You joke but when I was playing AC odyssey, I did switch to a girl after an hour because I was tired of looking up a dudes skirt whenever I went swimming.
I really wish the people who say shit like this would realize how pathetic it makes them sound. I have never once felt my masculinity was being threatened because the player character in video game was female.
When given the option, I pick female/woman presenting. When given the option, I pick black or poc. When given the option, I give them a killer outfit so they can slay all day.
As a straight white Jewish man, I like to imagine that I'm the quintessential oppressed citizen ready to take everything down with all I have. Anytime I kill a bad guy, a good guy, some random bystander, whatever, I tell them to shut the fuck up cuz I'm taking this all down.
At least, that's how I justify it to myself. Maybe I just like strong black women and killing literally everyone.
I’ve never felt my masculinity challenged by anything. Because I am a man and whatever I or anyone else does will not make that different. What a bunch of weak, soft, clowns people complaining that women exist in video games or the “transvestigators” are.
All of these pivotal, classic games have great female protagonists, and came out before Obama got elected... probably before this person was even born?
Maybe somebody could try the 'return to tradition' approach with this fool.
As a kid, who doesn't get a little warped by Samus Aran being female? Maybe it was just my experience growing up in the christocultist world, but I was in denial about Samus at ~7-8 years old with my only familiarity being passive and Smash Bros.
Now I see anyone that has a similar outlook as being ~7-8 years old in their cognitive development and KAFS
Guess he didn't play Horizon either? Fucking dumb ass. I don't ever remember thinking or feeling that I was the main character in the last Witcher. I for one look forward to playing this character.
I do remember them noticing Aloy had peach fuzz and immediately jumped to the conclusion that any woman not waxing her face in the roboapocalypse must be trans...
A polarizing question. Me, I always play a version of myself. More muscular, perhaps, or more adventurous. But still a middle-aged dude who is trying to do good. I never feel the urge to play a woman or a villain or anything else totally different from my IRL character.
And I guess that's just how it is, right? We each make our own fun in the games we play.
So the dude in the xitter post is just going to have to sit this one out. I'm sure there will be lots of male centric stories to play in the future, as there always have been.
Meanwhile, I hope everyone who likes playing from a female POV has an absolute blast with The Witcher 4.
As a cis-femme gamer I am SO SICK of playing as grizzled, middle-aged cis-men in every goddamn game with a set story.
Games where you can pick the gender of the protagonist don't count. Whether you play as Man-Shep or Fem-Shep, Mass Effect is exactly the same and the gender choice is exclusively cosmetic. There are very few games with female protagonists that actually commit to the protagonist being a woman and delving into what that entails.
Just in this first trailer, Ciri is trying to save a young woman from being used as a maiden sacrifice and that is a much more emotionally complex situation for her as a young woman herself. I will be pre-ordering Witcher 4 the second it is available because I want more studios to make games with women as the main playable characters so that I can have immersion in my games too.
I haven't pre-ordered a game since Halo: ODST when I was getting a physical copy from GameStop. I am very aware of the problems with pre-ordering, and I still want to pre-order Witcher 4 because I want to send the message that they did not make a mistake by making Ciri the main/playable character.
Mmm but any game that provides a different storyline based on gender is opening themselves up to no end of criticism. There's just no way they'll ever win that one.
Honestly it's free publicity. Like I know they don't like courting controversy traditionally but hbomberguy's video on Woke Brands explains how they've figured out that triggering these people can be really good for sales.
I usually feel so immersed when playing white haired super-ripped giants with magic powers. It's as if they were a second me, except for the hair, size, muscles, facial traits, strength and magic powers.
I actually liked that part tho. I can't even think of any games since the first couple of Tomb Raiders that allow you to shoot two things on opposite sides of a room at the same time with the way she akimbos.
Also this is one of the games where you play a character that has personality already, self insertion isn't intended.
Geralt of Rivia, Lara Croft, B.J. Blazkowicz, Faith Connors, Alan Wake, Max Caulfield, Joel Miller, Ellie Williams, and probably Doomguy those are all roles that you play.
In contrast you have games like Skyrim, Elden Ring, Terraria, Cyberpunk 2077, Far Cry, Valheim and most classic MMORPGs, where you have a playable character that you can form to your own design.
That's just fundamentally a difference in design. Complaning that you can't self insert in a game of the first category doesn't make sense.
Of course not. I am rather confident that at least some of these people are doing it as a false flag. Trying to discredit critics of genuine bad character and game design.
It's gay to play male characters bc you're staring at a dude all day. True hetero males play female characters because it is most hetero to look at attractive women.
Technically, you're always seeing you own nose, so you're always staring a man. The least gay thing for a man is to become a woman. But then looking at other women would be gay so you have to look at other men. As a man I safe myself some trouble and skip the first step and just look at beautiful sexy men all day, because I'm not gay.
The fact that Geralt has a penis is not enough to make me forget that he is not me. Throughout the series, you're constantly learning stuff about a character that isn't you, that you aren't writing. I doubt they have examined their feelings.
The thing that always got rid of immersion for me as I ride my noble steed across the countryside to defeat mythical monsters from a mythology not my own was (1) geralt sounds too much like Gerald (2) his magic is trash/boring and (3) his crossbow is weak af. Never had a lot of difficulties with whether he had a dick or not.
I knew someone who was utterly baffled that when I watched batman zip around in his batmobile, I never once thought "what if I was batman, tho..? 😲" as if I had some kind of film-watching disability.
Imagine trying to claim that you should be able to freely self-insert onto a character that had an entire game about losing their memory and rediscovering who they are lmao.
You have to be wildly insecure to even care about such things.
I’m a guy. I don’t mind playing as a woman at all. I’ve played the Tomb Raider games, I enjoyed Horizon, I played a female V in Cyberpunk, FemShep in Mass Effect etc etc.
Games are a way to experience something that’s not you or your story. And that’s perfectly fine.
Heck, if we took that stuff seriously, I shouldn’t play Mario because I’m not an Italian plumber. Or I couldn’t enjoy Euro Truck Simulator since I don’t drive a truck.
I'm not interested in playing as a Witcher. I am a regular human. Breaks my immersion. I think there should be two options. One for witchers and one for regular humans.
Ah, yes. If she looks like a sex doll, she's saving the industry. If she looks like a normal person, the game is unplayable.
Imagine if women did this. "I'm not a middle aged father, I won't be playing The Last of Us. It just breaks my immersion, should have made Tess the main character. Also, you can see by the design of his nose bridge that they're making him less attractive on purpose. How can I play this game if he isn't a double cheeked up Adonis!?"
I didn't say she wasn't hot, I said she doesn't look like a sex doll. There are posts around where people are already circling this, that, and the third on her face, like they did with Alloy a d whatever her name is from Star Wars. But people always complain when the woman looks normal, even if they're still attractive. Acting like that doesn't happen is being willfully obtuse.
So... Self report because you assumed normal equals not hot?
Edit: Misunderstood. Was snapping without realizing he was referring to the OP
Let's be honest, this is most probably a riff on the semi-current push for greater diversity in games. That "could" be boiled down to "I don't see characters with my exact physical identity and want/need this representation", even if it's reducto absurdum.
I don't get why it's an issue period. I'm a black woman, I almost never see myself in a game unless it has a character maker. I have played game, after game, after game with characters that don't look like me and survived. It's very frustrating that just seeing a woman as the main character as immersion breaking when that was never a concern the other way around. I know they may not mean it this way, but it's almost like they can't see women as people to empathize. People played as a cat in Stray, a wolf in Okami, but they can't play as a woman because that's a step too far?
Transgender man here - the only game I can think of playing that let me be a transgender man was Dream Daddy. I think the Life is Strange director made a game with a trans guy too? I think the Dragon Age series has a side character. If anyone has any other good ones I’d love to hear about them.
Strangely, I have had no problem playing games with male or female characters. Stories have protagonists who are not like me. That’s why they are interesting.
Like I don’t think there was a game that let you play a black woman until 1992 with The Elder Scrolls: Arena. We can have a white female protagonist in one game in a series.
I'm pretty sure I read that the new Dragon Age gives you an opportunity to make your character explicitly trans. Not just with character creation, but an actual dialogue choice that has an effect on how people refer to you
Same! If I had to play games where characters were all me I just wouldn't play games lol. I definitely don't mind playing and learning new interesting characters as well
I'm not interested in playing as an Astro Bot. I am a human. Breaks my immersion. I think there should be two options. One for robot and one for human.
I am not interested in playing as a male. As a male, I already go through life as one. I don't have the urge to experience that further. Breaks immersion.
i will always champion for character creators in any game. mass effect proved you could have a heavy "story based" game with two main versions of the single main character + the countless custom personal creations
for example it is an absolute crime star wars outlaws and the jedi ones did not have a custom human character but also not all of the amazing alien races you could of played. such. a. waste.
but also fuck off to those that just go 'boo girl/guy!" etc
i will always champion for character creators in any game. mass effect proved you could have a heavy “story based” game with two main versions of the single main character + the countless custom personal creations
That's a fair point. Cyberpunk also did it quite well with the customizable character called V (Vincent/Valerie), I thought.
On the other hand, I have to say for games like the Witcher, that adapt an existing world, character set and story threads (from a book series in this case), this is probably too hard to do without compromizing the source material. I'd rather get a good adaptation than risk it going wrong.
And I also understand if smaller studios keep it simple and bring one artistic vision to the game. Like Dontnod with Life is Strange. You could probably make it so Max can be male too, but it's an extra burden and it's a valid choice to go with Max as a fixed person.
I think it was Jack on Roster Teeth that said it best...
Everyone made their online character for GTAOnline as basically themselves, except Jack, he made a female character. They all start ripping on him and he hits them with "if I'm gonna be staring at an ass for the next 500 hours, i want it to be a girl's ass." I think Gavin even asked if it was too late to switch.
ETA: girls run faster in GTA, so it's the better choice by any metric.
Idk, my friend also said he played Cassandra in AC Odyssey because he'd rather stare at a girl's ass than a guy's ass for 50+ hours, but now she flies the ol' blue-pink-white-pink-blue in her living room so idk what to think.
I've seen it said that people create three types of characters in online character creation: first is just themselves. We've all done it. Second is a celebrity or character from an IP. Think of all the Shreks, Peter Griffins and Samuel Jackson's that were being shared when baldurs gate 3 came out. Third is an unholy monstrosity that's just every slider at the extremes.
There are two versions! One of them is this one, which you can play if you're cool or even mildly tolerant. The other one is fucking right off and crying inside your own asshole
My response has always been and will always be: "Why the fuck are you looking at the characters ass instead of the entire rest of the game in front of you?"
My lady friend doesn’t want to play anything that makes her play as a dude if she can avoid it. She does sometimes but she has a strong preference for games featuring female protagonists. She did enjoy playing as Geralt though
What the Witcher games do really well is having female protagonists but not necessarily a female playable character. All the Witcher games aren't about Geralt per se, but about Triss, Yenneffer, Shani, Adda, etc. but most importantly Cirilla, she's the pivot point of all the games. Geralt is essentially just a vessel for the player to guide us through a world that is much bigger than him filled with drawn out characters of which most important ones happen to be women.
It matters so much. As a straight, white, cis male, I'm so glad that kids these days of all backgrounds have representation in media.
Not only does it make for a much better variety of stories and styles, but it gives kids proper role models and lets them know that there are other people out there like them. The difference in this aspect between now and the 90s is unbelievable, and I really hope we don't backslide too much...
I have a male gaming buddy whose account is named like tim2299. He names his characters Tim, they're always male and if possible, the toon's facial features resemble his real-life looks.
Honestly, I don't care what the gender of the character i play is. My own masculinity is not derived from or influenced by the digital character I control
I don't mind playing a male but always prefer female. Started with Unreal 99 and smaller female hitboxes then continued in mass effect (if I can choose to watch a spandex gluteus Maximus for 30 Hours, I chose female).... and now it's a habit of playing female and chaotic neutral for first playthroughs.
If I play RPGs and have the choice of a character, I always pick male and customise him to look like me. Despite never seeing my character when I play in first person mode. It just seens natural to me.
But when I don't get the choice (mainly narrative driven games like adventures), I simply roll with it. It's a game after all, not a second life.
I do random as well... My favorite character creation randomization has to be From Software's... You can get your character looking real weird very easily by just jamming on x when you hit the randomize option and choose it to be very different each time. They usually end up bright blue or red, with a face that looks like ground beef.
With character editors like that, I will do my best to make the weirdest looking creature possible which is always fun.
They ranted about how ugly she is as well. Even if Jesus came down for a second coming, but more like a remaster of the first one because, you know, the sin, and he tried as hard as his omnipotent ass could, he would fail to save any of them.
Well there's good reason to expect - if you believe any of it - that they'd be on the side of The Beast. Someone went through and found a bunch of references to the antichrist that apparently fit Trump, and these guys are pretty much all his people. Plus like... they obviously suck and don't do anything that Jesus actually talked about. They've exchanged it all for a bunch of culturally traditional signifiers that have next to nothing to do with actually loving your neighbour or whatever.
Also, the story goes that millions of people join the beast's army and go to war, and they gather, and it's a big build up, then Jesus just goes splat like One Punch Man and it's over. It's honestly written just like that show, like a parody of an epic battle scene.
There isn't much talk of salvation in that part of the book.
I never got around to playing the Witcher; so I have no horse in this race.
La Mulana 1, you play as Lameza (Indiana Jones with a hint of ninja), but in La Mulana 2 you play as his daughter Lumisa.
Narratively, this was brilliant since you had a reason as to WHY you had to navigate death traps to re-gear and learn about the ruins. Might be the same as Witcher 4 if the MC ended the first game with god tier powers/items?
Did the gender swap bother me? Nope, why would it - I'm playing to solve puzzles, experience the unfolding mystery of the ruins, and experience some of the cheapest death traps ever made.
Might be the same as Witcher 4 if the MC ended the first game with god tier powers/items?
Well it's complicated, there are multiple endings including at least one recognized as a "bad ending", but in general it's more like Geralt and Ciri, his daughter that has grown up, overcome the mortal dangers together with the important people around them.
However the god tier powers in the story were the ones Ciri was born with, so the motivation can't really be the same with this move here. It's probably just that it makes sense to tell the next part of Ciri's story directly from her perspective now.
Reminds me of all the DBD players who I keep finding on Youtube who complain anytime someone wears an optional pride charm. "Bro this many gay people isn't realistic! It ruins my immersion!"
and I'm like "They're wearing those charm because they're gay in real life. It's not realistic for gay people to exist?!"
I've quickly learned "Ally to the community" in Gaming Circles is a dogwhistle for "I hate gay people"
I think that makes sense for games in which you create your own character. Sometimes a game tells a story with a specific protagonist though and they aren't meant to be "you".
Definitely
It doesn't make too much sense in this case
More so if there was some generic witcher-like character
But Im glad it's one consistent with lore
Yes, you want representation and the ability for people to play as someone like them. But we also can just tell stories about a character without needing to make the story for every character.
Adding women, anyone not white, or different gender and sexual orientations was notable because they were very underrepresented.
Women were by and large not saying they couldn't play games as men, just that they'd like more chances to be women.
I guess so.
Not sure if the poster is famous for being one-sided like that.
Could be hipocrisy, could be mockery of similar posts going the other way as well.
But if not, if they honestly sticked to "provide all options where possible", I wouldn't mind them stepping up for themselves as well.
Here's what you do.. When you fire up a new game, you have a "Custom Character" option. Selecting that brings up a rendering of Ciri standing there all badass. Beside her is a single check-box, labeled "FAT COCK". Selecting "FAT COCK" promptly puts a massive, sagging bulge in the crotch of her pants that drops down about a foot and bounces heavily from the physics. From here the player can either disable the fat cock option and proceed, or keep the fat cock and then proceed.
Yeah well, to be fair, I decided not to play Kingdom Come precisely because you only get to play a dude character. And I love medieval themed RPG's. It's just, ya know in this day and age for them to say.. "but realism" ..pff.. it's a game mate.
Having said that, I did play the Witcher series, because Geralt is one of my favorite fictional characters and have been reading the books long before the games came out. And to get to play as Cirilla, oh wow .. that's übercool.
Also, long before KC there was Warband and I played the hell out of warrior ladies, so yeah didn't bother with machistic BS "realism".
Anyways, too bad dude. I get ya yer poor sod. Just don't play. Case closed.
Companies have been opening up options in character creation across games to allow more diversity. More and more games allow you to select your name, gender, race, skin tone, physical attributes, personality, voice, and sexual orientation. These developers have discovered that people want to play characters they can relate to and this is mostly celebrated.
This person wanting to play as a male is a perfectly valid desire. It's the exact same reason I never played any of the previous Witcher games despite it otherwise being my kind of game; being forced to be Geralt breaks my immersion. I wonder how much more popular the Witcher series would be if it had even the most basic level of character customisation.
In a game where you are playing a role you define with your playstyle, that makes alot more sense. Here, you are playing an established story. No matter what choices you make in your gameplay, the character in this game will always react how they would react in that situation. It's not really intended to be that style of immersive, it's an immersive storyline, but you are not playing an avatar that is intended to represent you, or your imagined character.
Tomb raider games managed to be best sellers in an age where it was "wrong" to have a female protagonist. I think this game will do ok.
I will never understand people not being able to play a game because of something so trivial.
When a game gives me the option I will always pick female characters because I'd rather look at a girl than a dude, but if it doesn't and I have to play as a dude I don't have a meltdown.
I'll play the next Witcher game just like I played the previous ones: sat on the couch sipping mojitos and eating goat cheese and hot pepper flavored chips in my underpants.
Right? It's a bit cringey but whatever, if he strictly wants to be immeresed as a dude, fine. Personally I find janky animations and repetitive sound effects/dialog to be the worst for immersion.
After reading it again though, yeah he dumb. It's not the kind of game where you can create whatever character you like.
I'm with him on this one. I don't know anything about the game in question but in general I want to play with a male character because I'm a male myself. Ideally you'd have the option to choose from both genders as is the case with the game I play.
You've missed the point here. This person is complaining that an industry that caters mostly to American men and historically has had mostly male characters didn't do that this one time in a game he wants to play. Your preferences towards watching a male or female ass for 50 hours are not the point. His completely tone deaf 1990s attitude and selfishness is.
Play the witcher 3 (awesome game) and you'll think differently. It's an extremely story driven game, and the story is about ciri. This is the logical next step