Can't play as a female character so I am very annoyed with Horizon cause it looks fantastic. As I have said before I play games to emerse myself in stroy, but I can't do that as a female character. I could not complete Dino Crisis, RE3, early Tomb Raider games (I did beat the reboot, so that says a lot about that game), Metroid, Bayonetta, Heavenly Sword, etc. I have played these games and always lose interest half way through due to lack of connection with the protagonist. I am all for a gender option or parts where you would play as a male mixed with parts featuring a female character (example TLoU or even a true 50/50 split), but strickly female leads are a problem for me.

My loss I guess...=(

Don't post this on Tumblr.

I don't think I've sad that before...

It's very funny that you think that, OP, because the opposite is far more likely to have been more common throughout gaming history... that is, female-led games being canned because of gender. Even today companies have difficulties trying to develop and market female-led games, like Life Is Strange and Horizon itself.

Maybe you are just feeling somewhat annoyed, threatened even, you can no longer play all the top games, because you are too uncomfortable to bring yourself to play as a female lead? Not that I'm judging you BTW.

as long as they are hot, and do not behave manly (looking at fem shep and Lighting) I have no problem at all.

I thought I read it on page 2 or 3... I double checked and nothing.

No, It's just a hunch-thing. I don't mind playing as a female unless the setting isn't right, but for most stuff using a woman isn't bad.

If well written, I have no issue. The only time that I feel there are issues are when the female protagonist is used to preach about women's rights or overly focuses on gender specific issues or is over idealized. If the writing brings the character into the realm of universality, gender makes little difference in quality. It adds a different flavor, that's all.

The problem is, that's coming from the perspective that males are the default. If you're looking at it completely objectively, anything less than half of games having female leads would be weird. It's not like female is a minority that they have to shoehorn in; they're half of the population. If they wanted to make the character a girl, it's because they simply chose that. Even if it was for PC reasons, the result is still just a game starring a person.

I'm genuinely curious. I can understand why someone may have issues with immersion in some cases when it comes to gender, but not sex. In a game like Mass Effect or Metroid, sex could be interchangable with no significant differences.

The sex gap breaks the immersion while playing as aliens, unnaturally muscular males, frogs or any other type of animal, toads or any other thing doesn't? Or do you play games solely as male humans? Which of course then raises more questions. Will you play only human males for which you can appreciate their motives and perspectives?