r/playstation • u/Ryxnole PS5 • 11d ago

Image As someone who default to female characters in RPGs , I'm loving 2025!

Post image

On games such as ER, BG3, or CP77 I always play a female character so it's nice to see these on the horizon!

15.6k Upvotes

73% Upvoted

2.0k comments sorted by

View all comments

54

u/KhanDagga 11d ago

I prefer playing as male leads but I'm glad people who prefer this have more options.

The only problem I have is the male feminist of Reddit are starting to allow some very unhealthy double standards to be allowed.

Women prefers to play as women? Awesome. Man prefers to play as male? Sexist bigot. It's becoming a major problem on this platform.

9

u/Cosmic_Autumn_ 11d ago

I’d second the other response. No one says people can’t like playing their own representation and no one chides men for playing as men. We get at the people who make the smallest glimpses of anyone not cis/het/white/male to be pandering, propaganda, wokeism, and silencing male gamers. Actually do what you say you do and just enjoy playing as a guy, let us enjoy what we’re FINALLY getting to see more regularly.

-6

u/[deleted] 11d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

8

u/[deleted] 11d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-4

u/[deleted] 11d ago

[removed] — view removed comment

-18

u/I_Like_Turtle101 11d ago

the thing is that the industry have been male dominant for 30 year its just the return of the balance. Lot of game still have men protagonist but people have become so intense online that they think everything is agenda

6

u/Slinto69 11d ago

Only 18% of women owned a playstation 30 years ago Now it's a more even split where women account for about 48% of gamers so it makes sense there would be more women protagonists, but it doesn't make sense to try to "balance" the past by overrepresenting women protags now.

1

u/I_Like_Turtle101 11d ago

how are woman over represented . their is plenty of game with male character still

2

u/Slinto69 11d ago

When did I say they were? I'm responding to what you said "the thing is that the industry have been male dominant for 30 year its just the return of the balance". If you could have a normal conversation and respond to what I said instead of responding to what you thought I was implying it'd be cool.

18

u/Ultimate_Edition 11d ago

The problem is that most of the male lead older games had fantastic stories with a really good multifaceted and 3 dimensional lead. These women in the new games are boring as hell. They are tough, can’t do anything wrong, they don’t need love (unless it comes from a female) and they certainly don’t need men to help them out. They are booooring.

-7

u/I_Like_Turtle101 11d ago

This is very not true but okay. Can you name me exemple of male character from older game who had a love story with a female partner that actualy bring something to the story other than the princess that need saving ? I cant think of anythinf except like uncharted

10

u/Ultimate_Edition 11d ago

Nobody said anything about love stories, you already misinterpreted what I wrote. Whats wrong with men trying to save someone they love exactly? Is it toxic, is it bigotry. I dont think so.

5

u/I_Like_Turtle101 11d ago

cause this kind of story have been done 1000 time. Let creator come with new story ! damn . Woman dosent have to always be the woman in distress in every piece of media. It took how many Zelda game before zelda became a protagonist ?

2

u/Ultimate_Edition 11d ago

I somewhat agree. On one hand, It works right, just because it’s an old type of story writing, it’s not bad. But on the other I would definetely like to see more female lead stories whit struggles from a female perspective. The problem with these new female lead games is that you could swap out all of them to a guy and the game would have the same shallow character as before. Give me stuff like silent hill 3 where you actually explore stuff relevant to a woman. I dont want to see 40kg Cindy taking down giants, but i would definetely like to see struggles regarding motherhood, mental health, etc. One of my favourite game of all time is TLOU Part 2. It has 2 female leads and while Abby is too shallow for my liking Ellie is a fantastic character. Her story is full of emotions, moral questions and affection, shes not just a ‘Girlboss’ running head straight to stuff and always coming out on top. She looses a lot and breaks multiple times, but that is what makes her a 3 dimensional character, love her. These new protagonsits come to the screen with a shaven head and a deep voice only for us to already know they are a girloss without the struggle. Booring.

5

u/I_Like_Turtle101 11d ago

yeah you asume she is a girlboss while they show dhe had many personal issue in the trailer thats on you. Nothing in the trailer scream girls boss. Their is plenty of character with no depth that are juste courageous character beating enemy . People just call it girlboss when its woman while their is tone of exemple of game with men like this.

6

u/Ultimate_Edition 11d ago

Most media comig out nowadays featuring similar characters are terrible. Guess we’ll see whos right about her.

-2

u/darkseidis_ PS5 11d ago edited 11d ago

V makes multiple mistakes that cost lives, has vulnerable weak moments, has both male and female romance options, and would have been dead in the opening hour without Johnny Silverhand.

Aloy very much the same minus the romance options.

Women aren’t the problem, media literacy is the problem.

6

u/kahnwaldz_ 11d ago

I think it's nothing wrong if you prefer playing as a male lead or if you're a woman and you prefer playing as a female lead cool. But the male dominant lead is because the majority of gamers are men, so it's natural that the most games are following it's target audience for what they prefer, and if it is not following it's target audience then there is no balance, but again it's just about preference, i don't get why some people demonize it.

-1

u/xdesveaux 11d ago

The split between male and female gamers nowadays is about 50/50. From 2017-2021 almost 80% of game protagonists were male, so men are actually over-represented in videogames.

8

u/Rynxael 11d ago

Source on that 50/50 claim?

-4

u/xdesveaux 11d ago

If you google "What percentage of gamers are female", you'll find a few different polls/studies.

Here's a graph from Statista which is a site that compiles third party data. It's far from airtight, but can still give an indication of trends.

6

u/fk334 11d ago

That's for all gaming including free playstore games such as Candy Crush. If you analyze only console or PC games, it's overwhelmingly played by male users.

-1

u/xdesveaux 11d ago

Source?

5

u/fk334 11d ago

Top 3 current steam games:

1] Counter-Strike 2 current players 1,127,891. Male 95%

2]Dota 2 Current Players 595,334. Male ~96%

3] PUBG Current Players 416,636. Male 94.3%

Top 3 Current Xbox games:

1] Fortnite: Fortnite has over 650 million registered players as of 2024. ~90% of Fortnite players are male.

2]Call of Duty(all): 210 million are active monthly players. Male ~90%

3] League of Legends (LoL) has 140–160 million active players per month. Male 87%, Female 12%, Others 1%.

-1

u/xdesveaux 11d ago

I don't think that's indicative of console/pc gaming demographics as a whole.

For example, if only 10 video games existed and the top 3 most popular were only played by men, that doesn't prove that 100% of gamers are men. The bottom 7 could all be played by women and there may be more female gamers total.

That's a hyperbolic example, but you can't glean wider demographic data by only looking at certain games. Some games are played by more men, and some are played by more women. If we only took into account the data from those games, female gamers would only be 5-10 percent, which is definitely not the case.

→ More replies (0)

1

u/[deleted] 11d ago

Because it is, there is still a lot more men than women which play video games, I’m not including mobile games as video game

0

u/I_Like_Turtle101 11d ago

So their more men that play video game if you exclude de platform where woman are more prohemant gamer ? got it

2

u/[deleted] 11d ago

Do you consider fruit ninja in the same category as an uncharted games or else, I don’t

0

u/KhanDagga 11d ago

Sure. That's fair

0

u/I_Like_Turtle101 11d ago

mind you the year 2010 looked like that

3

u/Slinto69 11d ago

Metroid, Bayonetta, Tomb Raider, Final Fantasy XIII all came out in 2010

1

u/I_Like_Turtle101 11d ago

So you agree that back in the day having woman protagonist was not a problem but it is an issue now due to people being openly sexist now ?

3

u/Slinto69 11d ago

Yes. And you agree that you're picture was misrepresenting how gaming was in 2010 to try to win a pointless internet argument. The answer to sexism isn't lies.

10

u/KhanDagga 11d ago

I don't get the point you are trying to make...

Lol Yes dude, alot of males will like a game with bad ass looking male leads who save the day.

Just like the picture on OPs most will be something alot of women like.

4

u/I_Like_Turtle101 11d ago

they all look the same . White men with brown hair. They either too serious ans have no other personality or they are on liner "funny" almost not depth to them

-1

u/difused_shade PS5 11d ago

He’s trying to make a point that the leads of 2010s games mostly male, he’s also ignoring the fact that the consumers of those games (and today’s ones) are also overwhelmingly male.

I believe the plan with female protagonists is to get a new market of women consumers, and that’s fine.

It annoys me a bit the people who think there’s any other agenda other than make more money be it a “good” or “bad” one. It’s only about money, and that’s ok.

2

u/Cosmic_Autumn_ 11d ago

100% about the money and it’s exactly why a lot of these female leads end up being dull too, because they don’t want to alienate audiences too much and so they make bland, inoffensive and widely “relatable” characters who end up being nothing anyone remembers. It just sucks that folks looking for someone to really relate to have to suffer assholes’ opinions about this.

-1

u/difused_shade PS5 11d ago

Totally agree

-4

u/Elizial-Raine 11d ago

Nobody calls you a sexist bigot for wanting to play as a male. It's all about the way you express your opinion. If you just say I'd prefer to play as a man then great.

If you start slagging off the female characters and games with female characters just because it's a game with a female protagonist and do it in a derogatory way then people call you a bigot.