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Star Wars Outlaws' Director: 'Bad Faith' Discourse About Protagonist's Appearance 'Not Worth Engaging In' - IGN

Star Wars Outlaws creative director Julian Gerighty says "bad faith" discourse about protagonist Kay Vess is "not worth engaging in": "There's no nuance and no possibility of real dialogue."

www.ign.com

As previews for the upcoming open-world title rolled out this week, Gerighty, in an interview with The Washington Post, touched on the discourse that some are pushing on social media that Kay isn't "attractive enough." His response? Don't give that conversation attention.

"Kay is meant to be approachable, a petty thief who ends up barreling through this story, making bad decisions and centered with a lot of humor, humility, and toughness," Gerighty said. "That's what's important to me. And she's beautiful, come on."

"It makes no sense to me and it's not worth engaging with," he continued. "If you engage with bad-faith people, there's no nuance and no possibility of real dialogue. So all we can do is make the best game possible."

 

[Mr Moose]

Approachable? Not with that chin.

 

[Catphish]

Fucken helmet-punching troglodyte.

 

[acm2000]

i mean hes right, people need to stop worrying about how fuckable characters are.

 

[Killer8]

The real actress she is modeled on is attractive.

Your character modelers just did a bad job representing that.

 

[Woopah]

He's not wrong. Some people are way too concerned about the attractiveness of characters.

 

[laynelane]

People are being pretty straightforward that they want a more attractive lead character. Not sure how that's bad faith. He says she's meant to be "approachable" as a counter-argument, as well. Is that meant to imply attractive people are not? Aside from all that, I just find her hair to look really weird. Like straw on her head or something. It's not that serious, but it really stands out to me.

 

[SmurfMustard]

i mean hes right, people need to stop worrying about how fuckable characters are.

But that's all some people here seem to have. Who else are they supposed to masturbate to?

 

[TVexperto]

why do they make ugly characters on purpose? i just dont understand it

 

[winjer]

His studio made a beautiful Latina look like a goblin. Screw him.

 

[Omnipunctual Godot]

I'm so fucking tired of companies taking good-looking models/actresses and then actively making the character uglier than the actual model. Why do they do this? If I was the model I would be pissed off.

I can't think of a single example of this happening with a male model/actor's likeness. Absolutely ridiculous.

 

[GHG]

i mean hes right, people need to stop worrying about how fuckable characters are.

At this stage it's not about whether or not the character is "fuckable", it's about them failing to stay faithful to the model/actress they are basing the character off.

If they really just want the characters to be ugly then why not just go and get a cast of ugly actors and actresses to do the job?

 

[Punished Miku]

It's obviously been a trend generally in a ton of Western games, so I'm glad to see journalists make them squirm a bit.

I don't particularly care about the Outlaws main character though.

 

[feynoob]

Grown ups getting mad over jpeg pictures. Get a life man. It's a pixelated art. You won't fk those characters.

 

[intbal]

Attacking the paying customer always leads to massive profits.

 

[Hudo]

Make a character creator next time and let players make their own protagonist? Tryharding this protagonist "just because" feels like the wrong move. And yes, to me, at least so far, it feels like "just because".

 

[user friendly]

 

[Dr.Morris79]

Fuck off UBI. I'm not buying anymore of your shit

You crossed the line with The Crew, now you can eat a dick whilst you jazzle yourself with your ugly arse characters, DEI bullshit and infantile pandering games.

 

[ChorizoPicozo]

this game is going to sell 10M+ anyway

 

[MiguelItUp]

Yeah, he's honestly not wrong. When I'm playing a game, I care more about it being fun and engaging more than anything else. The visuals are just an add on. Much like great dialogue, writing, characters, music, etc. Overall, I want the game to make me want to keep playing or come back to it as soon as possible. If a game doesn't do that, then what's the point of buying it or playing it?

I personally couldn't care less about how attractive the protagonist you're controlling is. Or other characters. I'm not trying to get into a relationship with them, I'm just trying to play a game and have fun, lol.

 

[mckmas8808]

Yeah, he's honestly not wrong. When I'm playing a game, I care more about it being fun and engaging more than anything else. The visuals are just an add on. Much like great dialogue, writing, characters, music, etc. Overall, I want the game to make me want to keep playing or come back to it as soon as possible. If a game doesn't do that, then what's the point of buying it or playing it?

I personally couldn't care less about how attractive the protagonist you're controlling is. Or other characters. I'm not trying to get into a relationship with them, I'm just trying to play a game and have fun, lol.

Exactly! He's not wrong at all. He's perfectly right!!!

 

[Fess]

i mean hes right, people need to stop worrying about how fuckable characters are.

And if developers would stop trying to make a fictional character, or scanned actress, less attractive, and do their best instead. Then people would stop talking about this.
It always start with the developers. Somewhere someone thinks ”No, she looks too beautiful here. I need to change that.”. Why?

 

[NickFire]

The game will sell because of Star Wars. But that was a pretty poor choice of words IMO. Should have stuck with saying this is the character they wanted to make and he hopes people won't judge the book by its cover.

Calling dissenting opinion bad faith will not lead to more sales. It might lead to less though.

 

[Gaiff]

i mean hes right, people need to stop worrying about how fuckable characters are.

This isn't the problem though and pretending that it is is disingenuous. The problem is that when it comes to men, the model looks very close to the character, but when it comes to women, the character is suddenly much uglier than the woman. Surely, if it isn't an issue how "fuckable" characters are, whether they are attractive or not shouldn't be relevant. They should simply make them look close to their models whether they are ugly or not, but they don't do that. The explicitly make female characters look worse.

That they purposefully make women ugly is questionable. We also know why they do this because we've seen DEI recommendations specifically say to avoid making women too attractive. You can't tell us to ignore politics when we aren't even the ones who have politicized how attractive characters are in the first place.

This is ME Andromeda all over again.

 

[SJRB]

 

[MiguelItUp]

And if developers would stop trying to make a fictional character, or scanned actress, less attractive, and do their best instead. Then people would stop talking about this.
It always start with the developers. Somewhere someone thinks ”No, she looks too beautiful here. I need to change that.”. Why?

I will say, that is something I've always thought was weird. Knowing actors/actresses/models got scanned into a game, but then having their likeness altered or changed. What's the point of even scanning them at all then? The budget and everything else that comes into play just feels like a total waste IMO, and it's generally not cheap at all. If you're going through the trouble of implementing actual people, shouldn't they look like them? Isn't that the whole point?

 

[Angry_Megalodon]

Bad faith is making an ugly character out of a good-looking woman for no other purpose than brownie points.

Bad faith is the gross downgrade from the game reveal.

Bad faith is having the media not being honest about the many bugs, moronic AI, and other trademark Ubisoft features present in the game.

He's not one to speak about bad faith.

 

[Draugoth]

They butchered her because they cant stand beautiful women

 

[ReBurn]

I think the protagonist is average looking. I don't have any issues with her appearance. All I really want is a good Star Wars story.

It does matter to a lot of people so Ubisoft is playing a risky game by ignoring their target audience. They need to engage. And possibly capitulate.

 

[BigBeauford]

Being out of touch and refusing to engage with your paying customers has been such a great strategy.

 

[sloppyjoe_gamer]

"And she's beautiful, come on."

Yep, shes gorgeous

 

[DonkeyPunchJr]

Because it’s stupid to get a beautiful model to play your character, then deliberately ugly her up so you don’t get accused of appealing to the “male gaze”.

I don’t really care how fuckable the main character is, but the fact that they did this gives me a pretty good idea about what kind of inputs went into this game. Not surprising at all but it is lame.

 

[user friendly]

They butchered her because they cant stand beautiful women

Are you joking, that's 1:1...

Honestly, why bother having a person to model after anyway? Just make it an original character.

 

[Doomtrain]

i mean hes right, people need to stop worrying about how fuckable characters are.

Sounds like someone never played the Sonic games.

 

[ReBurn]

Are you joking, that's 1:1...

Honestly, why bother having a person to model after anyway? Just make it an original character.

It's probably cheaper and faster to do face scans and have the computers craft the character than it is to model the character by hand.

 

[King Dazzar]

i mean hes right, people need to stop worrying about how fuckable characters are.

And thats fine if it all looks authentic. But its when you can tell they've gone deliberately out their way to make them look less attractive, I just think it looks off.

 

[farmerboy]

If they make the character look exactly the same, do they have to pay more to the actor?

Are the performance and likeness two separate things when it comes to these type of hirings?

 

[Bloobs]

Dude got hit on the head too many times

 

[DryvBy]

Approachable? Not with that chin.

ESRB did rate it appropriately with a nudity note.

 

[LegendOfKage]

If someone has a different opinion than you do, and you in turn accuse them of arguing in bad faith, that ironically is the literal definition of arguing in bad faith.

 

[TintoConCasera]

Grown ups getting mad over jpeg pictures. Get a life man. It's a pixelated art. You won't fk those characters.

Yeah but the thing is, those jpeg cost money and I'm not paying for ugly shit.

 

[EruditeHobo]

That is exactly the right response. Tell the story they want to tell, make decisions based on story/game reasons not what online clods are complaining about.

People that are bitching about a female character not being pretty enough or whatever, they aren't worth responding to... and if the character were "prettier", guess what, they would just find another reason to not buy the game. That's all there is to it.

 

[FoxMcChief]

'Not Worth Engaging In'​

So kind of like the game?

 

[Fbh]

Yeah, he's honestly not wrong. When I'm playing a game, I care more about it being fun and engaging more than anything else. The visuals are just an add on. Much like great dialogue, writing, characters, music, etc. Overall, I want the game to make me want to keep playing or come back to it as soon as possible. If a game doesn't do that, then what's the point of buying it or playing it?

I personally couldn't care less about how attractive the protagonist you're controlling is. Or other characters. I'm not trying to get into a relationship with them, I'm just trying to play a game and have fun, lol.

I'd argue it depends on the game.
Like in Elden Ring I don't give a fuck what my character looks like, he/she doesn't talk and has a helmet on 99.9% of the time... hell, if anything it's sort of funny when the person under all the epic armor is some ugly goblin. It's a game where almost all the appeal comes from the gameplay and the game world.

But in a game like Outlaws where there is a cinematic angle to it, and there are going to be lots of cutscenes, and the characters and story are supposed to be a major element making me want play what seems to be yet another generic Ubisoft style open world. Then yeah I want characters that are appealing to me, either because they are attractive or look cool or fun. That's specially true for a game like this, since with it being Ubisoft + Modern Star Wars we already know the story and writing will be dogshit.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

I'm not on board with the silly idea that every gaming protag needs to be your personal jerkoff fantasy but good lord did they fuck this model UP.

I think it's funny not because I give two shits if a character is attractive but because the in-game model looks so absurd compared to her real-life beautiful counterpart. My girl does not have a medieval straw mop for hair nor does her jaw look more chiseled than Hulk Hogan's.

 

[MiguelItUp]

I'd argue it depends on the game.
Like in Elden Ring I don't give a fuck what my character looks like, he/she doesn't talk and has a helmet on 99.9% of the time... hell, if anything it's sort of funny when the person under all the epic armor is some ugly goblin. It's a game where almost all the appeal comes from the gameplay and the game world.

But in a game like Outlaws where there is a cinematic angle to it, and there are going to be lots of cutscenes, and the characters and story are supposed to be a major element making me want play what seems to be yet another generic Ubisoft style open world. Then yeah I want character that are appealing to me, either because they are attractive or look cool or fun. That's specially true for a game like this, since with it being Ubisoft + Modern Star Wars we already know the story and writing will be dogshit.

I can see that.

I guess I'm more into relating to a well written character in that case, rather than their looks. Hell I've already vibed with characters and stories in games that didn't contain characters that made me think they were attractive. I was just enjoying the ride.

I feel like this game is just going to be a Star Wars game that appeals to Star Wars fans, it's not going to be anything insane or monumental. If you're into the universe, you'll dig it to some degree. If you're not, you probably won't.

 

[Shin-Ra]

Boobs
Bums
Bum-chins

 

[feynoob]

Yeah but the thing is, those jpeg cost money and I'm not paying for ugly shit.

But you are playing ugly aliens.

 

[TexMex]

Somewhere along the way people on the internet thought voice actors were supposed to look like their in game characters.

 

[Lokaum D+]

They butchered her because they cant stand beautiful women