I think many of you have noticed that recently female characters in games have begun to look downright unattractive. And the further into the forest, the scarier. Many blame the modern agenda for this (hereinafter I use the word “agenda” as a general definition of all modern Western trends, including feminism and body positivity). Others are modern technologies and the developers’ passion for realism. In an effort to make the character more realistic, authors often add minor flaws in appearance, but the result sometimes turns out to be monstrous. In this blog, I want to raise the topic of female beauty and try to understand at what point the gaming industry took a wrong turn (or maybe it never took a wrong turn).
I am well aware that beauty is an extremely subjective concept. And some of you may find the examples given here inappropriate. Give it a discount.
Agenda?
When the question of unattractive female characters is raised, the left-liberal agenda that the West has become so carried away with over the past 20 years is the first thing that comes to mind. And yes, the modern worldview of Western society cannot but leave its mark on the gaming industry.
Everyone knows about the thesis promoted by fourth wave feminists, that the media harms society by imposing beauty standards on it. The idea is that girls shouldn’t be ashamed of their appearance, and that’s not easy when you’re 14 years old watching Transformers and there’s this!
Personally, I think there is nothing wrong with showing off beautiful and sexy people. You might as well go demolish antique statues, because Aphrodite has a perfect waist, and Zeus has a bicep and six-pack abs. In addition, the logic “be proud of who you are” is of course good, but it can lead a person completely in the wrong direction. Why exercise and take care of yourself if you are beautiful the way you are?? Well, then, my generation had their own goddesses, starting with Gadget and April O’Neil and ending with Asuka and Jessica Rabbit. And nothing. The girls didn’t have any complexes about this.
In the gaming industry, the suspicion that the authors have again turned on the agenda appears every time you notice that motion capchers are hiring real beauties, but in the game we see something completely different.
Janina Gavankar in life much more beautiful than in the image of Eden Versio in Battlefront 2. In the game, the commander of the Inferno squad looks like a swollen alcoholic, as if she had been injected with Botox, although in real life she is a very impressive girl.
Sarah Ryder from Mass Effect Andromeda in life – wow (you probably know Jade Rossi from the TV series "Castle" and "24"), and in the game – a woman with severe autism.
But it happens that the discrepancy between the actress and the game character occurs unintentionally. Look at Dina from Last of us 2. Many players did not like this character’s appearance because of his large “Jewish” nose. Dina’s appearance was given to her by a girl named Cassina Caradonna (judging by her last name, she is Spanish or Portuguese) and, surprise, surprise, she has a really big “Jewish” nose.
But for some reason this doesn’t spoil Kassin at all. When an actress communicates with fans, you don’t pay attention to such things at all. I think it’s all about the angle, more lively facial expressions and the charm that the actress exudes. She is so lively and bright that you simply forget about minor shortcomings (are they shortcomings?) appearance. This obviously didn’t happen in the game because I and many other fans were hooked (pun unintended) on that damn nose.
Same with Abby. Artist "Noty Dog" Jocelyn Mettler, who gave the appearance to this character, really does powerlifting and looks similar to her in-game incarnation. Especially in the photo shoot where she portrays Abby.
But dynamically she is much more attractive. Yes, and in statics too, when Jocelyn moves away from the military image. Loose hair and a sincere smile immediately transform a girl.
But with Tess from the first part Last of Us it’s not that simple. Many have noticed that in the remake, Joel’s partner has aged a lot. The mouth became sunken and slightly enlarged, the nose also underwent “plastic surgery”. All this was thrown on top of a quite beautiful heroine of about 10 years old. Why was this done, if not under the influence of the agli lobby, I don’t know.
And further down the list. Sloane Kelly from the same Mass Effect Andromeda could be shown in a horror movie. The villainous twins from Far Cry: New Dawn look natural like orcs. And Sitara from Watch dogs 2 looks like a body positive lady of easy virtue.
Well, we can’t help but mention Aloy from Horizon, who, having “bang dumplings”, gained 10 kilograms by the second part. On the other hand, this has given rise to so many memes that it’s no longer even a pity.
You can also see how female characters change from year to year using Ubisoft games. If Elisa de la Serre and Evie Fry are really beautiful girls, while having a somewhat unusual appearance.
Then, starting with the “ancient trilogy,” something went wrong for the French. Aya already looks much less feminine, although this is compensated by her feminine gait. Cassandra actually looks like a man whose facial features have been slightly softened. And I’m completely silent about Eivor the woman.
And don’t tell me that a Viking woman can’t be beautiful. I watched the series “Vikings” and I remember very well what Lagertha is like there.
In the series Mortal Kombat There is also a clear trend towards ugly heroines. First, the authors got rid of sexualization by dressing the female fighters in closed outfits (the male fighters are allowed to perform half naked – hello, Johnny Cage and Liu Kang). And then the appearance began to change. Many fans didn’t like how the Sony Blade design was changed. And not only Sony.
Continuing the theme of “ugly” female characters, I would like to note one more thing:. It always seemed to me that the head of the Coastline PMC, Nadine Ross, in addition to Uncharted 4 became less attractive. In the fourth part, she looks like a completely cute female MMA fighter, like Gina Carano or Ronda Rousey. She has a strong, well-built physique, but at the same time quite a pretty face. However, in Lost Legacy she seemed more masculine to me (as if the width of her shoulders had been increased), and her face widened a little. In addition, I was warped by the gap between Nadine’s teeth, which appeared precisely in the add-on.
But! While selecting illustrations for the blog, I discovered that both in the four and in the addition, Nadine’s figure (and, in particular, the width of her shoulders) did not change. But I couldn’t find the notorious gap between the teeth on the screenshots. It is likely that Nadine in the fourth part seemed more pretty due to successful camera angles and lighting, as well as due to the dress, which made her figure more feminine.
As for the gap between the teeth, either I dreamed it, or it was removed with patches. In any case, in all the screenshots that I found, Nadine’s teeth are white and straight.
Women in horror
It’s also worth mentioning the portrayal of women in horror films. My friend thinks that female characters are especially unlucky in this genre. As an example, he cited Alan Wake’s wife, who really was terrible as mortal sin.
But it seems to me that the situation is exactly the opposite, and the above example is rather an exception to the rule. I think that women in horror films, on the contrary, are almost all attractive. I don’t have any questions about the heroines from Until Dawn, and the captain of the yacht from Man of Medan – you’ve basically seen a more beautiful black girl in games?
To Amanda Ripley from Alien Isolation I don’t have any questions either. She is quite attractive, and most importantly, she really looks like a young Sigourney Weaver. Ellie Langford from Dead Space 2 even with one eye will give odds to half of modern female characters. In addition, this madam saves Isaac at the end of the game, for which Gryffindor receives an additional 10 points.
I don’t think there is any need https://sportsbettingmedia.co.uk/ to prove to anyone that Ada Wong, Claire Redfield and Jill Valentine are beauties. The Japanese generally know a lot about female beauty. They even made Lady Dimitrescu sexy. And this is a three-meter-tall vampire who walks around in a strictly closed asexual dress, and in moments of emotional excitement turns into a giant dragon-like krakozyabr.
The Japanese are generally doing great with female characters. Here you have the cool Quiet from MGS 5, which, without further ado, won the love of gamer guys. And Cindy from fifteenth final. And especially Niko from DMC5, who is my personal waifu. She manages to combine the image of a nerd (due to glasses) and a rebel. And her strange way of speaking (something very similar to Ebonics) is a charming feature of this character.
Poles are also not at all shy about female beauty. Both The Witcher and Cyberpunk delighted us with beautiful heroines. Whether it’s the femme fatale Yennefer, who has a thing for unicorns, or the cutie Judy Alvarez. Poles, hang in there!
And how it all began!
In general, I got the feeling that the fashion for beautiful female characters continued somewhere until 2013. Elizabeth from this period also falls into this period Bioshock Infinite, and Miranda and Liara from Mass Effect 2, and rebooted Lara Croft. True, in the last part the designers couldn’t resist and for some reason enlarged Lara’s ass. Although, perhaps some people like it even better.
But one thing is worth noting here. As mentioned above, our perception of a character is influenced not only by how he looks, but by thousands of other little things. How he moves, talks, jokes, reacts to dangerous situations, etc. For example, Alex Vance from Half Life 2 for me, a more attractive girl than the same Tifa from the finale, despite the fact that Tifa wears a top and a skirt, and Alex wears torn jeans and a T-shirt from Black Mesa that has clearly not been washed for a long time. I just perceive Tifa as a walking sex doll, and Alex as a living person. And the attractiveness of a living person is influenced not only by appearance and clothing, but also by a pleasant voice, lively behavior and charm. For example, many were captivated by Alex’s awkward self-make joke about zombies.
What’s the result?
But in the end it’s impossible to say anything definite. On the one hand, in the modern gaming industry there is clearly a trend towards making female characters less attractive. Is this due to an excessive desire for realism, or is this done deliberately so that girls are not forced to impose Victoria’s Secret standards – when how.
The fact that developers are trying to shift the emphasis from model appearance to natural beauty is probably good. But there is often no natural beauty in games. Realism is realism, but for some reason the actresses who give their appearance to the heroines in games look better in real life. Maybe the fact is that designers never learned how to make beautiful characters with photorealistic graphics. Or is it the fact that real facial expressions and a natural manner of speaking give more charm than simulated movements and emotions in a mock-up studio?? This, as they say, detective, is the right question.
Best comments
Well, yes, after all, the same Aloy is such a disgusting fat woman that I can’t even tell.
But in fact, the topic is so subjective and… vague (idk, how else can I put it) that other than simple author’s reasoning, it’s unlikely that any material on this topic can be called. For example, I don’t remember any scary characters from recent games. Not everyone has model looks, yes, but that’s normal. I think the same Abby and Dina from TLOU are quite okay. Not to my taste, of course ( ( ͡ᵔ ͜ʖ ͡ᵔ )), but they are very far from ugly.
And I think that we shouldn’t forget the stupid technical specifics of video game characters, performance capture and other things. The nuance is that even the same TLOU2, which still gives any other game a head start in terms of the quality of facial animations, is still quite far from fully conveying all facial expressions. Place any film next to a frame from “The Swallow” and the difference in facial movements will be instantly obvious.
Not to mention that animations in games can be completed manually, and scanning real people in an attempt to make a 3D model of their appearance is also not always 100% accurate. The only question is how well these inaccuracies are corrected later. And even after that, there will still be a guy who will just catch a random bad shot, and then force it, pointing his finger, saying, “look, what a scary person,” and the entire Internet will steal it into memes. Then try to convince people that the other 99% of the time the character in the frame looks normal.
Interesting blog, with a very controversial topic. Of course, there are big words that you can find fault with. For example, the fact that the actress who played Abby becomes a girl only when she lets her hair down (exaggerating), and who was she before that??
Personally, I also notice this “problem” in games, but I think this is the norm nowadays. I think that it should be all the same, beautiful or ugly, the main character is well-developed and the appearance is justified and integrated into the game competently. (this applies to new characters). But remakes and changes to canonical characters (reducing bust size or covering all parts of the body) are already a disrespect to the developers.
Essentially the whole article is “I like these characters, but these ones, in my opinion, are ugly, I don’t like them”. Very informative. Thank you for keeping me informed, author, this information helps me live .
An extremely subjective blog, no amount of discussion can achieve objectivity here. For example, I don’t consider the comparison between Ebi from the post-apocalypse and real Ebi in makeup to be objective. That’s why I won’t write much.
Beauty is truly subjective, for example, I don’t consider half of the “uglies” on the list as such, just like half of the “beauties”.
But a blog about beauty or sexuality? There may indeed be less sexuality, but beauty? There are enough beautiful women in games, don’t get so hung up on Mass Effect Andromeda, it’s unsuccessful in all aspects.
From the last thing I played Detroit. There are enough beautiful girls in it, or androids.
In short, times are constantly changing. In ten years, everyone can again wear mini-shorts and breast size four. In any case, the market will always be diverse, there will be no “left-liberal dictatorship” of feminists. It was this “left-liberal West” in the 60s that began to “sexualize” women (oh, I don’t like that word), while the rest of the world was screaming about the immoral West and the collapse of Western civilization and. And now conservatives are shaking that they are being deprived of female beauty.
We are not afraid! Everything will be fine. And there will be beautiful women, and there will be ugly men, there will be everyone for every taste.
The fact of the matter is that the worldview is not of “society”, but exclusively of the mentioned “fourth wave feminists” and other fighters. And those of them who have managed to penetrate the cadres of Western game publishers (hello to the “diversity and inclusion” departments in companies such as Activision Blizzard) are actively imposing this worldview on everyone they can.
The trend of avoiding beautiful (or God forbid sexy) heroines began precisely in 2014, after the notorious Gamergate, when all sorts of Anitysarkisians found themselves in the spotlight of gaming journalism and, as a result, PR managers of Western companies. Accordingly, since then, in the games of these companies they have been trying to make the heroines less sexy whenever possible.
But in independent studios and studios, for example, Japanese ones, this trend of disfiguring characters is not so strong. Hence a lot of Japanese and simply non-mainstream games, where the heroines still flaunt feminine forms and a beautiful face.
Aloy from Horizon FW is a great example that refutes the overall strange and controversial message of the author. But the comrade decided not to bother and inserted a fucking meme into a blog that pretends to be, if not objectivity, then at least an opinion. It was hard to take a screenshot from the game itself?
And most importantly, you can offhand name several modern games (all younger than Andromeda), where it is difficult to find at least one ugly female character. Japan (Asia) author in help – the latest games from the Tales of series . Atelier . Final Fantasy, and the same Genshin Impact! Or maybe there were a lot of scary women in Cyberpunk?
It’s good that this is just an author’s blog, and not a serious journalistic investigation. It takes a lot of brains and no time to fit the “facts” to a scandalous (read hype) idea.
A blog entirely dedicated to… random images of female game characters and the author’s reaction to them. I have one question: what is the point of this?? No reasoning on the topic of why and why (for example, in the same Andromeda, all the facial animations were clearly killed not because of the agenda, and Tess in the Last of Us may not be a beauty now, but, Lord, how atmospheric she is now).
But in the end, after this blog, I only learned about the author’s sexual preferences. And ̶К̶а̶с̶с̶а̶н̶д̶р̶а̶ ̶л̶у̶ч̶ш̶а̶я̶ ̶д̶е̶в̶о̶ч̶к̶а̶.̶ ̶а̶ ̶у̶ ̶а̶в̶т̶о̶р̶а̶ ̶н̶е̶т̶ ̶в̶к̶у̶с̶а̶.
to hell with sexualization. turning people into goblins is not cool.
Late, should have opened before blogging.
April’s sexualization is credited to the 1987 cartoon. There was no sexualization in the original comic.
Maybe the fact is that designers never learned how to make beautiful characters with photorealistic graphics.
We learned, the trends are just different. But here again everyone will be saved by the Asians, who are against the propaganda of laziness under the guise of body positivity, and rather profess the principle “everyone can be beautiful if they put in enough effort.”
Specifically on these two points, the author wrote that the Japanese and Poles in Cyberpunk were ok with the beauty of female characters.
It was this “left-liberal West” in the 60s that began to “sexualize” women (oh, I don’t like that word), while the rest of the world was screaming about the immoral West and the collapse of Western civilization and. And now conservatives are shaking that they are being deprived of female beauty.
I will note one nuance – the “left-liberal West of the 60s” – these are today’s conservatives. And today’s “left-liberal dictatorship” is precisely activists who romanticize socialism and communism.
It was really funny with Ela. People watched the trailer at the end of May 2021 and pulled out a couple of unfortunate frames where the heroine’s face seemed to be inflated due to unfinished facial animation. Despite the fact that in exactly the same video the rest of the time she looks absolutely the same as in the first part, for some reason they didn’t care.
And what did I see at the release?? Horrifying cheeks of a body positive ssbbw? Intentionally scary heroine for the sake of feminism. agenda? A desexualized and ugly woman, because such things cannot be shown in Western modern culture? because all this time, especially noisy citizens tried to convince us? That’s right?
Not so. In the game I saw absolutely the same Aloy. A girl with an ordinary appearance, but pleasant facial features, quite cute and attractive. There are even costumes where you can see the heroine’s sensual athletic belly and – OH HORROR. – shaved armpits. The opportunity to give Aloy a makeover also remains. The only thing you can get to the bottom of, WITH A VERY GREAT DESIRE, is that the blush on Aloy’s nose and cheeks may stand out too much in some biomes. However, it was the same in the first part and you don’t notice it at all in the dynamics.
As a result, I’ve already spent many hours in the game in photo mode and I just can’t stop admiring it. Lovers find body positivity everywhere, go through the forest.
oh and yes, Cassandra is a top waifu!
Not the cleanest example, since I remember there was a scandal around David Cage, that sexism, harassment flourishes in his studio, and that’s all. Plus he seems to have inserted scenes with naked Helen Page into the game without permission.
Um… Sheva Alomar? Although, in general, I have no idea – it’s all very subjective.
Probably someone could write half of the forfeits out of the forfeits for this.
But in the end, I still don’t understand whether attractive heroines disappeared from games or not? Probably, if I weren’t lazy, I could also make a blog with discussions on this topic.
But in independent studios and studios, for example, Japanese ones, this trend of disfiguring characters is not so strong.
They have their own trends. Plus, the Japanese have long worked out the same agenda for ordinary girls, in their own style. And they actually brought all kinds of gender neutrality, crossdressing and stranger ideas into mass culture.
Who are Asians, tell me. A very broad concept. I think by Asians we mean Koreans (Southern) and Japanese, yes?
All other Asians are unlikely to act as saviors of “female beauty”. The Chinese are held tightly by the balls by the Communist Party. Muslim Arabs will clearly not promote “female beauty”. What about the Indians I have no idea. We remain in hope of the Koreans and Japanese.
But it’s a funny thing. Personally, everything Korean for women seems soulless to me, for the life of me. I can’t remember a single Korean online MMORPG where I would remember at least one heroine, they are all formulaically uninteresting.
The Japanese do better with this, they make both attractive and interesting. The same 2B is very good in all areas.