreign to me.

I'd as gladly mow down women as men in any game.

 

[UrbanRats]

I was going to call out Last of Us as well, but I forgot if some of the Clickers had female models? Even still, all of the human gunmen I recall as male.

It's particularly weird in Last of Us, because the game is supposed to be so realistic (even though most of the baddies are essentially caricatures) but even in Uncharted 4 it was weird, how Nadine essentially hires only men as mercenaries.
However in Last of Us you can't even use some "most mercenaries are men" logic (whether that's true or not, i don't know) because the scavengers are supposed to be just regular survivors, so they'd have a more equal split.

Of course, the reason is that they didn't want Joel bashing some woman's head in, which i find very questionable in many ways.
Even beyond the obvious sexism argument (of having to "protect" women) the idea that comes across is that, then, their extreme violence in the game isn't all that justified, and more because it looks cool, as long as you're not inflicting it on subjects that'd make you uncomfortable.
But Last of Us isn't supposed to be God of War or GTA, it's held to a higher artistic standard, usually.

 

[Mivey]

Those appear for like 5 seconds in one side mission right? They aren't really counterparts to the regular grunts.

They are like the only female characters that actually appear in the game world outside of cutscenes, so I think it counts. That's just the world Rocksteady created: If you are male you become a goon, if you are a woman you are a ninja.

 

[Budi]

There are harpies in witcher 3, and I think the wraiths can be considered females too.

Going through new game + at the moment and arrived to Skellige. There are Shieldmaidens as guards, while they are not counted as Geralt's enemies they will attack you if you cause disturbance or steal while they are looking.

 

[R00bot]

All for equality. Honestly kinda surprised how little games have women as enemies.

 

[Fess]

Why? It's a game. Do you have trouble separating fiction from reality? Actually being uncomfortable with what happens to a bunch of polygons on your TV is foreign to me.

I'd as gladly mow down women as men in any game.

Okay so you feel nothing at all when stuff happens to the side characters in story heavy games like The Last of Us, Uncharted 4, Heavenly Sword etc? It's just a bunch of polygons, right? Same thing in modern movies with lots of special effects, like Avatar, just a bunch of polygons?
I don't buy it.

 

[Galactic Fork]

While lots of attention is put towards having women as protagonists and other playable characters, I feel like it is also time to put a spotlight on the other problem: women as random enemies that you gun down while going through a violent video game. Even today, you are still gunning down far more men than women and most games do not feature women as part of the enemy forces at all, even when the protagonist is female (Tomb Raider has very gendered violence) or when some friendly characters are women.

There seem to be two reasons why this happens. One is that male is seen as a "default", so if you have a task of designing a random soldier for the player to gun down, you instinctively make a man. The other reason is that men's lives do not matter as much, men are more expendable. You know, the whole conservative thought of "women and children first". There is also a third reason, which is that the game is set in a period where fighting women don't make sense (Battlefield 1) but games set in modern time periods or sci-fi do not have that excuse.

Whichever the reason was for Naughty Dog to not include women as part of the enemy forces in Uncharted 4, it is very disappointing. They were already called out on the lack of women enemies in The Last of Us, where they gave the excuse that PS3 did not have enough memory. Uncharted 4 is not on PS3, so what is their excuse this time? I'm specifically calling out Naughty Dog because they have somehow gained a reputation as feminist friendly even though they really shouldn't have, and that PS3 memory excuse seems more and more like bullshit.

I've listed some upcoming games that may or may not have women as enemies, just to shine a little spotlight on them. 2016 games only for now.


Confirmed female enemies
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - Women were seen among enemy goons in the latest gameplay videos. That's an improvement over the sausage fest of Human Revolution.
- Watch Dogs 2 - Female guards seen on the E3 demo. Seems like Ubisoft has been putting female enemies in all of their recent open worlds - the whole AC Unity controversy has made a difference! Sadly this doesn't seem to extend to games with "Tom Clancy" in the title.


Female enemy status unknown, but they may be included
- Dishonored 2 - The developers of this game have expressed heavy interest over making an inclusive world, even mentioning NPC diversity. However, the E3 demo featured no women enemies, only men were killed.
- Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - This one should include them because Black Ops 3 did, but it's a different developer. Maybe IW is more sexist than Treyarch? I couldn't tell if the enemy soldiers had women among them in the Black Sky video, because everyone had a helmet and it was hard to tell if a death scream came from an enemy or friendly, too much chaos.
- Titanfall 2 - For some reason the first Titanfall had female pilots, but no female NPC grunts. This created a small disadvantage for players playing a female pilot as they stand out from the random grunts more. They need to fix this, but no confirmation has been made.


Very unlikely to have female enemies
- Battlefield 1 - It's World War 1, like 99.9% of the soldiers were men. A female protagonist was confirmed for the campaign, but she'll be part of the 0.1%. I'm not really complaining about this one.
- Mafia III - This one is about the Mafia in 1968. No women were shot in any demos for this game, but they would probably feel out of place for this setting.


How likely is it that we will see an improvement on this side of equality any time soon? If you're really committed on making gender not matter, you will also need to have that NPC diversity.

The "women and children first" bit is a myth... It's been done twice in the recorded history of shipwrecks. So that needs to die.

You had it right the first option. This is obvious because historically when women were made enemies their enemyness had to do with their gender and made as eyecandy. Generic women enemies weren't made because typically in order for a woman to be made a character at all, there has to be a reason to make the character female, or else they'd just be a guy.

And your last part suggests that people calling for gender equality hadn't been calling for more non-sexualized female enemies. The fact you put that last paragraph there shows you haven't been paying attention.

Edit: Oh and keep in mind that in Tomb Raider, the in story reason for there being no women was that all the women were held prisoner and sacrificed.

 

[oSoLucky]

It's always weird when I see this topic pop up. Pretty much every female that I am close to IRL like being "girly" and see no reason to be equal to men on issues like violence. My wife and 2 female friends that I have been very close with since middle school(20+ years) voice their displeasure at seeing women being hit by men and depicted in masculine ways in movies and such all the time. Same with my mother and most of my other friends and family that I can think of. I think there is a social issue where people who think women should be treated like men in ALL respects don't take into account the large number(by my personal observations and relationships) of women that want equality in issues such as pay and being elected officials, while not caring to be the same in traditionally masculine ways(violence, etc.). Exclusion happens from both sides, but there seems to be a progressive agenda where that never gets brought up a lot.

Also, for that 1 in 2000 number on the first page. I've been in the military for 11 1/2 years in the US. There are quite a few women serving today, but they're normally not in strenuous or combat jobs, and the vast majority don't want them. They have recently allowed them in the infantry, but they're still not allowed in Special Forces for various reasons, but there are advocates for change there too. Just wanted to give insight that across all branches combined, 1 in 2000 in combat scenarios may not be that far fetched, or much higher than most seem to think it is.

 

[purdobol]

Return to Castle Wolfenstein had them, too.

It's Helga! Damn need to play this game.

On topic though. Lots of games have women as enemies to be honest. Maybe not the main villains but still. One that stuck in my head is that chick with machine gun bra in Redneck Rampage. What a bad game this was hehe...

 

[Galactic Fork]

It's always weird when I see this topic pop up. Pretty much every female that I am close to IRL like being "girly" and see no reason to be equal to men on issues like violence. My wife and 2 female friends that I have been very close with since middle school(20+ years) voice their displeasure at seeing women being hit by men and depicted in masculine ways in movies and such all the time. Same with my mother and most of my other friends and family that I can think of. I think there is a social issue where people who think women should be treated like men in ALL respects don't take into account the large number(by my personal observations and relationships) of women that want equality in issues such as pay and being elected officials, while not caring to be the same in traditionally masculine ways(violence, etc.). Exclusion happens from both sides, but there seems to be a progressive agenda where that never gets brought up a lot.

Also, for that 1 in 2000 number on the first page. I've been in the military for 11 1/2 years in the US. There are quite a few women serving today, but they're normally not in strenuous or combat jobs, and the vast majority don't want them. They have recently allowed them in the infantry, but they're still not allowed in Special Forces for various reasons, but there are advocates for change there too. Just wanted to give insight that across all branches combined, 1 in 2000 in combat scenarios may not be that far fetched, or much higher than most seem to think it is.

The issue is social pressures and policing. Just allowing it isn't enough because people are still being told it's wrong to do it. Your whole tone says this as well, you've defined these things as for men. So for the women, that if in a vacuum, might chose "more masculine" ways, have to work around a minefield of gender roles that will end up discouraging a lot from continuing. Making the numbers much smaller than they would naturally be. So it's all artificial and forced upon us. When women in combat roles is more normalized and less stigmatized, the women who want to do it will do it and not be seen as invading men's space. Or being "treated like men." It's all about choice without social stigma and pressure. It's not going to change immediately.

 

[Murkas]

Sure would like more of them. Even as average or incompetent ones, they don't all necessarily have to be "badass".

Kinda like how in MGS guards can fall asleep, get distracted by porno mags, be so into their music that they don't notice you running. Shit like that.

The shitty violence argument needs to die, Sub Zero ripped of Sonya's head 24 years ago and if I remember right, it was only the violence aspect of it that kicked up a fuss, not violence again women.

Spoiler

One of my favourite things to do in shooters is shoot men in the balls, give me the chance to shoot women in the tit!

 

[Spiritwalker]

WoW is very good with this, I think. Lots of enemies are female.

And yes, it's definitely a sexism issue. Why is it okay to constantly butcher men in video games, but not women?

 

[Ultimadrago]

Bethesda is actually pretty good about this stuff in general. I also know that as a female I appreciated in Skyrim I could find armor that looked like it actually was designed to protect (ok, apparently if you know how to make armor real life it's not realistic but it wasn't so obvious as the little bikini that gives you uber protection some how. you could find full plate armor for your female character and if you wanted more protection you had to use full plate armor). I have issues with Bethesda on some stuff but I also think they are pretty cool on some stuff too. And this kind of stuff I tend to give them kudos for.

Yeah, you're right. I didn't even think about past games from Bethesda and their approach to it. I appreciate that factor of inclusiveness and they deserve a notice from me for it.

It's particularly weird in Last of Us, because the game is supposed to be so realistic (even though most of the baddies are essentially caricatures) but even in Uncharted 4 it was weird, how Nadine essentially hires only men as mercenaries.
However in Last of Us you can't even use some "most mercenaries are men" logic (whether that's true or not, i don't know) because the scavengers are supposed to be just regular survivors, so they'd have a more equal split.

Of course, the reason is that they didn't want Joel bashing some woman's head in, which i find very questionable in many ways.
Even beyond the obvious sexism argument (of having to "protect" women) the idea that comes across is that, then, their extreme violence in the game isn't all that justified, and more because it looks cool, as long as you're not inflicting it on subjects that'd make you uncomfortable.
But Last of Us isn't supposed to be God of War or GTA, it's held to a higher artistic standard, usually.

Absolutely agreed. A woman could be just as capable of defending herself in that hostile environment. Hell, there are examples proving such within the story and a couple of the side characters. It makes for an unfortunate break with the environment.

 

[TheJollyCorner]

I started playing Mad Max recently & found it odd that there were no female baddies in the wastes. In fact, all the females in the game seem to be on your side- or at least non-hostile.
Max is pretty brutal in his hand-to-hand, so it seems to be in line with the criticisms of the OP.

 

[Easton Dark]

Concerning? Really? Oh ffs, his mentality is simply a good intentioned (if old fashioned) chivalrous hold over.

It doesn't mean he's a male targeting sociopath or any kind of "path" that's cause for "concern".

It's just someone not wanting to see women hurt or in danger because they are women. The type of sexism that kept qualified and motivated women from "dangerous" positions in society, against their will.

That's what's concerning.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

The "women and children first" bit is a myth... It's been done twice in the recorded history of shipwrecks. So that needs to die.

I wasn't referring to shipwrecks there. Read news about accidents or terrorist attacks and you may just see "X dead, Y of them women and children". The alt-right crazies also keep complaining "why don't you bring in women and children" as an excuse to be against refugees. Like you can just leave men there to die. It's a conservative thing.

You had it right the first option. This is obvious because historically when women were made enemies their enemyness had to do with their gender and made as eyecandy. Generic women enemies weren't made because typically in order for a woman to be made a character at all, there has to be a reason to make the character female, or else they'd just be a guy.

Yes, that is definitely the case. But there's plenty of games where friendly characters come in both sexes but enemies are exclusively male. Far Cry 4 and Battlefield Hardline come to mind first. Even Homefront The Revolution did it and it makes no sense (much like its NK invasion plot lol), because real life North Korea conscripts both sexes.

And your last part suggests that people calling for gender equality hadn't been calling for more non-sexualized female enemies. The fact you put that last paragraph there shows you haven't been paying attention.

Naughty Dog gets a lot of praise from people for being "cool with gender" even though they consistently fail at this.

Edit: Oh and keep in mind that in Tomb Raider, the in story reason for there being no women was that all the women were held prisoner and sacrificed.

That's only true for TR 2013. There doesn't seem to be anything in Rise of the TR to suggest this.

 

[purdobol]

It's just someone not wanting to see women hurt or in danger because they are women.

It's one of the most basic instinct though. It can be suppressed in today's day and age but I doubt it could be ridden off completely.

 

[Emperor_Uriel]

I understand why some people are uncomfortable with this, but that's all the more reason to do it.

The more it happens, the less of a big deal it'll be.

 

[Mr Git]

This is something I've been critical of for a while - in 2013 I played 3 games in a row with this problem: Tomb Raider 9, Bioshock Infinite and TLOU. All three had either a female lead or female support character/s but female goons for shooting were nonexistent - the exception being infected females in TLOU, but zero female hunters. It felt even more strange in TR 9, as it was an island populated entirely by men. Better representation and normalisation of female NPC grunts will be extremely beneficial in the long run. I'd imagine the idea makes some people feel odd because female NPCs are absent in many games.

edit:

Edit: Oh and keep in mind that in Tomb Raider, the in story reason for there being no women was that all the women were held prisoner and sacrificed.

Ah didn't know that.

 

[MasterOfPastures]

This is something I've been critical of for a while - in 2013 I played 3 games in a row with this problem: Tomb Raider 9, Bioshock Infinite and TLOU. All three had either a female lead or female support character/s but female goons for shooting were nonexistent - the exception being infected females in TLOU, but zero female hunters. It felt even more strange in TR 9, as it was an island populated entirely by men. Better representation and normalisation of female NPC grunts will be extremely beneficial in the long run. I'd imagine the idea makes some people feel odd because female NPCs are absent in many games

IIRC Infinite did have female goons, on both sides. There even was a recording of a female columbian soldier defecting.

 

[Spman2099]

It's always weird when I see this topic pop up. Pretty much every female that I am close to IRL like being "girly" and see no reason to be equal to men on issues like violence. My wife and 2 female friends that I have been very close with since middle school(20+ years) voice their displeasure at seeing women being hit by men and depicted in masculine ways in movies and such all the time. Same with my mother and most of my other friends and family that I can think of. I think there is a social issue where people who think women should be treated like men in ALL respects don't take into account the large number(by my personal observations and relationships) of women that want equality in issues such as pay and being elected officials, while not caring to be the same in traditionally masculine ways(violence, etc.). Exclusion happens from both sides, but there seems to be a progressive agenda where that never gets brought up a lot.

Also, for that 1 in 2000 number on the first page. I've been in the military for 11 1/2 years in the US. There are quite a few women serving today, but they're normally not in strenuous or combat jobs, and the vast majority don't want them. They have recently allowed them in the infantry, but they're still not allowed in Special Forces for various reasons, but there are advocates for change there too. Just wanted to give insight that across all branches combined, 1 in 2000 in combat scenarios may not be that far fetched, or much higher than most seem to think it is.

Not every female has to be super feminine, not every male has to be super masculine. We can just start representing people as people. Gender norms effect us, for sure, but people are diverse enough that these barriers have always been defied. The less we focus on implementing arbitrary divisions, the more diversity we see among people of both genders. It's time to stop thinking simplistically. We should be past that garbage by now.

 

[fabricated backlash]

Perfect Dark had women enemies as well.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

I understand why some people are uncomfortable with this, but that's all the more reason to do it.

The more it happens, the less of a big deal it'll be.

It's why I'm hoping for it to be the new normal. Things are getting better in inclusivity, but we still get stuff like Uncharted that also sell very well.

 

[SlickVic]

I wanna preface this by saying I understand these are not your personal views and this is not on attack on you or anyone else, just my retort to the ideas herein presented.

This seems odd to me, as neither men nor women can make babies without one another. Yes, women carry the baby and give birth, but without men the baby cannot be made. So giving one gender more worth over the other seems misguided, and in fact, counter to the fight for gender equality.

I suppose an argument can be made that if you're harming a woman (especially one of child bearing age), you are not only harming her but also potentially a fetus she may be carrying as well. So I guess there can always be some question that you may be harming more than one life in that case (or at least a fetus that has the potential to develop life). I don't know if that's something many people are thinking about subconsciously when these issues come up, but I suppose I can see why that would make some uncomfortable.

Just throwing some thoughts out there and I don't mean to support any notion that 'women's lives are more valuable'. Personally I like diversity in enemy appearance and really appreciate when games create enemies of different shapes and sizes that includes characters of both genders.

 

[SarusGray]

While lots of attention is put towards having women as protagonists and other playable characters, I feel like it is also time to put a spotlight on the other problem: women as random enemies that you gun down while going through a violent video game. Even today, you are still gunning down far more men than women and most games do not feature women as part of the enemy forces at all, even when the protagonist is female (Tomb Raider has very gendered violence) or when some friendly characters are women.

There seem to be two reasons why this happens. One is that male is seen as a "default", so if you have a task of designing a random soldier for the player to gun down, you instinctively make a man. The other reason is that men's lives do not matter as much, men are more expendable. You know, the whole conservative thought of "women and children first". There is also a third reason, which is that the game is set in a period where fighting women don't make sense (Battlefield 1) but games set in modern time periods or sci-fi do not have that excuse.

Whichever the reason was for Naughty Dog to not include women as part of the enemy forces in Uncharted 4, it is very disappointing. They were already called out on the lack of women enemies in The Last of Us, where they gave the excuse that PS3 did not have enough memory. Uncharted 4 is not on PS3, so what is their excuse this time? I'm specifically calling out Naughty Dog because they have somehow gained a reputation as feminist friendly even though they really shouldn't have, and that PS3 memory excuse seems more and more like bullshit.

I've listed some upcoming games that may or may not have women as enemies, just to shine a little spotlight on them. 2016 games only for now.


Confirmed female enemies
- Deus Ex: Mankind Divided - Women were seen among enemy goons in the latest gameplay videos. That's an improvement over the sausage fest of Human Revolution.
- Watch Dogs 2 - Female guards seen on the E3 demo. Seems like Ubisoft has been putting female enemies in all of their recent open worlds - the whole AC Unity controversy has made a difference! Sadly this doesn't seem to extend to games with "Tom Clancy" in the title.


Female enemy status unknown, but they may be included
- Dishonored 2 - The developers of this game have expressed heavy interest over making an inclusive world, even mentioning NPC diversity. However, the E3 demo featured no women enemies, only men were killed.
- Call of Duty: Infinite Warfare - This one should include them because Black Ops 3 did, but it's a different developer. Maybe IW is more sexist than Treyarch? I couldn't tell if the enemy soldiers had women among them in the Black Sky video, because everyone had a helmet and it was hard to tell if a death scream came from an enemy or friendly, too much chaos.
- Titanfall 2 - For some reason the first Titanfall had female pilots, but no female NPC grunts. This created a small disadvantage for players playing a female pilot as they stand out from the random grunts more. They need to fix this, but no confirmation has been made.


Very unlikely to have female enemies
- Battlefield 1 - It's World War 1, like 99.9% of the soldiers were men. A female protagonist was confirmed for the campaign, but she'll be part of the 0.1%. I'm not really complaining about this one.
- Mafia III - This one is about the Mafia in 1968. No women were shot in any demos for this game, but they would probably feel out of place for this setting.


How likely is it that we will see an improvement on this side of equality any time soon? If you're really committed on making gender not matter, you will also need to have that NPC diversity.

I don't think that's quite fair to say naughty dog is bad. They have great amazing female protagonist as well as antagonists in a lot of their games. Sure, maybe not all of the enemies in their games regarding random NPC's are female, but it would be controversial for Nathaniel Drake to go on a killing spree on women. He's already been called out for being a mass murderer, labels like rapist or woman beater wouldn't be far off. The media from every angle would attack it.

I was surprised when Nadine is basically....

Spoiler

impossible to even lay a hand on during the QTE.

There's a double standard in this society. You can't lay a hand on a woman otherwise you're not a man, (even if you're trying to defend yourself). In video games we even see it. I don't personally care, I use female fighters to wale on females and males a like but Naughty Dog is far from the sexist company you're trying to make them out. They're progressive in my book compared to many other developers.

 

[PSqueak]

Fallout has a lot of female enemies.

Yup, was playing FO3 and a lot of the raiders were female.

In context you don't even notice, cause you just think "holy shit, raiders!"

 

[SkeptiMism]

At least this should be a gender issue that even gamergaters can (mostly) agree on.

Seriously though, yes I agree with OP. Honestly, I think most gamers (probably even those who say here that they wouldn't feel comfortable with it) have already played games in which they beat down females pretty hard but haven't even thought of it much. Like playing Dragon's Dogma (just as an example), you don't even think about that a lot of the enemy goons are women. There really isn't much to it when the violence towards them is just the same as it is towards men.

Concerning? Really? Oh ffs, his mentality is simply a good intentioned (if old fashioned) chivalrous hold over.

It doesn't mean he's a male targeting sociopath or any kind of "path" that's cause for "concern".

Something being well intentioned doesn't always mean it's actually good.

I'll give another example. I've seen a man denying a woman from helping him with something (might've been holding a door, can't remember). The logic being that in his opinion it's not chivalrous to be helped by a woman as a man and that he should've been the one to help her. It was well intentioned, but it's still obviously pretty fucked up and I'd certainly call it concerning.

The same thing here. Nobody's claiming he's a sociopath or anything, but his mentality is one that derives from a belief that women are weak and need to be put on a pedestal.

 

[Easton Dark]

in 2013 I played 3 games in a row with this problem: Bioshock Infinite

Infinite has many female grunt enemies on both the Columbian and Vox Populi sides, the Vox especially has a high percentage. As well, the DLCs in Rapture have equal representation in splicers just like the first two Bioshocks. And Infinite arguably has a setting where women not being allowed to fight is more justified than even Battlefield 1's.

Also, the two most important characters to Infinite's story are women. All the bioshocks do a great job of being inclusive even with settings where exclusion could be justified.

 

[Haunted]

Does anyone else remember when that one Hitman Absolution trailer with the nuns?

This caused a big kerfuffle. People accused it of being sexist because he was killing women. People even went as far as to say that it had rapey undertones.

Yup, that was definitely why people said that was sexist.

Just a bunch of respectably depicted women inconspicuously disguising themselves as regular nuns. Must've been the violence people objected to.


C'mon Kevin, you're not this clueless.

 

[Maximo]

Looking back didn't Uncharted 4 feature no female enemies, despite their mercenary leader being female herself?

 

[The Nexus of G]

The elders scrolls and fallout games have had female NPC enemies since forever lol. I think dragon age and mass effect too.

 

[SolidSnakex]

God of War had alot of female enemies and bosses

A number of reviews criticized Ascension for the level of violence shown against the female enemies, particularly The Furies. Which as I said at the time, was very odd because Ascension is by far the least violent entry in the series. It's very tame compared to what goes in the rest of the series and especially GoW3.

 

[Hamster Plugin]

A number of reviews criticized Ascension for the level of violence shown against the female enemies, particularly The Furies. Which as I said at the time, was very odd because Ascension is by far the least violent entry in the series. It's very tame compared to what goes in the rest of the series and especially GoW3.

I don't remember anyone else but Adam Sessler complaining about it, which is why I hate that guy these days.

 

[texhnolyze]

I enjoy killing female raiders (as I do with the male ones) in Fallout. I even strip them naked teh lootz. More loot, more caps, no discrimination.

I hope more devs do this.

 

[AJ_Wings]

This is something I've been critical of for a while - in 2013 I played 3 games in a row with this problem: Tomb Raider 9, Bioshock Infinite and TLOU. All three had either a female lead or female support character/s but female goons for shooting were nonexistent - the exception being infected females in TLOU, but zero female hunters. It felt even more strange in TR 9, as it was an island populated entirely by men. Better representation and normalisation of female NPC grunts will be extremely beneficial in the long run. I'd imagine the idea makes some people feel odd because female NPCs are absent in many games.

edit:

Ah didn't know that.

Ummm, actually Infinite had a lot of female enemies in both the Columbian forces and the Vox.

 

[Basketball]

One of your primary enemies in Uncharted 4 is a woman, Nadine, which you get to fight.

Press Square to choose how to be kicked/punched by untouchable goddess

 

[texhnolyze]

Press Square to choose how to be kicked/punched by untouchable goddess

Lol yeah, Nadine is like the worst example of female 'enemy'.

 

[GhostTrick]

Basically. I mean, it's not even something you really see in movies, like The Raid or Dredd or John Wick or whatnot. You almost never see woman as enemies unless as the main antagonist

When you have a female ennemy, she's often just knocked down or put out of the way in movies. Or she's the old and cruel style, so she dies.
But yeah, I'm all for equality and such, but I just can't. It's not an ideology or something. You have a lot od video game scenes where for exemple your protagonist has to punch a guy repeatedly in the face. I can stand that, especially if the antagonist is an asshole. But if it was a woman ? Certainly not. Unless the protagonist is a woman herself. I know some people might call me sexist or stupid, but sorry, it's not ill intentioned, I just cant do it.

 

[MegamanPoweredUP]

Do you want to hit women in videogames? Fox news would be thrilled.

Nobody wants this kind of press.

 

[Easton Dark]

Do you want to hit women in videogames? Fox news would be thrilled.

Nobody wants this kind of press.

Lots of games have women enemies, there have been for decades, and there has been 0 press. Literally no one cares.

News cares about sex, not violence.

 

[Inspector Q]

When you have a female ennemy, she's often just knocked down or put out of the way in movies. Or she's the old and cruel style, so she dies.
But yeah, I'm all for equality and such, but I just can't. It's not an ideology or something. You have a lot od video game scenes where for exemple your protagonist has to punch a guy repeatedly in the face. I can stand that, especially if the antagonist is an asshole. But if it was a woman ? Certainly not. Unless the protagonist is a woman herself. I know some people might call me sexist or stupid, but sorry, it's not ill intentioned, I just cant do it.

Just remember that these aren't innocent women that you would be fighting. These are women that won't hesitate to kill you or your allies. Taking TLoU as an example, would you really have a problem killing a female Hunter who was in the process of killing Ellie? I think the answer would be no...you would do what needs to be done to survive.

Either way, there have been many games featuring female enemies or combatants. Take Skyrim and Mortal Kombat X which both feature elaborate fatality animations, especially MKX. Neither game seems to care what gender the victim is and I don't hear anyone causing a ruckus about either game. If either game did show up on Fox News, it definitely didn't impact sales negatively, as both games sold in droves.

I just think people are being slightly dramatic in the type of fallout that would occur if we got more female baddies in games. As long as you treat both the male and female enemies the same, I don't see there being any large backlash from the media.

 

[Murdamonk]

Its an interesting and difficult subject.

True equality means this shouldn't be an issue, most enemies in games are guys but as Ghost Trick says:



I mean I don't have an issue with it when I don't think about it, I don't feel bad for punching Chun Li, I don't pick on GTA pedestrians based on gender but I think it’s been ingrained into society.. We want men and women to be the same but we still give our daughters Barbie’s and teach our sons not to hit women rather than "don't hit anyone".

I don't know guys, I guess I'm fine with female enemies.

This. Besides fighting games, I don't know if the media and society are ready to accept having a game where you will be beating or killing a woman. There will be backlash from some women activists groups for sure. So, my guess is, developers prefer to play it safe than having to deal with the "bad rep".

 

[Ekai]

It's always weird when I see this topic pop up. Pretty much every female that I am close to IRL like being "girly" and see no reason to be equal to men on issues like violence. My wife and 2 female friends that I have been very close with since middle school(20+ years) voice their displeasure at seeing women being hit by men and depicted in masculine ways in movies and such all the time. Same with my mother and most of my other friends and family that I can think of. I think there is a social issue where people who think women should be treated like men in ALL respects don't take into account the large number(by my personal observations and relationships) of women that want equality in issues such as pay and being elected officials, while not caring to be the same in traditionally masculine ways(violence, etc.). Exclusion happens from both sides, but there seems to be a progressive agenda where that never gets brought up a lot.

Also, for that 1 in 2000 number on the first page. I've been in the military for 11 1/2 years in the US. There are quite a few women serving today, but they're normally not in strenuous or combat jobs, and the vast majority don't want them. They have recently allowed them in the infantry, but they're still not allowed in Special Forces for various reasons, but there are advocates for change there too. Just wanted to give insight that across all branches combined, 1 in 2000 in combat scenarios may not be that far fetched, or much higher than most seem to think it is.

I personally don't care to be masculine. But my main consideration for the argument is that I think there should be more representation of women and gender expression in gaming. There are women who are more stereotypically "masculine" in our culture. Or masculine as we define it at least. And there's no reason we shouldn't embrace that. Take a look at Zarya in Overwatch, for example. Really regardless of how women are expressed as enemies (so long as they aren't walking sex objects designed solely for the male gaze) I don't really see the issue of including them. I'd personally want more diversity.

 

[Ordinaryundone]

I started playing Mad Max recently & found it odd that there were no female baddies in the wastes. In fact, all the females in the game seem to be on your side- or at least non-hostile.
Max is pretty brutal in his hand-to-hand, so it seems to be in line with the criticisms of the OP.

I'm pretty sure none of the Mad Max movies had female goons as well, or really any evil female characters at all. The only one that comes to mind is Tina Turner in Beyond Thunderdome and she's the boss of the entire operation. It's especially noticable in Fury Road which has a LOT of female characters for an action movie but none of them are on Joe's side. Even Furiosa, whose supposed to be his top Lieutenant, has already defected before she's even introduced.