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[Lokaum D+]

I like videogames a lot, I do not read every single piece of information out there, so I am not aware if the dev is pushing that info on a regular basis. But what draw my attention is that you used the word hate, which is an strong emotional reaction to something trivial as a game. I am not trying to convince you to buy the game or accept the character, nor I said you're misogynist. It's the emotional reactions you people have that are so disconcerting. We men should react logically not emotionally, but these newer generations are all emotional men and women.

hate its just a word, it has no emotional meaning to me, i have no hate towards the fictional character of Atsu, i ll probably buy the game, not day one. What i dont like is the blatantly pandering that companies throws at us nowadays, there is plenty of examples out there of companies blaming on consumer for not liking their progressive game or ideas and thats is what i hate the most, i work my ass off to have to read or listen to someone telling me that i m a misogynist cause i didnt like their protag choice, that i have to accept this and that, ppl never liked this, i dont like this and lots of ppl over here dont like neither.

Like i said, every time they made these kind of statement, in this case belittling Jim over Atsu ll just hurt the franchise, and everytime they try to pander their audience it ll hurt than too and the only way that the consumer can retaliate is on the product.

 

[calico]

Actually the thread is alright, is the reactions to the article that are ridiculous.

You seem to be simultaneously arguing that it is tiresome how often reactions like this happen and that this is the first character it has happened to. Hard to understand what point you are making.

the world is different than it was 25 years ago.

Fairer to say these companies want to force it to be different. Given how many of these attempts to feminise traditionally male entertainment and franchises end in catastrophic failure and destruction of the franchises, I'm not sure if the world has changed as much as might be assumed from looking at mainstream Western media over the last decade or so.

Boys still like boy things and girls still like girl things, because boys and girls are -as a rule- different and have different tastes.

 

[BbMajor7th]

Nobody is punching down on anybody. This is a literal discussion board where people have and post opinions about what is being shared for discussion. Me expressing an opinion is no more punching down on you, than you expressing an opinion is punching down on me. In order for me to punch down on people, they'd have to be some kind of marginalized group, when in reality i'm just saying to my peers that these takes are stupid.

No, most people in here are criticising the multi-billion dollar corporation for what they see as uninspired and cynical character design. Only a handful of people showed up to tell others they were stupid whiners. Only handful of people - yourself included - deployed strawmen arguments about people being stuck in the '90s and wanting nothing but a 'vapid talentless 10'. You might have pushed back constructively with counter arguments, but you decided all criticism of character design and writing however well argued could be dismissed as people 'making huge fucking deals about nothing'. You added nothing and shitted up discussion with provocation, ad hominems and strawmen - why did you do that?

hate its just a word, it has no emotional meaning to me, i have no hate towards the fictional character of Atsu, i ll probably buy the game, not day one. What i dont like is the blatantly pandering that companies throws at us nowadays, there is plenty of examples out there of companies blaming on consumer for not liking their progressive game or ideas and thats is what i hate the most, i work my ass off to have to read or listen to someone telling me that i m a misogynist cause i didnt like their protag choice, that i have to accept this and that, ppl never liked this, i dont like this and lots of ppl over here dont liked neither.

Like i said, every time they made these kind of statement, in this case belittling Jim over Atsu ll just hurt the franchise, and everytime they try to pander their audience it ll hurt than too and the only way that the consumer can retaliate is on the product.

Most corporations in 2025:

 

[Sethbacca]

Fairer to say these companies want to force it to be different.

Dev teams used to be comprised of literal handfuls of people and were 99% men. Modern dev teams are corporate behemoths comprised of 100s or 1000s of people who are probably still mostly male but at a much lesser rate than there used to be. The games reflect the teams that work on them. I'm not arguing that it's better or worse, it's just reality. Most studios are beholden to corporations and shareholders and as such they're going to create safe middle of the road sellable content that doesn't stand out negatively in any meaningful way, and as a result it's annoying people like you. They're just trying to navigate modern outrage culture to balance out the #metoos against the people who get mad about trans people drinking bud light so as not to catch the public ire, all so that they can say to their shareholders "Well, we tried".

This idea that that everyone is trying to force everything on you guys is just the weirdest fucking persecution complex that I can't wrap my head around. Nobody is persecuting you guys, these are all reactions to market and societal conditions. They're just trying to cast the widest net possible and making a bunch of bland shit as a result. They're games that literally nobody is making you buy or play and instead of simply saying this isn't for me and not giving these companies their money, it's just endless pages of whining about stupid cosmetic shit instead of the actual quality of the game being discussed. In the end some IPs will disappear, new ones will come out, that's just the cycle of entertainment.

 

[BbMajor7th]

This idea that that everyone is trying to force everything on you guys is just the weirdest fucking persecution complex that I can't wrap my head around. Nobody is persecuting you guys, these are all reactions to market and societal conditions. They're just trying to cast the widest net possible and making a bunch of bland shit as a result. They're games that literally nobody is making you buy or play and instead of simply saying this isn't for me and not giving these companies their money. In the end some IPs will disappear, new ones will come out, that's just the cycle of entertainment.

If this were true, Disney's stocks wouldn't be in free-fall, games like Concord, Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Suicide Squad woudn't have underperformed as they did and Donald Trump wouldn't be stumbling through his second term in the oval office. None of these things are true. These changes don't reflect market conditions and the commentary from those pushing these changes is telling. More often than not, rather than admitting their product didn't appeal to the market, they'll complain that the market is full of bad actors who just hated on it for no good reason.

It's not the market, it's top-down zealotry and cultural colonisation - wealthy western folks doing what they do best. Thirty years ago gaming was a backwater with nothing worth having, then wealthy metropolitans realised there was gold in these here hills, so they turned up with their money and the machines looking to extract all the natural resources and - yes - civilize all the godless natives. They're trying to reshape lands for the preferences of people like them. Big surprise the natives didn't like it and now they're fighting back.

 

[mckmas8808]

I don't even gonna waste my time answering your stupid rants.

Only people ranting are yall crazy folks that need a character in a 2nd game to act like and be like the character in the first game. She's not from the same tribe or clan. This isn't the same area. And it isn't even the same time frame.

 

[Sethbacca]

No, most people in here are criticising the multi-billion dollar corporation for what they see as uninspired and cynical character design. Only a handful of people showed up to tell others they were stupid whiners. Only handful of people - yourself included - deployed strawmen arguments about people being stuck in the '90s and wanting nothing but a 'vapid talentless 10'. You might have pushed back constructively with counter arguments, but you decided all criticism of character design and writing however well argued could be dismissed as people 'making huge fucking deals about nothing'. You added nothing and shitted up discussion with provocation, ad hominems and strawmen - why did you do that?

The initial response was primarily because you framed your entire position as some kind of weird persecution complex where you were being punched down on for having an opinion. Could I have approached it differently, sure, but the entire way you framed yourself as a victim left me in a bit of a "wtf is wrong with this guy" moment. At the end of the day you're trying to ascribe objective values to subjective opinions and then claim anyone who calls you out is persecuting you and it's just a really weird tactic for a discussion board.

 

[mckmas8808]

If this were true, Disney's stocks wouldn't be in free-fall games like Concord, Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Suicide Squad woudn't have underperformed as they did and Donald Trump wouldn't be stumbling through his second term in the oval office. None of these things are true. These changes don't reflect market conditions and the commentary from those pushing these changes is telling. More often than not, rather than admitting their product didn't appeal to the market, they'll complain that the market is full of bad actors who just hated on it for no good reason.

It's not the market, it's top-down zealotry and cultural colonisation - wealthy western folks doing what they do best. Thirty years ago gaming was a backwater with nothing worth having, then wealthy metropolitans realised there was gold in these here hills, so they turned up with their money and the machines looking to extract all the natural resources and - yes - civilize all the godless natives. They're trying to reshape lands for the preferences of people like them. Big surprise the natives didn't like it and now they're fighting back.

It's amazing that a person like yourself also seems to act as if all games lately are bad and aren't selling at all. It's the only way for your post to make sense. Most AAA games aren't Dragon Age: The Veilguard or Suicide Squad. What's up with so much binary thinking in this thread?

 

[BbMajor7th]

The initial response was primarily because you framed your entire position as some kind of weird persecution complex where you were being punched down on for having an opinion. Could I have approached it differently, sure, but the entire way you framed yourself as a victim left me in a bit of a "wtf is wrong with this guy" moment. At the end of the day you're trying to ascribe objective values to subjective opinions and then claim anyone who calls you out is persecuting you and it's just a really weird tactic for a discussion board.

You can point to the bit where I said I was the victim or that I was being persecuted or punched down on... I'll wait.

It's amazing that a person like yourself also seems to act as if all games lately are bad and aren't selling at all. It's the only way for your post to make sense. Most AAA games aren't Dragon Age: The Veilguard or Suicide Squad. What's up with so much binary thinking in this thread?

And maybe you can point to the bit where I said 'all games lately are bad and aren't selling at all'.

 

[Sethbacca]

If this were true, Disney's stocks wouldn't be in free-fall, games like Concord, Dragon Age: The Veilguard and Suicide Squad woudn't have underperformed as they did and Donald Trump wouldn't be stumbling through his second term in the oval office. None of these things are true. These changes don't reflect market conditions and the commentary from those pushing these changes is telling. More often than not, rather than admitting their product didn't appeal to the market, they'll complain that the market is full of bad actors who just hated on it for no good reason.

It's not the market, it's top-down zealotry and cultural colonisation - wealthy western folks doing what they do best. Thirty years ago gaming was a backwater with nothing worth having, then wealthy metropolitans realised there was gold in these here hills, so they turned up with their money and the machines looking to extract all the natural resources and - yes - civilize all the godless natives. They're trying to reshape lands for the preferences of people like them. Big surprise the natives didn't like it and now they're fighting back.

All of what you're talking about started the dev process 7-10 years ago. Literally around the height of popularity of things like #metoo. Corporate entities are more cruise ships than motorcycles in that it takes them a while to steer in any given direction the same way it takes a while to clear the queue and get to a new era of stuff. The big pushback on this stuff started in the last couple years and will probably be reflected in games and movies in 3-5 years. I mean, it's obviously more complicated than that and this is just a simplified take, but it's the same reason that it's gonna take Sony a while to unfuck themselves from their GAAS push. Shit just takes time.

In the interim smaller independent studios that cater to what all of you are wanting will benefit from the lack of agility by corporations.

 

[mckmas8808]

No, most people in here are criticising the multi-billion dollar corporation for what they see as uninspired and cynical character design. Only a handful of people showed up to tell others they were stupid whiners. Only handful of people - yourself included - deployed strawmen arguments about people being stuck in the '90s and wanting nothing but a 'vapid talentless 10'. You might have pushed back constructively with counter arguments, but you decided all criticism of character design and writing however well argued could be dismissed as people 'making huge fucking deals about nothing'. You added nothing and shitted up discussion with provocation, ad hominems and strawmen - why did you do that?

Are we talking about the same game in this thread? What's going on here? Uninspired and cynical character design?

WAT?!

 

[CentralScrutinizer]

My problem isn't just the unlikable protagonist. My problem is everything about this seems like it's just Ghost of Tushima again. This is my issue with Sony this gen.

I didn't want to play God of War 2018 again.
I didn't want to play Horizon Zero Dawn again (and literally again with the remaster)
I didn't want to play spider-man again.
I didn't want to play death stranding again.
And I don't want to play ghost of Tsushima again.

To me it's acceptable to play games that are extremely similar to the previous entry if they're on the same platform. But generational leaps in power should come with generational leaps in game design and mechanics.

 

[Sethbacca]

You can point to the bit where I said I was the victim or that I was being persecuted or punched down on... I'll wait.

Most of these people in this thread are punching up at huge corporations and lampooning design decisions they regard as cynical, trite and increasingly tone deaf. The defense squad on the other side is punching down on ordinary people daring to defy the corporations and throwing down one insult after another as they do so. Is that the moral high ground?

Seems pretty clear to me, but anyway, I'm moving on.

 

[AJUMP23]

Do you get paid for the bounties.

 

[BbMajor7th]

Are we talking about the same game in this thread? What's going on here? Uninspired and cynical character design?

WAT?!

I think you know full well that people in this thread are talking about the character's narrative design, which is what the article in the OP is referencing. You're either being deliberately obtuse, or simply dishonest.

 

[Lokaum D+]

Do you get paid for the bounties.

Yes, but its just 75% of what a man would be paid.

 

[BbMajor7th]

Seems pretty clear to me, but anyway, I'm moving on.

Oh, you got rinsed and now you're bailing. Fine.

 

[viveks86]

Which is exactly my point. It wasn't a problem a decade ago because we didn't have so many of them. Women leading action roles were by far the exception, not the norm. This was doubly true in video games where it was extremely uncommon until recently. I for one never batted an eye 10, 15, or 20 years ago when it happened. Now? I do because it has become ridiculous. Women are ill-suited in those roles, but now it's gotten to the point where in the AAA space, it's probably close to 50-50 when it shouldn't be the case simply because for one, the audience is overwhelmingly male, and two, those roles require immutable male traits in a character to succeed. As a result, we get female leads that are incredibly masculine personality-wise. Aloy, Ellie, Atsu, Selene, and even Johanna Dark before Perfect Dark got cancelled. All those women have extremely masculine personalities and most of us (men and women) react adversely to this. Does this mean it can never be done to tell a story? Of course, not, especially if the writer has enough nuance to not completely shutdown the character's femininity in favor of manly characteristics. I circle back to the predator franchise that starred Arnie in the first movie. The original was about an elite special forces unit being hunted down by an alien in the jungle. It was as manly as manly got. The last 3 damn outings have starred women.

Those female characters for the most part do not exhibit virtues in a feminine way. This is fine when in small dosage or when there's a very specific reason for this. As it stands, they're just using it to send a message and act like those people who will swear that women are just as good in a fight as men are.

Note, my argument isn't that female killing 50 guys at once is unrealistic. Men aren't any more capable of doing that. My argument is that the masculinization of women at a large scale is both unpleasant and unwelcome.

We agree on that. I just don't believe the solution to it is a self embargo on female action protagonists. There isn't some cartel hive mind churning this out across studios. The only harmful overriding force was DEI and corporate woke-ism. Both are thankfully dying as corporations are seeing there is no positive financial impact from it. Negative if anything.

So with that out of the way, the real solution is depth, sincerity and nuance from the creators and some patience and open mindedness from the audience. I've tried to demonstrate the game creators seem to be doing their part here with evidence sprinkled throughout their marketing. If that all turns out to be false and just a projection of my wishful thinking, then I'll join the rest in denouncing it.

 

[AJUMP23]

Yes, but its just 75% of what a man would be paid.

just jk.

That is how the world works. More than the other dude got paid for poems.

 

[mckmas8808]

Most of these people in this thread are punching up at huge corporations and lampooning design decisions they regard as cynical, trite and increasingly tone deaf. The defense squad on the other side is punching down on ordinary people daring to defy the corporations and throwing down one insult after another as they do so. Is that the moral high ground? I don't think so.

Why punch down on ordinary people who have little power to influence the designs of these games? We live in a free society and a free market - if people don't like a product made by a multi-billion dollar corporation and want to tell the company where to go there's nothing 'wrong' with them, they're just doing what a free market and a free society demands.

I agree with you in theory here. The problem I have with these "up punching" people is that they act as if their opinions are facts. As if some of us that honestly disagree with them are sucking up to the corporations and are too "WOKE" for reasons........

 

[miller152]

My problem isn't just the unlikable protagonist. My problem is everything about this seems like it's just Ghost of Tushima again. This is my issue with Sony this gen.

I didn't want to play God of War 2018 again.
I didn't want to play Horizon Zero Dawn again (and literally again with the remaster)
I didn't want to play spider-man again.
I didn't want to play death stranding again.
And I don't want to play ghost of Tsushima again.

To me it's acceptable to play games that are extremely similar to the previous entry if they're on the same platform. But generational leaps in power should come with generational leaps in game design and mechanics.

Absolutely correct. If it had an amazing story or a massive graphics update, then maybe, but it looks the same and the story is the same cookie cutter revenge plot we've seen hundreds of times already. I'd rather play Tsushima again than pay full price to play a reskin of the same game.

 

[viveks86]

Do you get paid for the bounties.

Yep. In-game currency

 

[mckmas8808]

I think you know full well that people in this thread are talking about the character's narrative design, which is what the article in the OP is referencing. You're either being deliberately obtuse, or simply dishonest.

It's a revenge story. We've seen these before. It's not new and they've existed for literally 1000s of years. There's nothing new about the character's narrative design. We've had many.....

- Ezio in Assassin's Creed 2
- Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Revenge is literally in the title )
- Kratos in the first 3 GOW games (Maybe the best revenge story I've ever played in gaming history)


And all of these were men too. So I'm confused as to why it's an issue now......

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

Funny thing is that I have a PS5... And I'm not interested in any of its exclusives... And I won't even buy this one.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

What the fuck have I bought the ps5 for mate, seriously. This whole gen, except Demon Souls and Astro Bot, has been a shitshow.

We are two.

 

[cash_longfellow]

Cool. Didn't really care for the whole haiku thing in the first game.

Same, it was a completely pointless addition.

 

[Lokaum D+]

It's a revenge story. We've seen these before. It's not new and they've existed for literally 1000s of years. There's nothing new about the character's narrative design. We've had many.....

- Ezio in Assassin's Creed 2
- Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Revenge is literally in the title )
- Kratos in the first 3 GOW games (Maybe the best revenge story I've ever played in gaming history)


And all of these were men too. So I'm confused as to why it's an issue now......

willing suspension of disbelief

she is a japanese woman fighting a gazillion men, it may take ppl out since its hard to believe that she can face hundreds of men in combat.

 

[Sethbacca]

willing suspension of disbelief

she is a japanese woman fighting a gazillion men, it may take ppl out since its hard to believe that she can face hundreds of men in combat.

Life pro tip, you as a man would not survive long against hundreds of men in combat either. This is like those stupid polls where some stupid percentage of dudes think they could fight a bear if they had to.

You all are dying in this situation too.

 

[calico]

Dev teams used to be comprised of literal handfuls of people and were 99% men. Modern dev teams are corporate behemoths comprised of 100s or 1000s of people who are probably still mostly male but at a much lesser rate than there used to be. The games reflect the teams that work on them. I'm not arguing that it's better or worse, it's just reality. Most studios are beholden to corporations and shareholders and as such they're going to create safe middle of the road sellable content that doesn't stand out negatively in any meaningful way, and as a result it's annoying people like you. They're just trying to navigate modern outrage culture to balance out the #metoos against the people who get mad about trans people drinking bud light so as not to catch the public ire, all so that they can say to their shareholders "Well, we tried".

This idea that that everyone is trying to force everything on you guys is just the weirdest fucking persecution complex that I can't wrap my head around. Nobody is persecuting you guys, these are all reactions to market and societal conditions. They're just trying to cast the widest net possible and making a bunch of bland shit as a result. They're games that literally nobody is making you buy or play and instead of simply saying this isn't for me and not giving these companies their money, it's just endless pages of whining about stupid cosmetic shit instead of the actual quality of the game being discussed. In the end some IPs will disappear, new ones will come out, that's just the cycle of entertainment.

I disagree that it is a response to market conditions. I agree that it is partly a response to 'societal conditions', if we are regarding the disproportionate amount of power wielded by woke activists -many of whom are now entrenched at these companies because this is where they can be most effective- as 'societal conditions'.

Forcing their political agenda on people has absolutely been the point of the exercise, and hijacking male entertainment franchises as disposable vehicles for that agenda has been a critical part of it. This is also why we have seen so much pressure brought to bear on games etc. which step out of line with that agenda. Not only do the existing male franchises have to be hijacked as vehicles for that agenda, but alternatives which are too out of line with that agenda cannot be suffered to exist.

Thankfully their grip is finally starting to weaken, as they have driven so many of these franchises into the ground (not that they really care about them beyond how they can be useful) and even normies have started to wake up to what is happening and financial reality is kicking in. You are right that this trend will die, and people drawing attention to it by pointing it out and complaining about it will play an important role in hastening that death.

 

[Lokaum D+]

Life pro tip, you as a man would not survive long against hundreds of men in combat either. This is like those stupid polls where some stupid percentage of dudes think they could fight a bear if they had to.

You all are dying in this situation too.

again willing suspension of disbelief

through our history we have lots of men achieving great things, winning against the odds, its easy to believe that a man can do it than a woman.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

and Returnal . . . those 3 games are the best on PS5 for this gen imo.

The Granny with the soggy buttocks??


I didn't like that game very much...

I'll give it another chance

 

[Fake]

Comparing this game to a movie like Kill Bill is the level of stupidity I wasn't expecting from this conversation.
That movie is a masterpiece.

 

[Sethbacca]

I disagree that it is a response to market conditions. I agree that it is partly a response to 'societal conditions', if we are regarding the disproportionate amount of power wielded by woke activists -many of whom are now entrenched at these companies because this is where they can be most effective- as 'societal conditions'.

Forcing their political agenda on people has absolutely been the point of the exercise, and hijacking male entertainment franchises as disposable vehicles for that agenda has been a critical part of it. This is also why we have seen so much pressure brought to bear on games etc. which step out of line with that agenda. Not only do the existing male franchises have to be hijacked as vehicles for that agenda, but alternatives which are too out of line with that agenda cannot be suffered to exist.

Thankfully their grip is finally starting to weaken, as they have driven so many of these franchises into the ground (not that they really care about them beyond how they can be useful) and even normies have started to wake up to what is happening and financial reality is kicking in. You are right that this trend will die, and people drawing attention to it by pointing it out and complaining about it will play an important role in hastening that death.

I think we both agree on the larger picture about that things are going to change over the next few years, I just don't think there's some malign influence at play so much as just that these corporations thought they could make money riding a cultural wave that doesn't really manifest amongst many of it's participants in the gaming community. I prefer to take more of a Hanlon's Razor approach and just assign their fuck ups to stupidity more than malice.

 

[AJUMP23]

Funny thing is that I have a PS5... And I'm not interested in any of its exclusives... And I won't even buy this one.

This may be the 3rd PS5 game I get. Helldivers 2, Spiderman 2 and this.

 

[DeltaPolarBear]

It's a revenge story. We've seen these before. It's not new and they've existed for literally 1000s of years. There's nothing new about the character's narrative design. We've had many.....

- Ezio in Assassin's Creed 2
- Metal Gear Rising: Revengeance (Revenge is literally in the title )
- Kratos in the first 3 GOW games (Maybe the best revenge story I've ever played in gaming history)


And all of these were men too. So I'm confused as to why it's an issue now......

It is an issue because none of these male characters were marketed as "bad ass".

 

[diffusionx]

Have you guys seen the Kill Bill movies?

People who say stuff like this don't seem to understand the concept of novelty. Kill Bill came out 20 years ago. This sort of thing isn't fun and novel anymore, it's played out. And it's played out because it doesn't reflect reality.

 

[Heimdall_Xtreme]

This may be the 3rd PS5 game I get. Helldivers 2, Spiderman 2 and this.

I was going to buy Spiderman... But the controversy surrounding it... And the protagonist isn't 100% Peter Parker, but Miles... It made me not buy it...

Is Helldivers good?

 

[Raven77]

What the fuck have I bought the ps5 for mate, seriously. This whole gen, except Demon Souls and Astro Bot, has been a shitshow.

I've been gaming since NES and I can say without a single doubt that this is by far the worst generation consoles that we've ever had. Yes there are some standout games but looking at it as a whole it's a complete and total failure.

Cross gen games for years into the new consoles, graphics that are generally not that much better than games late in the previous gen, an endless stream of ideology garbage and paid service games.

 

[Hollywood Hitman]

I think what I find obnoxious is way they have twisted things around in that masculinity in men is bad, toxic... But masculinity in women is amazing. And femininity in women is bad, yet good in men. It's just so fucking retarded half the time.

I think what I can't get is how and why did all these fucking activists, these people that their whole identity is politics to where they aren't even like a human anymore imo as they just see everything thru the lens of politics and every thing they touch must be the catalyst to their beliefs, why and how did they infiltrate into like every aspect of entertainment? How did that even happen?

 

[Sethbacca]

It is an issue because none of these male characters were marketed as "bad ass".

Are you really trying to argue that the jacked as fuck god killer Kratos wasn't marketed as a badass.

 

[Bojji]

Are we talking about the same game in this thread? What's going on here? Uninspired and cynical character design?

WAT?!

Looks like Assassin's Creed Shadows part 2. This would be original in 2023, I still can't believe that we get 2 very similar games just few months apart.

Not to mention all Asians look the same:

I'm joking.

 

[Lokaum D+]

Are you really trying to argue that the jacked as fuck god killer Kratos wasn't marketed as a badass.

are you really comparing a spartan general that trained all his life and its literally a demi god to a puny Japanese woman ?

 

[Sethbacca]

are you really comparing a spartan general that trained all his life and its literally a demi god to a puny Japanese woman ?

Dude, he made the assertion that Kratos wasn't marketed as a badass. I'm simply saying he's wrong and showing some marketing from GoW2, and you're out here arguing some completely other point that nobody even talked about.

 

[Lokaum D+]

Dude, he made the assertion that Kratos wasn't marketed as a badass. I'm simply saying he's wrong and showing some marketing from GoW2, and you're out here arguing some completely other point that nobody even talked about.

lol, its just a poster, they let the character spoke for itself since first game, they are just double dipping on it for the sequel, also, there is a difference in marketing campaign and PR pandering ffs.

 

[Gaiff]

Looks like Assassin's Creed Shadows part 2. This would be original in 2023, I still can't believe that we get 2 very similar games just few months apart.

Not to mention all Asians look the same:

I'm joking.

How dare you? Naoe is a cutie.

You can make a beautiful Asian girl without sexualizing her.

 

[Sethbacca]

lol, its just a poster, the character spoke for itself, they are just double dipping on it, also, there is a difference in marketing campaign and PR pandering ffs.

You're splitting hairs here. He was designed, realized, and marketed as a god killing badass and has been for 20 years. They've made him more relatable in the modern era by humanizing him a little, but the underlying character is still Kratos.

 

[viveks86]

Most of these people in this thread are punching up at huge corporations and lampooning design decisions they regard as cynical, trite and increasingly tone deaf. The defense squad on the other side is punching down on ordinary people daring to defy the corporations and throwing down one insult after another as they do so. Is that the moral high ground? I don't think so.

Why punch down on ordinary people who have little power to influence the designs of these games? We live in a free society and a free market - if people don't like a product made by a multi-billion dollar corporation and want to tell the company where to go there's nothing 'wrong' with them, they're just doing what a free market and a free society demands.

That's... an interesting perspective. This got me thinking quite a bit. You are making this appeal on GAF, where you are not the little guy. You represent the majority opinion and the mods here (at least the ones who voice their thoughts or ban people) generally seem to be aligned with your perspective. I don't mean that as a complaint or an insult. But just a matter of fact. Everyone has a philosophical and ideological leaning. And no one can truly be neutral in this political climate.

So when you hear an opposing point of view from the "defense squad", it isn't coming from corporate backed shills (as far as I know). And since I'm being (intentionally or otherwise) grouped into this "defense squad", I think I can at least speak for myself. It is not easy to be the minority dissenting voice. I am working against my human instinct to just stay silent and watch things unfold... or lash out. I actually went quiet on GAF for almost a decade for this reason. Way too much hostility and judgment to be worth investing any time on. All the friends I had made here over the years had vanished. At the end, you often get nothing in return. No sense of community because everyone disagrees with you and has judged or prematurely dismissed your viewpoint. It often becomes a circle jerk, where the same group of people like and support each other's posts. There was no sense that anyone wants to reach across the aisle. So then, what is even the point saying anything at all? But then, I had a light bulb moment as I gained confidence in my ability to express and a controversial game called Intergalactic was announced. I tried again, with as much respect and good faith as I possibly can. And you know what? It's been a rewarding experience ever since. I actually feel like I'm building longer term camaraderie with people who may fundamentally disagree with me. Out of just pure love and respect.

But I can empathize with the challenge this poses on the "defense squad" psyche. We have to constantly feel like we would get drowned out by the majority. As a result, we either get too meek and give up or get too aggressive and over-compensate, with the risk of getting banned. As much as I regret the name calling, in all our minds we are "punching up" too. Just like you are punching up to the corporations, we are punching up to you. Of course there are people who will never learn and keep being nasty to one another. But perhaps an attempt to understand this from the opposing viewpoint would lead to less hostility and vicious cycles of mutual disrespect.

 

[Koenigssee]

big if true

 

[diffusionx]

You can make a beautiful Asian girl without sexualizing her.

I know you're not, but no need to respond to simps like the one who got banned who immediately start calling anyone who disagrees with this approach an incel. They are just projecting. Pretty women exist.

 

[EN250]

Only people ranting are yall crazy folks that need a character in a 2nd game to act like and be like the character in the first game. She's not from the same tribe or clan. This isn't the same area. And it isn't even the same time frame.

Oh, please, like if that has any consideration when devs do these kind of stereotype "strong, independent woman, who needs no man, badass bitch, slay kween yaaas!" characters, women in media can't be shown to have emotions one way or another, they're so rock solid emotionless stoic, so strong and brave, without any flaws and have this douche macho-man personality that only worked well in the action movies from the 80s and nowhere else