| Zekkyou said: I can understand that more. I think Horizon has a lot of hurdles to cross to establish itself as a consistently viable IP though, mostly relating to GG. They've shown they can do a good job of polishing established ideas, now we have to wait and see if they can give Horizon's sequel a gameplay identity of its own. If they can, then it could well be another Uncharted. The media should definitely report on those who are genuinely terrible, but as you say it's the broad strokes that are really an issue. It's hard to know if that'll ever stop though; the gaming media seems to genuinely hate its audience, with little discrimination between the awful and the normal. Male gamers definitely shouldn't be the only consideration, them being the majority of the AAA market just makes them the largest concern for publishers. How they ended up as the majority is up for debate, but the end result is the same. They just need to learn that most gamers, both male and female, really aren't too bothered. Give them good games with a variety of interesting stories, and you'll be set. I think the upcoming game that'll have the largest effect is TLOUII. Not only was Ellie actively called upon to be the lead, but she's a very well written character. I've not finished Horizon yet, but so far I've found it really difficult to relate to Aloy. I never feel like she's in danger, because she's also capable of everything the story needs of her. Her problems are all external, and even most of those are hand waved away (such as her impeccable social skills, despite having apparently only ever spoken to a few people before). She's not a bad character, i still like her, she just falls too close the [insert gritty while male] we've all come to groan at. I want more Horizon, but they could replace her with another female lead for the sequel and i wouldn't feel any loss. Obviously that's rather subjective though. I think Ellie will show that not only can a female-focused AAA title be successful, but that said leads can be well written too. The former just confirms or expands the known, the latter create active demand for more characters like her. |
Oh I'm with you (100%, as my annoying president might say) on Aloy as a character! I said nothing about Horizon: Zero Dawn being the best game on the market or anything of that nature. Personally, for my taste, I consider the level of storytelling in so-called AAA games to be kind of a joke and Zero Dawn doesn't offer the best of them at that. Like BOTW, it's basically a kazillion-dollar, multi-national technology corporation selling you on the merits of technology and trying their damndest to make you feel as awesome as they can in the process. It'shallow stuff. Aloy is just another generic, superhuman hero character in essence and the tribal peoples are just lazy stereotypes about First Nations (despite the research that GG supposedly did on the subject). It's standard-issue feel-good gaming complete with most of the usual tropes that go along with that (detective vision, radio towers, and all the other "gamey" superficialities). It's a plastic corporate product with a self-serving theme that's calculated simply to sell as many copies as possible. I consider Zero Dawn to be narratively inferior to the likes of NieR: Automata and Tales of Berseria, to say nothing of the real narrative competition in the indie scene. And I completely agree with you that TLOU II would make for a much better success story when it comes to female-focused "AAA" games if it obtains commercial success (which yes, it very well may).
All of that said though, neither commercial success nor gender politics are an art contest. If they were then Gone Home would be top-selling game of all time. We're not talking artistic merits here. We're talking sales projections. We can't be naive about what that does and doesn't imply. Strong character development and plausible lines and abilities have never mattered when it came to establishing Mario, Link, Master Chief, etc. as household names. For that matter, neither was it important for Samus during her time. I don't think that strong character arcs are necessarily what will cement the success of the next popular female game character.
