So what do female gamers think of Horizon Zero Dawn?

Just curious as to what you female gamers think of the protagonist? She doesn't appear be to over sexualized and she's definitely not a masculine warlord or a bubblehead damsel in distress. I think this game has potential to be great and I'm definitely keeping this one on my radar.

I'm a guy and I think it looks freak'n sweet!

Sony caught everyone by surprise with this one.

This looks amazing...I was about to say "Oh crap, another Assassin's Creed wannabe" and then the game did a 180 and I shut my mouth =P PS4 exclusive, I take it? =/

Looks decent

But just to be a sport i would like to ask where is the male character? after all if this was a male character , all the SJW and Feminists would yell out loud where is the female option.

I think it looks great. More games with a female protaganist or better yet the option for both certainly couldn't hurt.

Are you implying that there is something wrong with wanting a female option in this rapidly growing medium?

One to keep an eye on.

this looks great.. it reminds me a lot of Enslaved and thats a good thing

Apparently so. Which is a good thing. PS4 needs good AAA exclusives.

Lol, soon as Fallout 4 was revealed, one of the first questions was 'can I play as a female?'

Yeah, the point isn't necessarily that every single game needs to have the option to play a female character, it's that the vast majority of games out there have "default white dude" for the protaganist so more games having more diverse characters is a good thing. If you want to play a game where you can play a character who is something like yourself and you happen to be minority or a woman, your options are -very- limited but if you're a white guy then you are covered all to hell by almost every game out there.

-Byshop

No pun intended, seriously, but she talks too much.

Cool.

That's because she's a woman.

@gwynnblade: Noooooo. I'm only covering my ass so I don't get shit for sexism. You could say Nathan talks too much in Uncharted as well. Phew, that was a close one guys.

I'm a guy and from the short amount that was shown of her, I think she's pretty cool.

second that

It is an appealing game because of the technology involved (both in the game and what makes it work) and the lore.

Trip's back for Enslaved 2! ...I mean, yeah she's cool. :P

It's just funny how you don't hear men whining and bitching about characters like Marcus Fenix being 300 pounds of meat, no one takes it seriously.

It will really come down to the story and her place in it. Part of the problem with internet activism is that now every character that belongs to a non-majority category whether that's race or culture or sexual orientation or gender is forced to become an ambassador for that particular group, and if someone out there doesn't like the way that character represents that particular group, there will be drama. It's really not fair to writers.

We could bring up Faith in this discussion as well. Last time around, I saw people complaining her eyes were too slanty and that her design was an asian stereotype. Here's the remodel for reference.

As far as Horizon...I'm buying that game for hair physics. That is some beautiful lettuce.

Are you implying that there is something wrong with wanting a male option?

Yep, spot on, which is why i of course expect there to be a male character option :)

But apparently this equality only works one way,

I don't really like her, too plain and she talks to herself too much.

Please remember than not all women are too self-concious to look at a pretty girl in a video game.

oh dear lord where the hell do I start? When and where has it ever been a problem if a female is sexualized in a game. Seriously dude... You do know we have female protagonists in Mass Effect, Tomb Raider, Dragon Age, Metroid, Heavenly Sword, etc. This is such a stupid statement that i don't really care about the video you've posted because it's ignorant. You do know billions of men get killed in games everyday and nobody gives a **** right?

The game looks great btw.

@Ish_basic said:

It will really come down to the story and her place in it. Part of the problem with internet activism is that now every character that belongs to a non-majority category whether that's race or culture or sexual orientation or gender is forced to become an ambassador for that particular group, and if someone out there doesn't like the way that character represents that particular group, there will be drama. It's really not fair to writers.

We could bring up Faith in this discussion as well. Last time around, I saw people complaining her eyes were too slanty and that her design was an asian stereotype. Here's the remodel for reference.

As far as Horizon...I'm buying that game for hair physics. That is some beautiful lettuce.

Like the old saying goes, 'you can't please ALL of the people, ALL of the time,' I think devs and story writers are scared to tell the stories they want to tell in fear of being flammed for 'misrepresentation' of a specific or left out group of people. As evident by recent Bioware games which play like they're marking of an equals rights checklist instead if just focusing on telling a good story. Minority character? Check. Female protagonist? Check. Same sex romance options? Check.

I actually read how Bioware writers were going around asking some of their acquaintances who are homosexual and transgender gamers to input their thoughts about the Krem script from Dragon Age Inquisition as they were writing and creating his character. Almost like they were focused on making Krem specifically a character to be accepted by the gay community instead of focusing on just writing a good story. Why not ask these same people about the whole story overall as well?

I liked the way Naughty Dog handled Joel from The Last Of Us. You literally had to go out of your way to find the love letter or put two and two together to realize he was homosexual. His character wasn't presented as a 'hey, look gay community, here's an openly gay lead character!' By the time I found out Joel was gay, I didn't even care because I liked his character beforehand. The Witcher 3 did something similar with one of their sidequests which revolves around some dude who was outcasted from the town because for being homosexual.

When devs take this approach and make protagonists and characters out to be in-depth NPC's who just happen to be female, homosexual or whatever, it resonates more believable affect with the overall story because you don't even care what that particular character was, but rather enamored you what impact the story had on you.

From what little we've seen in the Horizon trailer, the story seems to be focused on presenting good writing rather than 'hey look women, here's an action game featuring a female protagonist!' I'm sure they'll still be complaints, but so far it looks good and I think it's a step in the right direction. I was more focused on how good the game looks than the protagonist being a female.

I am sorry what?

Heavenly Sword, Hellblade, Tales of Xillia, Final Fantasy, Drakengard 3, InFamous First Light, The Last of Us, Until Dawn, etc don't count?

Is anyone else wondering why the robots are dinosaurs? I mean I think the game has a ton of potential but before the demo was even over I'm thinking, "Why would the robots be shaped like dinosuars." Under what premise would either people or robots build robots that look like that. 'Hey lets build a robot with tiny useless arms.' 'Should we make them fly?' 'No, screw that. Lets give them weakpoints.' I hope there is a solid explanation in the lore or the whole time I'll be thinking how stupid the enemy design is.

Anita will still find something wrong with her. There better not be a single guy that saves her, or Sony won't hear the end of it.

I have to agree that it's pretty absurd that we haven't gotten over being surprised by female lead characters. I'm happy when it happens, yes, but Horizon isn't groundbreaking or anything. Non-sexualized female leads are more rare (unless you count gender-option games like Mass Effect), so I can see why Horizon is a little more unique in this regard, but still not revolutionary in any capacity. I feel like we should be at the point where we can stop being impressed by female leads and just treat it like a normal event.

Not every female hero needs to be non-sexual, strong, super capable women. There's plenty of room for all types of female heroes in fiction including ones that start off as damsels (Sarah Connor) or ones that are strong and sexual (Bayonetta). I don't want all male heroes to be the same archetype either. Rambo is different from Gordon Freeman, is different from Bond, is different from Kratos. I want variety in female heroes too.

EDIT: OMG, how could I not mention Zoe from Firefly/Serenity. She's one of my favorite badasses of all time; man OR woman.

Exactly! It's nothing new, at all... As a female you could do the same exact thing in Dragon Age fighting big ass monsters.

Couldn't agree more.

I think it would be better if the game gave you the option to play as male or female, I will be honest if the game is female only and she is not hot and sexy then I dont really care much for it.

If the gender of the main character is a huge important for you then quit gaming. It one of the most minor part of the game.

I am getting tired of this over the top sexist against female viewpoint I have ever seen. Some out thing believe that they have the right to bad mouth any female not to fit into their box. The people saying female should stay in the kitchen are not where as bad as those attack females for not being there ideal of how females should be.

I think it's cool. There aren't nearly enough female protagonists in video games who are portrayed in a way equivilent to their male counterparts. It's not really "news" because this should just be a normal thing.

"I actually read how Bioware writers were going around asking some of their acquaintances who are homosexual and transgender gamers to input their thoughts about the Krem script from Dragon Age Inquisition as they were writing and creating his character. Almost like they were focused on making Krem specifically a character to be accepted by the gay community instead of focusing on just writing a good story. Why not ask these same people about the whole story overall as well?"

That's just good research. If you're a writer and you're writing a character type that you have little to no experience with, then you absolutely should try to find out more about the type of person you are going to be writing. The idea that this was an attempt to appease the gay community at the expense of good story is a big leap in logic and is also a bit of a double standard. If I told you that Rockstar did a ton of research on street gangs for several of their GTA games, would you say that's because they wanted to try to make the games as realistic as possible or would you accuse of them of pandering to the "street gang" community?

"I liked the way Naughty Dog handled Joel from The Last Of Us. You literally had to go out of your way to find the love letter or put two and two together to realize he was homosexual. His character wasn't presented as a 'hey, look gay community, here's an openly gay lead character!' By the time I found out Joel was gay, I didn't even care because I liked his character beforehand. The Witcher 3 did something similar with one of their sidequests which revolves around some dude who was outcasted from the town because for being homosexual."

Whether Joel was gay or not is debatable, but I would agree that TLoU had some pretty positive gay character(s) in that not a single one of them was stereotype. Bill was a great example, and Ellie (again, debatable), and there were some hints that Marlene and Ellie's mom might have been more than friends. However, with the exception of Ellie's DLC this isn't a game in which anyone's sexuality is explored. Yes, Bill was gay and yes, he wasn't some offensive gay stereotype and both of those are good things, but for the context of the story the fact that Bill was gay doesn't really effect anything. It's just another character trait like "long hair" or "blue eyes". Had they decided to not make Bill gay, absolutely nothing about the story would have changed. Hell, I don't think they would have even had to change a single line of spoken dialog in the game besides the gag where Ellie teases Joel over the dirty mags she finds.

"When devs take this approach and make protagonists and characters out to be in-depth NPC's who just happen to be female, homosexual or whatever, it resonates more believable affect with the overall story because you don't even care what that particular character was, but rather enamored you what impact the story had on you.

From what little we've seen in the Horizon trailer, the story seems to be focused on presenting good writing rather than 'hey look women, here's an action game featuring a female protagonist!' I'm sure they'll still be complaints, but so far it looks good and I think it's a step in the right direction. I was more focused on how good the game looks than the protagonist being a female."

I agree that good story should always take priority, but it's a bit more complex than that. There are two main ways of handling the creation of a video game protaganist. One of the ways you can handle it is by creating a character that is essentially a blank slate. You see this in games like WRPGs where you can create your character (or characters) completely from scratch, In games like this, the traits of the main character are often interchangable and don't directly relate to the story (like in Fallout) or are pretty much non-existent even though the character is fixed like in Half Life. For games that let you create your own character(s), not allowing the player to create a female character is often just lazy. For games where it's more about you projecting yourself into the game world, I can understand why some people get annoyed when they aren't allowed to create a character that's anything like -them- unless there's a specific reason why.

The other kind is when you have a fully fleshed out character already written and designed as a part of the story. You get this in more narrative heavy games like JRPGs, TLoU, the Uncharted series, etc. In these games the writer is telling the story of a character or characters. In these types of games, it doesn't make sense to just shoehorn a "dual gender" option in. However, it's also about who the story is being written -for-. Bayonetta is a strong, female character, but with all her stripper-dance-pole-moves fighting style and "clothes" that fly off of her when you achieve higher combos could you honestly say that game is written -for- women?

-Byshop

Are you aware of that most hardcore gamers are males?

Now you going to get a link to a study that shows that about 50% of player for arcade/apps games and video games are females. Then told they should deal with the 50% of females that play video game since they falsely assume a super grouping represent a sub-grouping.

The fact that most games that fall into what you'd probably call "hard core" are written by/for men is likely a contributing factor to that.

Besides that, the distinction between "hard core" and "casual" is pointless. It's a way that traditional gamers try to differentiate themselves as the true, core audience for gaming. It's basically a "no true Scottsman" argument, portraying other groups like mobile gamers as something less relevant.

-Byshop

@wiouds: Here you go matey

Here, you can skip to the 3 minute mark

and here

Isen´t that a easy way out Byshop.

Or do you really think that the reason why a big majority of what we could call "hardcore" gamers are male, is because the games are made for males?. Because that is kinda a ludicrous notion and if females really are that shallow then why isn't it ok for males to be the same? Meaning that if we instead make a character only female, it will not appeal to male gamers.

And of course the distinction between "hardcore" and "Softcore" is not pointless, since it seems to be a well used argument that the share is 50/50 male/Female, and that is why the gaming industry of course should change their games.

I think you missed my earlier post because I basically said the opposite of this. If a game has a female protaganist, that doesn't necessarily mean that women are the target audience of that game. DOA Beach Volleyball only has female playable characters, but do you really think that game was designed for a female audience? Just making games with a female character cut and pasted into the main character slot doesn't change anything.

Try to take a step back in your thinking about games in general. What are "hard core" games? Competitive RTS, multiplayer FPS, etc. These are games that are predominantly played by male gamers. They are the types of games that companies spend the most money on. They are the ones that are the most advertising is spent on and as a result, these are the types of games most people think of when they think of the gaming industry. Does this mean that these games are the "end all, be all" of the industry? Not even close. Mobile is a part of this landscape, too, and it is -killing- it in sales. For better or for worse, Candy Crush pulled 1.4 BILLION in 2014 alone and it keeps pulling. No single CoD game has done that well.

My point is that the games that we typically call "hard core" are typically games that are geared towards a male audience and -not- just because the main character happens to be male. When we say hard core we mean genres geared towards male gamers, so of course female gamers don't play "hard core" games as much. We're just so used to the idea that these are the "real" games so girls must not be "real" gamers because they don't like them as much.

-Byshop

If you looked at the videos i shared, they explain it very well. Especially the Sargon video. There are two different markets, because both genders in general play different games. Male gamers usually play console/pc games. Where most games are action oriented games in some capacity. While female gamers like my mom, play games on the ipad like solving puzzles and building games like farmville.

I don't know why some people seem so against having diversity in gaming. They'll point to Bioware proclaiming that they're "pandering" to the PC crowd. Well perhaps they are just making the games the way they want to make them. They'll point to statistics and charts and say, "See, see! The 'hardcore' gamer is this or that demographic.". Well perhaps more diversity will expand the demographic and make it more diverse as well. There's no reason to being so myopic and selfish when it comes to gaming. Diversity is a great thing all around, there should be plenty for everyone.

I agree.

Pretty much sums up my point. The "well girls don't like hardcore games anway" argument is circular logic, because the games/genres we call hardcore are geared towards male gamers. I don't like the term "hardcore" because it implies that people who play hardcore games are the -real- gamers, which is BS.

-Byshop

She kinda reminds me of that red headed chick from the wildlings, you know? Game of thrones.

Lol, you are over analyzing my question with pointless insults. It's people like you who give gamers a bad rep. This is why threads with good intentions go to shit and turn into a pointless back and forth banter.

You wouldn't dare speak that way to a stranger face to face, so why do it online? Anonymity behind a keyboard makes you feel more courageous and outspoken? The only relevant words in what you posted are 'the game looks great'. All that other bullshit you typed was unnecessary.

@The_Last_Ride: Please, for the sake of everyone participating in Games Discussion, add discussion content when you post videos rather than posting videos with short comments essentially saying watch them and which parts, in particular, you would like people to view.

Looks cooler than the Witcher 3.

Don't see why this is a gender issue. It's a game.