VGCollect Forum
General and Gaming => Modern Video Games => Topic started by: weirdfeline on March 04, 2026, 04:52:32 pm
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It's been rumored for a week or two now that Sony is going to make their single player games exclusive once again, Jason Schreier is now confirming this in Bloomberg.
https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-03-04/sony-pulls-back-from-playstation-games-on-pc
Ghost of Yotei will not receive a PC port nor will the upcoming Saros. This seems to be limited to first party games because Death Stranding 2 and Kena 2 are both coming to PC.
Online multiplayer games/live service games such as Marathon and Marvel Tokon: Fighting Souls will still be released for PC.
Apparently they are concerned this will hurt console sales if they continue to release on PC, uhhh duh?
Clearly the real reason for this sudden change is that they are mad they don't have a valid reason to shut down Nixxes so they are creating a reason to.
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Dang its going to suck when Horizon 3 is finally announced and its only going to be for PS5. Dang shame they never released Uncharted Nathan Drake Collection on PC as we only got Legacy of Thieves one.
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I don't pretend to be an industry expert or insider, but it seems like releasing AAA games exclusively for a single platform is no longer a financially viable option. Sure, I don't think Sony should be releasing their first party games on XBOX or Switch 2, but that PC market is expanding and already pretty large. Even if you maintain console exclusivity for a year or so, it's better than never releasing them on PC ever, at least from a financial standpoint.
In a way, I do get where Sony is coming from with this as well. More and more gamers are moving away from consoles entirely, which is obviously bad news for the companies making consoles. We all know XBOX's future is complete toast, however I'm sure Microsoft hardly cares since all the PC gamers are gaming on Windows machines anyways. Nintendo is sort of its own ecosystem and experience, mostly separate from what Sony and Microsoft have been doing for the last two decades. That leaves Sony who's sort of the last man standing. However, I think Sony has really dropped the ball this last gen with making the PS5 a meaningful purchase for exclusive experiences. I remember every previous console having a ton of exclusives, both first and third party. The PS5 however has been mostly lacking in this department with most of its games being multiplats, even when disregarding what's also on the PC.
I guess this just all highlights how precarious the game industry is right now. I read a few weeks ago that something like a third of all game industry employees have been laid off since like 2022 or something. There are other signs the industry is just not healthy at the moment either. I've said this before, but I feel like the whole AAA game model has become somewhat unsustainable. Sure, it works out incredibly well if your game is a mega hit, but if it's anything less than that, your studio faces imminent closure. I think these bigger studios needs to focus more on less expensive, AA games, or even budget games made by small, talented teams. I feel like this would work better than putting all your eggs in one basket and betting the farm on a single game.
Anyhow, now I'm going off on a tangent. But yeah, I don't think it's feasible for Sony to make their first party games exclusive despite me seeing the motivation to do so.
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Let 'em. Sony's 1st-party studios don't make a single thing that interests me anymore. The only thing they had was Stellar Blade, but that's going independent now that Shift-Up can afford to self-publish. I lost interest in Horizon after they made Aloy canonically lesbian in the Burning Shores DLC for Forbidden West, a baffling move that had no relevance to the plot and served no purpose other than to push an agenda. Everything else they make is nearly-identical 3rd-person over the shoulder open world slop with the same gameplay loop. First-party exclusives really have become the new shovelware, along with most of what the AAA devs put out these days.
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Hard to say, it works for nintendo for sure, they would lose mad money in the longrun if they where to release their games on pc aswell.
if the games are really good people would be forced to get a console and get in their system instead of buying it for cheap on pc.
game prices are generally higher on console than on pc.
Problem with sony is that they have not been consistent in terms of exclusivity anymore so it would need to be something really longterm for it to pay off again and they would need to stick with it.
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Let 'em. Sony's 1st-party studios don't make a single thing that interests me anymore. The only thing they had was Stellar Blade, but that's going independent now that Shift-Up can afford to self-publish. I lost interest in Horizon after they made Aloy canonically lesbian in the Burning Shores DLC for Forbidden West, a baffling move that had no relevance to the plot and served no purpose other than to push an agenda. Everything else they make is nearly-identical 3rd-person over the shoulder open world slop with the same gameplay loop. First-party exclusives really have become the new shovelware, along with most of what the AAA devs put out these days.
Yet, Stellar Blade is another third-person action-adventure game albeit one that panders to the male gaze with one-dimensional, overt objectification for no purpose other than that sex sells.
Nevertheless, what kinds of games published by Sony from earlier generations do you like that you think has been abandoned in more recent years? It's not an uncommon opinion you're presenting, but I'm curious since I don't often see people actually elaborate on their view.
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Let 'em. Sony's 1st-party studios don't make a single thing that interests me anymore. The only thing they had was Stellar Blade, but that's going independent now that Shift-Up can afford to self-publish. I lost interest in Horizon after they made Aloy canonically lesbian in the Burning Shores DLC for Forbidden West, a baffling move that had no relevance to the plot and served no purpose other than to push an agenda. Everything else they make is nearly-identical 3rd-person over the shoulder open world slop with the same gameplay loop. First-party exclusives really have become the new shovelware, along with most of what the AAA devs put out these days.
Yet, Stellar Blade is another third-person action-adventure game albeit one that panders to the male gaze with one-dimensional, overt objectification for no purpose other than that sex sells.
Nevertheless, what kinds of games published by Sony from earlier generations do you like that you think has been abandoned in more recent years? It's not an uncommon opinion you're presenting, but I'm curious since I don't often see people actually elaborate on their view.
Stellarblade perhaps went a bit over the top but there ain't anything wrong with making your characters look good besides they where trying to replicate said model the used for her and I think they did a good job. allot of modern western games make female characters ugly or very manly looking these days in which they get backlash from the community. stellarblade gave the finger to that trend hence why people often go to it.
In general asian studio's seem to ignore that trend. It seems to be a checkbox for western game development.
for example this is how rainbow six did 2B nier dlc
(https://i.imgur.com/dtZqDLM.png)
(https://i.imgur.com/VlwnTPT.jpeg)
This was a super meme example looks nothing like 2B at all looks like an actual man cosplaying as 2B
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TZN0LhdZoI (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_TZN0LhdZoI)
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Yet, Stellar Blade is another third-person action-adventure game albeit one that panders to the male gaze with one-dimensional, overt objectification for no purpose other than that sex sells.
Nevertheless, what kinds of games published by Sony from earlier generations do you like that you think has been abandoned in more recent years? It's not an uncommon opinion you're presenting, but I'm curious since I don't often see people actually elaborate on their view.
And that's a good thing. Overtly sexy women are a welcome change after 10+ years of deliberately ugly designs being pumped out by the western games industry to avoid offending psychologically fragile women. One-dimensional characters work just fine as video game protagonists in anything that isn't a movie game or a JRPG. Link, Leon S. Kennedy, Raiden (MGS series), Doomguy, (Pre-Reboot) Lara Croft, Mario, Donkey Kong, and Dante are all one-dimensional but still beloved video game protagonists. I could list even more if I wanted to. They work because video games are fundamentally different from film or books by virtue of being games. The purpose of a game is to be fun. A game doesn't need to tell a deep story to be fun. The protagonist is just a digital meat suit the player puts on to interact with the environment. They don't need to be deep. Leon and Raiden in particular were designed for the female gaze. Raiden only exists because Kojima was told by a high school girl that Snake was unattractive and she wanted a younger, cuter protagonist in the next game. His cyborg redesigns in MGS4 and Rising are blatant femboy fetish pandering, just look at the high heels built into his cyborg body. It was even more obvious in his first design for Metal Gear Solid: Rising before it was handed over to Platinum and became Rising: Revengeance. Yet the female gaze is fine, according to the industry. I'm really sick of being told that women can have attractive one-dimensional male characters, but men are evil for wanting attractive one-dimensional female characters.
The most damaging thing gamers ever did was trying to get video games recognized as art. After that movement took off, wannabe filmmakers flooded the industry and now everything has to be an interactive movie. Can a movie game be done right? Absolutely, Mafia: The Old Country is a great example of such. It's quick, well-acted, and to the point. But more often than not it's a detriment to the game, such as Hellblade 2's opening where you spend 30-45 minutes just running forward, Red Dead Redemption 2's pointless chores and long, unskippable skinning animations, and The Metal Gear Solid series' excessively long infodumps (especially MGS4, which had an ending cut scene that lasted 2 hours). And Sony has gone all in on the movie game bandwagon, so they've lost me.
Some IPs I loved that Sony abandoned were SOCOM, Resistance, and the Japan Studio works like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian. Do I want them to bring those back? Hell no. I don't want modern Sony touching those classics with a 10-foot pole. We need to let old franchises die for their own good. The modern games industry is Pet Sematary for video games. Yeah, you can bring them back, but they'll be different, they'll be changed. It won't be them anymore, just something dark wearing their skins. Sometimes, dead is better.
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Yet, Stellar Blade is another third-person action-adventure game albeit one that panders to the male gaze with one-dimensional, overt objectification for no purpose other than that sex sells.
Nevertheless, what kinds of games published by Sony from earlier generations do you like that you think has been abandoned in more recent years? It's not an uncommon opinion you're presenting, but I'm curious since I don't often see people actually elaborate on their view.
And that's a good thing. Overtly sexy women are a welcome change after 10+ years of deliberately ugly designs being pumped out by the western games industry to avoid offending psychologically fragile women. [...] Yet the female gaze is fine, according to the industry. I'm really sick of being told that women can have attractive one-dimensional male characters, but men are evil for wanting attractive one-dimensional female characters.
It seems that you have a misunderstanding of what the male gaze is based on your thoughts regarding what you believe the female gaze is. Neither of the two are defined by the characteristics of what's being viewed but instead by the act of viewing itself. Whereas the male gaze perpetuates the notion that women exist to be seen by, enjoyed by, and to please men, these are not qualities evident of the female gaze. In fact, the female gaze has nothing to do with men at all but is centered around women reclaiming lost personhood and empowering themselves from the default counterpart.
With that said, I think that there are an insignificant number of people who take issue that attractive characters of any gender exist in games; instead, what is bothering is when a character's physical appearance is designed to be engaged with disparagingly in the aforementioned ways while that same character is simultaneously robbed of any agency over it. Conveniently, sworddude has mentioned the character 2B from Nier: Automata who can be an example of a woman character who not only safeguards her agency but actively rejects the male gaze (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0mx_BFUHP2U). This is evident when the player attempts to look up her skirt and she forcibly redirects the camera's positioning.
Of course, the condition of women characters being gazed upon by the player audience of video games is but an extension to the real world experiences by real women but, for the sake of this conversation, is being emphasized in the context of games considering the nature of the forum and discussion.
Some IPs I loved that Sony abandoned were SOCOM, Resistance, and the Japan Studio works like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian. Do I want them to bring those back? Hell no. I don't want modern Sony touching those classics with a 10-foot pole. We need to let old franchises die for their own good.
I agree, albeit my stance is more grounded from the perspective that new creativity should be fostered instead of indefinitely relying upon previous successes. And if you weren't aware, director of the three games you've mentioned Ueda is working on their own project after having left Sony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7duXPcEYb0). I suppose the game could still be published by Sony, though.
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While we may never know just how successful or not Sony's PC ports may actually be in the context of internal financial expectations, I imagine that Sony's decision to abandon the PC market will, for the time being at least, be worthwhile. From my understanding, their PC ports don't release on the same day as the console counterparts, and it can be many years until they enter a this market space. But this decision to revert business plans shouldn't come as a surprise to anyone, really, as Sony's priority is to their own hardware market. Were it otherwise, there would be no need for consumers to buy PlayStation hardware.
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And if you weren't aware, director of the three games you've mentioned Ueda is working on their own project after having left Sony (https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=g7duXPcEYb0). I suppose the game could still be published by Sony, though.
His next game is funded and published by Epic Games like Alan Wake II was and Playdead's next game.
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I lost interest in Horizon after they made Aloy canonically lesbian in the Burning Shores DLC for Forbidden West, a baffling move that had no relevance to the plot and served no purpose other than to push an agenda.
Why does being a lesbian need to be plot relevant? Why can't she just be a lesbian.... cause she's a lesbian? There are tons of characters who we know are straight that serve no purpose to the plot. In the first Uncharted we know that Drake is straight, but it doesn't matter to the story at all. It does help develop his character though, as we get to see him develop a crush on Elena Fisher by the end of the game. Likewise, seeing Alloy become closer to Seyka doesn't really matter to the overall plot (yet, more developments could happen in Horizon 3 that make the relationship relevant), but it matters for her character development as we see them getting close.
Anyways, back on topic, it really doesn't matter to me because of the way I collect. I buy Sony published games on PlayStation and Microsoft Studios published games on Xbox. So no change in how I was playing their games. But for people who just play on Xbox or PC yeah it stinks. Sony might not be what they once were, but they do still release solid games overall, and every now and then a real gem comes out. Astro Bot comes to mind for example. When I think about their output recently though they don't really release that many games, so overall its a small loss (a loss all the same though, and I much prefer more consumer friendly practices than less).
I think a big reason for them though is the fact that Xbox is moving towards a more "PC" like architecture, as well as the new Steam console. If I was looking for a new console, and saw that all of PlayStations games were on these other consoles plus games that only release "on PC", I wouldn't be buying a PlayStation (assuming I could get 1 console). Steam takes 30% of game sales, so even though they might be selling the same or more games in such a situation, they might end up making less money because people are not buying them from Sony.
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Why does being a lesbian need to be plot relevant? Why can't she just be a lesbian.... cause she's a lesbian? There are tons of characters who we know are straight that serve no purpose to the plot. In the first Uncharted we know that Drake is straight, but it doesn't matter to the story at all. It does help develop his character though, as we get to see him develop a crush on Elena Fisher by the end of the game. Likewise, seeing Alloy become closer to Seyka doesn't really matter to the overall plot (yet, more developments could happen in Horizon 3 that make the relationship relevant), but it matters for her character development as we see them getting close.
If a character in a game doesn't have sex on-screen, I don't want to know what their sexual orientation is because it has no relevance to the story or gameplay. Horizon was never about whether Aloy liked men or women, it was about fighting robot dinosaurs and saving the earth from killer AI. Suddenly declaring a character's sexual orientation over two games into the series is like walking into a living room and blasting a foghorn while everyone else is trying to watch TV. It adds nothing to the experience and only serves to either get attention or piss people off. What's even worse is how it was handled, because the player makes dialogue choices for Aloy throughout the series, but here there wasn't even an option for a hard no. The strongest negative you could choose was, "I'm not ready for this right now/don't need this right now." That's not a refusal, it's a "maybe later."
Romance subplots in general are usually poorly done and used as a cheap way to "add depth" to characters without adding any real substance to them. I really despise shipper culture and how it's created a trend of "Oh, there's two characters! We need to make them shack up!" in modern media. The only stories that benefit from romance are the ones designed around it in the first place. I'd still have been disappointed if they paired Aloy up with a man, though not as much because a heterosexual relationship would have been less aberrant. Yeah, homosexuality exists in nature. So do ebola, rabies, and scat-eating, but very few people want to see those either. Bottom line: if you want to make a game with gay characters, just create your own IP (like the people who made 1348 Ex Voto) and deal with the lower sales numbers. Don't shoehorn your agenda into an existing IP with its own established fanbase so you can piggyback off brand recognition, you'll just piss people off.
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Seems this conversation went a couple oddball directions. Let me start with the topic at hand first.
No exclusives mean there's little reason to buy the console. It's one of the many reasons Xbox has been floundering the last couple generations. Since last gen, Xbox has been porting its games to PC and giving us the proof that ports equate less console sales. On the flip side of that coin, as bikingjahuty stated, the developement costs for AAA games have ballooned to the point that most aren't financially viable to remain in one ecosystem. Playstation and Nintendo remain viable due to their larger userbase but for Xbox, that ship sailed a long time ago. It really all depends on how popular the game is and the sales on said platform.
I've been saying since the start of Microsoft's PC porting that they're on a slippery slope and soon enough, Xbox will become irrelevent. We're now at that time, especially with Microsoft now porting their "exclusvies" to Playstation and even Switch 2. There is no reason to buy Xbox hardware.
Now... onto the other topics.
Not all game characters are required to be "attractive". That's the thought when the PS4 gen really began switching from mostly attractive to mostly "realistic". There's two versions of realistic in this sense. There's the Lara Croft realistic where they turned her from sexy bombshell into a more down to earth, girl nextdoor, with regular sized breasts... not the oversized balloons from the PS1 days guaranteed to give any woman back problems by her 40's. Then there's the realistic in that the faces of said characters are just... well... unappealing. I personally rate attractiveness based on the face first. Then I move down to the body type and decide if she looks healthy. Not body positivity healthy... but the healthy any Millennial and older would recall from their childhood and early adulthood.
The male gaze as in, sex sells (yes, that's what I'm going with), meaning main female characters are required to be scantily clad like in Stellar Blade, MGS 5, Dead or Alive, etc. etc.... Those games aren't going for realistic. Going back to Tomb Raider, even when I was playing the first couple games on PS1 as a teenager, I thought to myself that wearing shorts while running around in the snow was dumb for anyone to do. Then I quickly remembered it's a videogame and ignored the reality of it.
Now let's pivot into the other topic, the modern industry, as the above ties into it quite nicely. One of the reasons so many female characters are unattractive, or part of the LGBTQ community, or take the fun of war (in various forms), giving it an Animal Crossing skin (looking at Warcraft), is because Feminism took over this and most other western entertainment industries. Within the big western developers, are mostly female devs (look at recent developer team photographs) with a very specific lens they view the world through and they can't capture what made games great for men. Modern devs don't understand men because they employ so few and probably don't have any willing to stand for any masculine principals for fear of being shunned and/or fired like those that came before. And yeah, I'm being nice in this paragraph.
We don't see many strong male leads or attractive women in western games anymore because of that worldview. It's how we get abomiations like Horizon: Hunters Gathering. Honestly, when they revealed the upcoming Tomb Raider games, I was pleasently surprised they made young Lara attractive. Even her older self in the upcoming Catalyst is attractive given that she's in her 40's at that point.
Here's the thing. It's not that these "realistic" characters don't belong in gaming. It's that they don't belong in EVERY western game as has been the push for more than a decade. You can take this next line and apply it to any part of the modern era. People are sick of being beat over the head by the leftist agenda. And yes, feminism is leftist. Everything ties together and people have had enough. It's why AAA gaming isn't nearly as strong as it once was. It's why Hollywood is failing. It's why modern television is failing. It's even why mainstream book publishing is failing. Thank God for the independent developers and creatores because they are saving the entertainment industry.
As much as I would love to see Uncharted continue, there's no way in hell I would want modern Naughty Dog, or any mainstream developer touching the series. Modern corporate creators DO NOT care about the fans. They DO NOT care about the stories. They ONLY care about pushing an agenda over EVERYTHING else.
The modern games industry is Pet Sematary for video games. Yeah, you can bring them back, but they'll be different, they'll be changed. It won't be them anymore, just something dark wearing their skins. Sometimes, dead is better.
(https://i.imgur.com/f7FdEdG.jpg)
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And that's a good thing. Overtly sexy women are a welcome change after 10+ years of deliberately ugly designs being pumped out by the western games industry to avoid offending psychologically fragile women. One-dimensional characters work just fine as video game protagonists in anything that isn't a movie game or a JRPG. Link, Leon S. Kennedy, Raiden (MGS series), Doomguy, (Pre-Reboot) Lara Croft, Mario, Donkey Kong, and Dante are all one-dimensional but still beloved video game protagonists. I could list even more if I wanted to. They work because video games are fundamentally different from film or books by virtue of being games. The purpose of a game is to be fun. A game doesn't need to tell a deep story to be fun. The protagonist is just a digital meat suit the player puts on to interact with the environment. They don't need to be deep. Leon and Raiden in particular were designed for the female gaze. Raiden only exists because Kojima was told by a high school girl that Snake was unattractive and she wanted a younger, cuter protagonist in the next game. His cyborg redesigns in MGS4 and Rising are blatant femboy fetish pandering, just look at the high heels built into his cyborg body. It was even more obvious in his first design for Metal Gear Solid: Rising before it was handed over to Platinum and became Rising: Revengeance. Yet the female gaze is fine, according to the industry. I'm really sick of being told that women can have attractive one-dimensional male characters, but men are evil for wanting attractive one-dimensional female characters.
The most damaging thing gamers ever did was trying to get video games recognized as art. After that movement took off, wannabe filmmakers flooded the industry and now everything has to be an interactive movie. Can a movie game be done right? Absolutely, Mafia: The Old Country is a great example of such. It's quick, well-acted, and to the point. But more often than not it's a detriment to the game, such as Hellblade 2's opening where you spend 30-45 minutes just running forward, Red Dead Redemption 2's pointless chores and long, unskippable skinning animations, and The Metal Gear Solid series' excessively long infodumps (especially MGS4, which had an ending cut scene that lasted 2 hours). And Sony has gone all in on the movie game bandwagon, so they've lost me.
Some IPs I loved that Sony abandoned were SOCOM, Resistance, and the Japan Studio works like Ico, Shadow of the Colossus, and The Last Guardian. Do I want them to bring those back? Hell no. I don't want modern Sony touching those classics with a 10-foot pole. We need to let old franchises die for their own good. The modern games industry is Pet Sematary for video games. Yeah, you can bring them back, but they'll be different, they'll be changed. It won't be them anymore, just something dark wearing their skins. Sometimes, dead is better.
This might be the greatest post I've ever seen on this forum, and an award should be given for it.
I'm so tired of the "gamers need characters they can identify with" view. No we don't. The character onscreen isn't an avatar or representation of me, they're just the puppet I'm using to create the experience I want to see. Do I identify with an anthropomorphic bandicoot, a dude with a mushroom head, or a princess in a frilly pink dress? No, and that's okay. Am I upset that Way of the Samurai has no option to play as a non-Japanese guy who looks like me? Not at all.
If I can choose my own character, I pick a female most of the time. It's not from secretly wanting to be a woman, I just think sexy women kicking ass is entertaining. I don't think it matters if a design is realistic or not. Just make it fun, and it'll sell just fine.
After Dragon's Crown came out in 2013, most of the world forgot how to have fun.
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Just because you don't feel the need to be represented in the media you consume doesn't mean everyone feels the same way.
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Just because you don't feel the need to be represented in the media you consume doesn't mean everyone feels the same way.
Just for amusing arguments sake, let's explore how much you agree with your own statement.
Should I be upset that Kingdom Come: Deliverance II, a game set in medieval central Europe, doesn't have any black female representation?
If an Assassin's Creed game was set in Africa during the wars between the Oyo empire and the kingdom of Dahomey, would it be reasonable of me to complain that there are no white male characters?
If an Indian developer created an excellent new open world game with fat Indian woman as the main character, am I justified in being dismayed that there's no option to change her hair color to match mine?
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You've intentionally chosen a narrow set of examples in an effort to refute something I never said.
I'm a 40 something straight white man. I sometimes find it interesting and refreshing to put in the shoes of characters whose lives do not resemble my own, and sometimes I don't. Depends entirely on the game, movie, book, or whatever I'm presented with.
You said gamers don't like it. I'm a gamer and I think its great. The existence of titles that can allow someone to feel represented through those kinds of options and designs doesn't stop other games from existing.
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The existence of titles that can allow someone to feel represented through those kinds of options and designs doesn't stop other games from existing.
Therein lies the problem. For an entire generation+ mainstream western developers have pushed for anything other than white male characters and/or the uglification of characters. It quite literally prevented other "games" from existing. I'm honestly surprised Bond, in his upcoming game, was kept as a white male.
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As usual the best selling games of 2025 were CoD, Battlefield, Madden, and other various sports titles. Games that represent white dudes have gone nowhere.
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I sometimes find it interesting and refreshing to put in the shoes of characters whose lives do not resemble my own, and sometimes I don't. Depends entirely on the game, movie, book, or whatever I'm presented with.
You said gamers don't like it. I'm a gamer and I think its great. The existence of titles that can allow someone to feel represented through those kinds of options and designs doesn't stop other games from existing.
People with opposing views to these sorts of changes in gaming may say that they have no issue in assuming the role of anyone's identity—that they themselves personally don't need to be represented, or that they can look past on-screen representations altogether. But that's not true as we've seen that demonstrated several times in this topic alone. Some with these views may want to feel visibly represented by character design foremost whether they admit to it or not. In many of these same cases, what's also wanted is the need to feel represented by the values they support, including values that directly oppose others.
If these claim were true, there wouldn't be issues when new character identities are introduced within gaming, including within established IPs. But they aren't true, and such opposition is often for no reason other than they certain demographics exist at all in gaming. Gaming isn't just a hobby mostly enjoyed by the narrow demographic it once was defined by throughout the '90s—something that may seem unwilling to accept. It should go without saying that the types of games people enjoyed then are still being made too. Maybe they're less dominated by certain character depictions while instead fostering new ones, or maybe characters have sometimes been adjusted to cater to the expectations of modern audiences that again isn't strictly defined by white men only. No type of character or game has disappeared, though, much to anyone's testament otherwise.
Why women players in particular take issue with the design choices of women characters is that the former not only has felt historically misrepresented but simultaneously exploited in ways they already deal with in real life. It isn't that they're "psychologically fragile," which is, frankly, an incredibly misogynistic statement to make. When that sort of commentary was being voiced in this topic, I quickly confronted it. As a longtime and active community member, I don't want that sort of rhetoric to feel welcome here.
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We don't see many strong male leads or attractive women in western games anymore because of that worldview.
Therein lies the problem. For an entire generation+ mainstream western developers have pushed for anything other than white male characters and/or the uglification of characters. It quite literally prevented other "games" from existing. I'm honestly surprised Bond, in his upcoming game, was kept as a white male.
I was curious about what the actual ratio is between games featuring white men as protagonists versus any other protagonist may be. So, I specifically looked at games published by Sony and developed by Western studios since 2017 (*with two exceptions I'll note.) I've excluded games featuring non-human protagonists, games with no clearly-defined protagonist, or games with racially-ambiguous protagonists. So, here is that list, with information sourced from here (https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_Sony_Interactive_Entertainment_video_games):
God of War (2018)
Marvel's Spider-Man (2018)
Shadow of the Colossus (2018)
Days Gone (2019)
Death Stranding (2019) (*this is a Japanese-developed game heavily commenting on American politics and culture and seems appropriate to include; see sequel below)
Blood & Truth (2019)
Marvel's Iron Man VR (2020)
God of War Ragnarök (2022)
Horizon Call of the Mountain (2023)
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (2025) (*see first installment above)
God of War Sons of Sparta (2026)
I will also note that, specifically, games with the same criteria but featuring non-white men protagonists are few. They are only Ghost of Tsushima (2020) and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020).
Since opposition to the presumed shift of protagonists from AAA studios (I'm interpreting that from "mainstream Western developers") is typically vocal about which women characters (of all ethnicities) are or aren't attractive (which I'll note is a shallow metric needing to be fulfilled and again relates to misogyny—how often is that same metric applied to men characters?), I've merely listed them all below since no objective definition toward attractiveness can be made. Again, these are protagonists from games with the same criteria as outlined above.
Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (2017)
Erica (2019)
The Last of Us Part II (2020)
Returnal (2021)
Horizon Forbidden West (2022)
Ghost of Yōtei (2025)
If I've overlooked any other items for any of the above subsets, it was unintentional.
Thank God for the independent developers and creatores because they are saving the entertainment industry.
Interestingly, you credit independent and small-budget developers as being the ones to "save" gaming, though they're overwhelmingly the ones who incorporate characters, settings, and plots defined by the aspects you're critiquing.
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God of War (2018) -- Continuation of PS2 game.
Marvel's Spider-Man (2018) -- Decades of history.
Shadow of the Colossus (2018) -- Remake of a PS2 game.
Days Gone (2019) -- New IP. I'll allow it.
Death Stranding (2019) (*this is a Japanese-developed game heavily commenting on American politics and culture and seems appropriate to include; see sequel below) -- Japanese dev. Doesn't count.
Blood & Truth (2019) -- Not heard of this one. I'll look into it.
Marvel's Iron Man VR (2020) -- Decades of history. VR = vomit.
God of War Ragnarök (2022) -- Continunation of PS2 legacy series.
Horizon Call of the Mountain (2023) -- I honestly ignored this one. VR = vomit.
Death Stranding 2: On the Beach (2025) (*see first installment above) -- Japanese dev. Doesn't count.
God of War Sons of Sparta (2026) -- Half-assed prequel to PS2 legacy series.
I will also note that, specifically, games with the same criteria but featuring non-white men protagonists are few. They are only Ghost of Tsushima (2020) and Marvel's Spider-Man: Miles Morales (2020).
Horizon Zero Dawn (2017)
Uncharted: The Lost Legacy (2017)
Erica (2019)
The Last of Us Part II (2020)
Returnal (2021)
Horizon Forbidden West (2022)
Ghost of Yōtei (2025)
If I've overlooked any other items for any of the above subsets, it was unintentional.[/font]
Thank God for the independent developers and creatores because they are saving the entertainment industry.
Interestingly, you credit independent and small-budget developers as being the ones to "save" gaming, though they're overwhelmingly the ones who incorporate characters, settings, and plots defined by the aspects you're critiquing.
Actually, we're finally seeing a good spread of ideas and characters int he indie space. They don't have gate keepers trying to spit in the face of what was once the demographic, but is now shunned.
Let me add to your list of non-white males.
- Forspoken
- Deathloop
- Flintlock: Siege of Dawn
- South of Midnight
- Relooted
- Jurassic Park: Survival
Look, it's not even about white vs other demographics. It's not about female vs male. It's that most gamers, yeah, most, are sick and tired of the constant preachy agenda. It's been so over the top for the last 15 years with escalation in all areas that even a whif of it and it's an immediate ignore from swaths of potential customers. It doesn't matter if the game is even decent anymore. It'll be ignored before it's even attempted because we're that sick of it. By all means, you do you. But I'm not going to purchase anything attempting to shame me for being born white or male.
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As usual the best selling games of 2025 were CoD, Battlefield, Madden, and other various sports titles. Games that represent white dudes have gone nowhere.
You listed sports and dude bro games that went full woke. Battlefield 6 forces you to listen to women scream in agony as they're shot, making the good unlockable skins from BF2042 as female only voice overs. CoD... who the hell even knows what they're doing anymore. Crazy developer. Then sports games... really? Most sports with the exception of Hockey and Baseball are not white men.
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Look, it's not even about white vs other demographics. It's not about female vs male. It's that most gamers, yeah, most, are sick and tired of the constant preachy agenda. It's been so over the top for the last 15 years with escalation in all areas that even a whif of it and it's an immediate ignore from swaths of potential customers. It doesn't matter if the game is even decent anymore. It'll be ignored before it's even attempted because we're that sick of it. By all means, you do you. But I'm not going to purchase anything attempting to shame me for being born white or male.
Source - "Trust Me, Bro."
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Look, it's not even about white vs other demographics. It's not about female vs male. It's that most gamers, yeah, most, are sick and tired of the constant preachy agenda. It's been so over the top for the last 15 years with escalation in all areas that even a whif of it and it's an immediate ignore from swaths of potential customers. It doesn't matter if the game is even decent anymore. It'll be ignored before it's even attempted because we're that sick of it. By all means, you do you. But I'm not going to purchase anything attempting to shame me for being born white or male.
Aside from the Death Stranding titles which I concede don't meet your conditions though still think are relevant to the subset, you sure are adjusting the criteria to get your point across.
Nevertheless, I ask in good faith which games have shamed the white men demographic? Which games featuring non-white, non-men protagonists—or any character at all among the cast—have undeniably vilified white men on the basis of gender and race because of development choices pertaining to characterization, visual presentation, plot, setting, or any other design aspect? As I mentioned in my previous post, is the mere presence of non-white, non-men characters that threatening to you and "most gamers"? Because unless my first question can be answered with trending evidence, then it certainly seems that because such characters exist at all is enough to make you feel persecuted by your own volition.
In trying to answer this question myself, I did stumble upon this spreadsheet (https://docs.google.com/spreadsheets/u/0/d/1AVTZPJij5PQmlWAkYdDahBrxDiwqWMGsWEcEnpdKTa4/htmlview?pli=1) of a curated list of games with "woke content." We too can easily vet our Steam libraries with a tool to see just which games are flagged (https://wokedetector.cirnoslab.me/), and it's frequently being updated as evidenced from an update five hours ago as of this posting. So, if there is only one takeaway from these paired sources to be gained, it is that certain individuals who feel so targeted by anything that's anti-them will eventually have no plot- or character-focused media of any kind to engage with should this level of sensitivity be so pronounced with no ceiling in sight. Eventually, these sorts of individuals will have voluntarily removed themselves from culture altogether.
Actually, we're finally seeing a good spread of ideas and characters int he indie space. They don't have gate keepers trying to spit in the face of what was once the demographic, but is now shunned.
Oh, I don't reject the idea that there are games within the indie space that are designed with the values you support. All sorts of experiences exist from independent creators of all kinds, so that's to be expected. What I stated is that games featuring values you don't support are far more prevalent from indie published projects than AAA or even AA ones.
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So, if there is only one takeaway from these paired sources to be gained, it is that certain individuals who feel so targeted by anything that's anti-them will eventually have no plot- or character-focused media of any kind to engage with should this level of sensitivity be so pronounced with no ceiling in sight. Eventually, these sorts of individuals will have voluntarily removed themselves from culture altogether.[/font]
So you're saying if I don't participate by buying games that people, through their own posts, admit they hate white men, then I'm removing myself from culture?
Admittedly, these games may not shame whites or males directly but those that create them do and I refuse to pay their checks with a purchase. Any developer, artist, actor, etc that's involved in activism, then their project is dead to me. It doesn't matter how good it may be. Take for instance the newest Ghost game. I absolutely loved the first, but when I learned who the voice actress was for the sequel, what she spouts and adheres too, and then the hateful posts much of the team of devs liked... that was the death of that series for me.
Oh, I don't reject the idea that there are games within the indie space that are designed with the values you support. All sorts of experiences exist from independent creators of all kinds, so that's to be expected. What I stated is that games featuring values you don't support are far more prevalent from indie published projects than AAA or even AA ones.
Yeah, there's people at all levels I'm going to disagree with. Take 1348 Ex Voto as an example. I won't touch that with a ten foot pole, but am interested in Knight's Path because they won't push the agenda. It's a stark contrast.
As a last note, unrelated to the above, I'm not sure what even consititutes AA vs AAA anymore. Looking at small studios putting out games like A Plague Tale, it's an indie dev that basically put out a AAA game. Same for the upcoming Blight: Survival. Tiny dev putting out tremendous work.
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So, if there is only one takeaway from these paired sources to be gained, it is that certain individuals who feel so targeted by anything that's anti-them will eventually have no plot- or character-focused media of any kind to engage with should this level of sensitivity be so pronounced with no ceiling in sight. Eventually, these sorts of individuals will have voluntarily removed themselves from culture altogether.
So you're saying if I don't participate by buying games that people, through their own posts, admit they hate white men, then I'm removing myself from culture?
No, and it's clear that's not what I said. The takeaway from my previous comment is that the individuals who subscribe to the way of thought I discussed will find anything to criticitize and wholly reject in an effort to bolster their principles—including things they previously supported. So with that understanding, there may eventually come a time when what sort of media these kinds of individuals feel is adequate to engage in is extremely limited and largely removed from what the general population does engage in that forms entertainment culture. If you skim through the list from the first link I provided above, it's apparent that it takes little to be flagged as "woke," and often for frivolous reasons too. Now, whether you're one of these individuals or not, I don't know. To clarify, I never labeled you as such. As a short aside: the game you recently bought and are now currently playing Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles: Splintered Fate is a project developed by a studio that proudly advertises their efforts to promote DEI workplace practices, as seen from their company page (https://superevilmegacorp.com/culture/). Maybe that's concerning to you. And if it is, maybe you can look past that and instead enjoy a game from a franchise that you've made clear in the past you love.
Admittedly, these games may not shame whites or males directly but those that create them do and I refuse to pay their checks with a purchase. Any developer, artist, actor, etc that's involved in activism, then their project is dead to me. It doesn't matter how good it may be. Take for instance the newest Ghost game. I absolutely loved the first, but when I learned who the voice actress was for the sequel, what she spouts and adheres too, and then the hateful posts much of the team of devs liked... that was the death of that series for me.
Returning back to people having the choice to support the works of others or not, there certainly are means to engage in creative works even when one doesn't support the creators themselves. For video games, electing to use the secondary market to acquire items when that option is available is most obvious. I partly mention this because of your previous comment stating how games with values you don't agree with but are otherwise decent will "be ignored [...] because we're that sick of it." Though by your own omission, the aspect you seem to largely take issue with (games that purportedly shame white men) only exists outside of creative works themselves, though to how prevalent or true these claims are remains to be seen but is something we should refrain from discussing with any greater focus in this public forum space.
Oh, I don't reject the idea that there are games within the indie space that are designed with the values you support. All sorts of experiences exist from independent creators of all kinds, so that's to be expected. What I stated is that games featuring values you don't support are far more prevalent from indie published projects than AAA or even AA ones.
Yeah, there's people at all levels I'm going to disagree with. Take 1348 Ex Voto as an example. I won't touch that with a ten foot pole, but am interested in Knight's Path because they won't push the agenda. It's a stark contrast.
Ironically, you mention Knight's Path because of the developers' stance on "modern agendas," though it itself is a political statement that just so happens to align with your own personal values; at the same time, it's an example of someone advocating for an agenda but one that's opposite of the values they seemingly oppose. Of course, there's nothing wrong with choosing to avoid things that conflict with one's own personal values. But to not acknowledge the similarities between these two examples you've provided is demonstrating bias. On a related note—just how the developers chose to answer the question being asked that's led to this controversy is rather telling. They easily could have just answered by saying something to the effect of no, this isn't how we envision our project but instead worded their response in a way to generate publicity. From the discussions I've read, many people comprised of both supporters and opponents of their statement only seemed to become aware of this game following the event. So, it's worked in their favor.
As a last note, unrelated to the above, I'm not sure what even consititutes AA vs AAA anymore. Looking at small studios putting out games like A Plague Tale, it's an indie dev that basically put out a AAA game. Same for the upcoming Blight: Survival. Tiny dev putting out tremendous work.
You're not alone. I generally avoid these types of labels because there's little meaning behind them and they can't actually be defined. I decided to make the distinction then anyway just to get the point across that smaller developers are generally more likely to harbor those values (demonstrated through their creative projects or publicly removed from their work) than larger developers bound to publishers are.
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I'm so tired of the "gamers need characters they can identify with" view. No we don't.
You're saying this in a discussion that was started because someone said they didn't like the fact that Aloy's sexual orientation was revealed in the story, and then multiple people went on to describe how they don't want to play "ugly characters pushing leftist agendas" (paraphrasing, but that's basically the message I got from several of the posts).
It's pretty clear to me that for a lot of people that claim it doesn't matter to them, it actually matters a lot because they are super vocal about it whenever a character does not appeal to them. They can't just ignore it and play the games that actually appeal to them. They gotta complain about it and let everyone know "hey I don't like this game because this character doesn't appeal to me at all!"
Do I personally wish there were more games with characters that looked like 2B rather than *Insert any character from the Concord roster*? Yeah 100%. But I'm also fine with Alloy and Ellie not looking like that, for there to be games about lesbians in the middle ages and to play a character I personally don't find hot in Naughty Dog's new game.
Some people aren't fine with that fact though, but will argue until they are blue in the face that it doesn't matter. You gotta pick one. Either it doesn't matter and we can all stop talking about how a character looks or identifies, or it does matter and we can continue complaining about how white men are being erased from video games and how there is a lack of black lesbian representation in games. It can't be both ways.
I'm on team it doesn't actually matter. The fact that Aloy turned out to be a lesbian didn't matter to me. It was no different than watching Nathan Drake fall in love with Elena Fisher. In the same breath, the fact that Stellar Blade and 2B are super hot also doesn't bother me at all. I like playing as super good looking characters, and a bit of fanservice isn't bad. Given the option, I'm always playing as a character that is closer to 2B than Abby from the Last of Us 2. But I don't hate Abby as Neir and The Last of Us are completely different settings, art directions and tones. It would actually be weird of Abby was some skinny hot girl with flawless skin given the character's background and circumstances.
What I am seeing in this thread though is that most people are on team "it matters a lot". Otherwise this discussion would have ended a while a go.
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You're not alone. I generally avoid these types of labels because there's little meaning behind them and they can't actually be defined. I decided to make the distinction then anyway just to get the point across that smaller developers are generally more likely to harbor those values (demonstrated through their creative projects or publicly removed from their work) than larger developers bound to publishers are.
As a last note, if I were to take the time to research every employee at every studio, it would be impossible to find a game without someone behind it that's fully entrenched in leftist ideology. There would be no games left to play. For me, it's how loud those in prominent positions are regarding that ideology and if it's blatant. Often these additions and/or changes aren't merely celebrated but used as a way to attack any who oppose their beliefs. The actions of those that are often loudest are why I and many others reject to support their projects.
Dhaabi, as always, you're well spoken and I understand where you're coming from, but we won't align on this topic. Still, I appreciate the ability to "sit and chat" about such things without it escalating to insanity.
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As a last note, if I were to take the time to research every employee at every studio, it would be impossible to find a game without someone behind it that's fully entrenched in leftist ideology. There would be no games left to play.
Dhaabi, as always, you're well spoken and I understand where you're coming from, but we won't align on this topic. Still, I appreciate the ability to "sit and chat" about such things without it escalating to insanity.
Yes—that was the point I was making when introducing the spreadsheet.
Oh, it wasn't my expectation for us to align on the matter. Really, I just wanted there to be some sort of discussion with the hope that, after I introduced thoughtful questions and receipts to counteract certain claims, you'd perhaps reflect on the opinions you hold by thinking more openly toward what is it you oppose. And maybe that was realized to some degree since you're saying you understand my position. Getting emotional in a discussion simply isn't going to accomplish that.
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It's pretty clear to me that for a lot of people that claim it doesn't matter to them, it actually matters a lot because they are super vocal about it whenever a character does not appeal to them. They can't just ignore it and play the games that actually appeal to them. They gotta complain about it and let everyone know "hey I don't like this game because this character doesn't appeal to me at all!"
There's definitely a nugget of ironic truth to what you're saying. For me, as someone who says that I don't need a character that looks like me or has anything in common with me, I still want characters who are fun, sexy, or cool. I like things being stylized and compelling, and I admit I pass on a lot of games because I don't like the way the characters look.
I guess that's where the difference comes in. I view games as escapism, so I'm not looking to have myself represented. Whereas it seems like that's the primary goal of "the other side" of this debate. Extremely bland-looking, even intentionally ugly characters that are designed to "represent", check boxes, and avoid offense. The recent implosion of Concord was the greatest example of this type of design thinking. That side would see Dragon's Crown and lose their minds, yelling that "it's harmful", "designed for the male gaze", and "completely unrealistic". It's the idea that players need someone they can identify with or champion their values.
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Wonder if could also be Sony looking at Xbox giving up the console war for the most part and seeing this as an opportunity to lock back in with exclusives and draw more folks to Playstation since I wouldn't be surprised if generally PC releases aren't doing enough to justify it. It doesn't affect me to much as someone that is doing Playstation and PC at least right now, and generally it seems like third party games are still coming to PC. Which is good, I need the eventual Death Stranding 3 where I play as Lou to happen and to be able to play it on my PC that'll actually max out the frames more than my Playstation lol
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I am fine with it, but I guess they will also have to put more effort into variety and smaller development times, I guess having next Playstation is again in the table but I am certainly still a bit upset that a lot of their games are taking years of development.
I think they should also do something with the drift in the Dual Sense and future controller's, even with "no games", what stopped from using my PlayStation 5 anymore is that the controller got drift, and reparations around here 30$ and a brand new controller is too expensive.
I went full PC, but honestly playing with a Playstation just feels like home just like how playing with a Switch reminded of better things when I was younger and I had a GameCube, so, I kind of wish for the best with this decision if they are open to make the brand more varied from now and the quality of the games is better so buying a new Playstation again feels like it worth it, it does suck for the new layouts and hope these developers can land something soon, though.