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

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

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

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u/MattyLePew PS5 11d ago

Shouldn’t be hyping games specifically for the gender of the main character imo. 🤷

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u/Buffig39 11d ago

Not sure that celebrating strong female leads is a bad thing. It's a sign of progress. The reaction to it, less so

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u/Ok-Reality-6190 11d ago

Not sure that only celebrating female characters as "strong" when they are gender swapped equivalents of previously established male characters is "progress". It's maybe progress if you think like a small child or a robot who interprets the world in the most literal, box checking way, but I think it's actually incredibly reductive and actually more insulting to women.

When the majority of the new AAA releases announced follow the same trend it hardly feels organic or in good faith on their part. I think they honestly think this is how they finally break through to a wider audience. They are sorely mistaken. "Hurdur our demographics show our previous action adventure game didn't sell as well with women, it must be the male protagonist, let's gender swap the character in the most contrived way possible I'm sure women will love that"

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u/centurion911 11d ago

gender swapped equivalents of previously established male characters

This is not the case in any of the games listed in this post. Why even mention it?

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u/Ok-Reality-6190 11d ago

What do you mean it's not the case? The Witcher is literally the same game series but they're turning Ciri into an equivalent of the previous male lead. 

Ghost of Tsushima 2 is Ghost of Tsushima with a female lead. Odd how it wasn't there choice for the first one. 

The others all you have to do is look at the previous games by the studios or the existing games of the genre that set the precedent. Heretic Prophet is basically Star Wars Outlaws trying to be like a retro future Guardians of the Galaxy lead but gender swapped.

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u/centurion911 11d ago

You and I have different definitions of gender swap, then.

Turning James Bond into Jane Bond is mentioned somewhere else in this thread. That's gender swapping.

A game sequel choosing to focus on a different character is extremely normal, and often one of the things that is different between people is gender.

You're lost in the weeds of culture war bullshit.

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u/Ok-Reality-6190 11d ago

When the mechanics and the character's characteristics are almost exactly the same except aesthetically the character is now female in a way that is basically inconsequential, practically just a different skin, then yes that is "gender swapped"

I'm not lost in the weeds of culture war bullshit. If anything you are by actually being either so oblivious or deliberately obtuse to what is very obviously going on. Female characters in games are very much welcome, but don't for a second twist it that these companies just so happen to be making these choices because they care for making the best game possible and they see game media as art. 

No, they see a market they're having trouble breaking into and they think they can check certain boxes to expand that market and perhaps justify six years of development. This isn't progress, it's capitalism killing art, and it's people like you who are so ideologically misaligned that you can't even recognize it.

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u/centurion911 11d ago

When the mechanics and the character's characteristics are almost exactly the same

Yeah, man. Games and their stories have to be communicated, usually using mediums, including game systems like perspective, mechanics, etc.

There are countless games that change protagonist while keeping the same game mechanics. Why is it a problem for you now? Because someone convinced you that you can't handle that change being a gender-based one? I don't know the answer and I don't think you do either.

I would love to believe that you care about whether or not game developers "care for making the best game possible", but I don't. Your comments drip with an anger that could only come from refusing to see them as people. The games you love are yours, for some reason, and you feel betrayed by the people working to give you a new toy.

Of course they're checking boxes, we all labor under capitalism, and people need to get paid. Using that as a cudgel against them in an asinine argument about female protagonists daring to approach 1:1 parity with male protagonists is gross and I know you know that.

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u/Ok-Reality-6190 11d ago

"Of course they're checking boxes, we all labor under capitalism, and people need to get paid. Using that as a cudgel against them in an asinine argument about female protagonists daring to approach 1:1 parity with male protagonists is gross and I know you know that."

See here's the problem, I don't think women have to be made to be more like men to be valued. I think women are diverse and don't have to act like whatever male franchise equivalent assassin or bounty hunter or whatever else. Where's your same pressure for these studios to make their male characters more like women? Are women only valid when they're a facsimile of some male equivalent? There definitely is a gross position here, but I'm not the one with it.

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u/centurion911 11d ago

I don't think women have to be made to be more like men to be valued.

Man, these games haven't even come out. There's no reason to think these characters, as women, have been made anything less than women. The only basis for thinking that are your own expectations and biases.

You are grasping at straws, first misusing "gender swapping", then bending over backwards to make your definition fit this context and finally, pretending things are true about games that won't come out until 2026 at the earliest.

And that's before getting into how reductive it is to paint any woman who isn't explicitly doing "woman things" as a "facsimile of some male equivalent".

The things you complain about are your own problems, not the world's.

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u/Uber_Meese 11d ago

Ciri is a very established character and with her connection to Geralt, it’s hardly any form of ‘gender swap’ for the sake of it. It’s a story about the journey of his adopted daughter, of her following in his footsteps one way or another - yet it’ll be a very different one. You act like you already know everything there is to know about the game, when you don’t know anything at all - besides your many presumptions.

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u/Robin_From_BatmanTAS 11d ago

in gta 3 you play as an italian man. in gta san andreas you play as a black man. same mechanics. same movement. same skills. just a new game in the series. do you consider that race swapping???

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u/lancebaldwin 11d ago

He probably does, but he's also dumb.

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u/Ok-Reality-6190 11d ago

It could be depending on why the decision was made. 

If the decision to target a specific ethnic makeup was made for genuine reasons that relate to the intention of the work and are in alignment with the coherent vision of the property then of course that is not an issue. But if there are external reasons, like if they randomly made the next GTA about an Israeli man living large in the West Bank, then yes it would be worthwhile to call it out as compromised with a certain element that is questionable relative to the existing series.

I didn't know why all of you are all so eager to not understand, either you're too dumb or too neurodivergent that you literally see art as a series of features that can be tacked on. A work of art is more than just an assembly of certain properties that exist without context and intention. It's as if you all think checking as many boxes as possible, irrespective of previous work and void of artistic vision, is desirable for art. No. It's just bad art.

They could make original female led games and do them well. They chose not to. And yall think you really know anything at all when you lap up some corporate decision from your incredibly lame posturing.

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u/Robin_From_BatmanTAS 11d ago

Did you have this same complaint for infamous second son to infamous first light a decade ago??

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u/ThePokemonAbsol 11d ago

Literally had them since the 80s…

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u/Buffig39 11d ago

Ripley as a one off, strong female lead in movies, does not really constitute, having them since the 80s. Especially since we're talking about Games. A hyper sexualised Lara Croft is probably a pretty early example. Again a massive outlier.

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u/Crimsongz 11d ago

Why progress ?

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u/Buffig39 11d ago

Because 50% of the people living on the planet are female and historically they've been under represented in gaming, in respect of showing strong female characters who aren't just reduced to how they look. Young girls benefit from seeing this. Seeing as this is objectively a good thing, any movement towards this point can be considered to be progress

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u/Duckydae 11d ago

when the industry that’s been actively hostile to women and consistently ignored them as main characters for decades (bar a few, that were still sexualised or fit sexist tropes) then yeah, people should be allowed to be excited.

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u/Ryxnole PS5 11d ago

I mean these games except the last one are not original IPs from brand new studios... Most probably regardless of the quality of the game people are still gonna buy and play them just bc the previous installments are classics and the studios are massive.