I'm also a little annoyed that a lot of games have only options for either "very curvy female" and "very mascular male". Neither of those work for me - probably because I'm non-binary, but I'm sure there are a lot of cis people who also would like some more other body types options. Also... Link is the best. Link is my goal and my aspiration. They're just the perfect mixture of femboy and tomboy in my opinion. =)
to be fair, Cyberpunk's reception is mostly based on it being horribly glitchy at launch (unplayably so) which it no longer is, they fixed it up quite well, and one of the characters you work for is trans. Even has a trans pride flag on the back of the vehichicle she drives (which you can end up with as yours)
Personally, I prefer games that offer a proper protagonist - rather than the lifeless "player avatar". Character creator does not interest me in the slightest, and when it happens, I often go with a randomly generated result. However, in games where player character does not matter, it is very nice to see some neutrality. Specifically, in terms of language - I really don't want the game to address ME in a gendered way (Hard West, an otherwise fine game, decides for no reason to assign you a specific character - out of several that would be eligible with no change to the plot - while narrating the events in second-person. Addressing you as a man the whole way.). Some games - very few - have a gender-neutral protagonist, with no options to pick. Hollow Knight and Citizen Sleeper, for instance. Which is very nice.
a game where pc character gender is done quite well and unobtrusive imo is outer wilds. In it you play as an alien from a species where gender doesn't even exist, I don't think the pc is ever referred to by a 3rd person pronoun and everyone else of your species is a they/them
What I’ve noticed is that even with Pokémon offering the choice of bodies, you still get gendered dialogue based on whatever body/hair you choose. There’s actually a very cute letter from a young Pokémon fan asking Pokémon to offer a nonbinary option that gamefreak responded to floating around the internet. It’s seriously adorable and I hope that they actually offer a gender neutral option even if it’s only in pronouns.
you like pokemon? let me tell you about pokemon reborn. I love pokemon, but I'm non binary, and you did mention 'they let you choose your appearance not your gender' but, alas, people in game still use the gender that your character looks more like, believe me I nearly cried when mr principal man called me the gender I had to choose bc NO THATS NOT ME AAAAAA and I hate it. but pokemon reborn. its a pokemon fan game, that lets you choose any of 6 different characters, separately from your gender!!! (you mentioned legends arceus, so real same thing happened as violet) I personally chose decibel, because I'm pasty as hell, and I liked their clothes the most, turns out they're canonically non binary lmao. it has a few heavy topics, which I would recommend checking if thats a problem for you, but I cannot recommend it enough I love it so much.
Because the time and effort to implement these features are not worth it. There's next to zero incentive for devs to market to trans people because of how little of gamers are trans AND actually care. Female and Male genders is already quite a lot of work. If you want more trans games be like the guy who made celeste and make your own. I wish we had better og RE style horror games but that is not in the cards for the market today. So be like everyone and accept that not everything you hope in life can come true. (I'm still waiting for an actually good halo game but sadly that is just a fantasy)
I was about to get nintendo switch online because i got splatoon 3 and cant play it and after watching this THANK YOU for telling me there are so many customization options
Terraria is actually surprisingly good about this seeing as how it allows for a lot of character customization and allows you to change everything about your character after you've made them (including your gender) it is also planned that the character creation system will become more gender ambiguous.
I mean a dating sim kinda game I sometimes play happens to make the MC potentially Non-binary and only uses they/them pronouns when the MC is being talked about. but sadly most of the fanbase headcanons the MC as a girl which feels not so comfortable as me being a non-binary person. ( the game is called Obey Me! btw it also has an anime too if you're interested! )
definitely agree with almost all of this! I'd give the Great Plateau a bit more credit though :P It allowed freedom, variety of biomes in an integrated way (as opposed to just thrown in for the sake of being there). Also given I wasn't quite sold on ultrahand at the time, not loving the green gloop aesthetic and feeling like I probably wouldn't be building much cause that isn't what appealed most to me.... having so much of the GSI be ultrahand-oriented kinda put me off and kept me thinking "I just want the game to start" and irked by the punishing nature of attempting to go your own way
tbh I chose the male character in genshin (after like 30 min of thinking) and.. I don't really feel like changing it (for now) idk I kinda feel like he still kinda represent me enough (im still kinda representing myself as a femboy for now) and the fact that it's more of a character than a representation of myself and also that changing to the female one would pretty much destroy the story doesn't make me feel really bad about it
I like how in animal crossing I just, put on feminine clothes and then changed my gender one day and no one said anything about it, like it was always like that, I know its a game and it would actually be a bit weird if they said anything but, it really made me feel safe and happy (I wish I could change my name tho, thankfully I didn't use my real name but my online username cause I didn't, and haven't for a while actually, felt comfortable using it)
12:28 Monster Prom is such a good game series for representation. No gender-locked choices, easy non-binary representation. Your gender is never even brought up, it’s so perfect
They don't change this thing mostly because people don't care about what gender they are playing as(i have male friend that some times pick female character, while i sometimes pick the male character). We only pick the one that looks cooler or cuter. For the programmers make a different gender is difficult because they have to rewrite all the dialogue, and it's a lot of work (imagine doing this for all the pronouns and neopronouns (i don't believe in different geneder identity other than man and woman but thats my opinion)). I think that it's stupid to complain about gender in a video games. (English isn't my first language so sorry if i made some typos)
You say that like changing pronouns for games is hard. If it's text only you don't even need to change anything just let the player define it just like with player names.
@@kev2034 but the dialogue and interaction may change if the character Is male or female (think pokemon when It had female/male rival depending if you were playing as male or female, in Fire emblem fates many dialogues change if you choose male corrin instead of female corrin (even some character appear in different order)). Make a third option in some game is too complicated of you want to differenciate female and male character (English isn't my first language so i'm sorry if i made some typos)
@@chumgamer7331 You're only changing pronouns not the entire story. It's pretty easy to accommodate with code. Or do an undertale and use gender neutral pronouns for the player character.
Just wanted to say while you can’t change your name in animal crossing, you can change your gender in the character creator as often as you would like ^^
I mean Cyberpunk 2077 has chanced a lot since it first came out, you can choose body, genitalia, and voice. It doesn't really have anything to do with the game itself, but it's still one if not my favourite game
There is no reason for your video to be getting the hate that it is \gen. FWIW, negative nancies like in this comment section are thankfully not the majority of humans. I hope you are living your best life and that you can find some peace away from these negative commenters.
"let" - there's your problem right there. If the game was FOSS, the player wouldn't be in the shameful position of begging devs for features but would instead be free to make their own mods to do as they pleased. The gamer community normalizes the use of closed-source distribution models and then complains about the predictable results. I would have had some sympathy had the problem not been entirely self-inflicted
Funnily enough, Lunacid made by Akuma Kira has pronoun character options that dont ever get used in the actual game but upset a lot of people who didnt want representation in their game.
The way I always saw it (and this is coming from someone who always plays as a female toon, even before I knew what egg behavior it was) was that when you are able to make your own character and you can choose whether they look fem or masc or anything between I thought that was enough. I never needed to have my genitalia accurate on a character. It was cool in Cyberpunk 2077 when I was able to make a pre-op trans person. That was a nice touch.
As a cis person I do wonder why trans individuals don't just pick the gender they identify as instead of wanting a specifically trans option (I mean some obviously do but you get what I mean), though I understand with more detailed games and character creation it can feel disingenuous to play as an ostensibly cis character but at least for simpler games like Animal Crossing, Pokémon or Splatoon where customization is limited to clothes and hair I feel like having such an option would be pointless, I also get the perspective of someone realizing they are trans after making their character and feeling a disconnect but even then I feel like just giving players the option to redesign their character whenever fixes that. A big part of some videogames is playing as an idealized self and I assumed for trans people an "idealised self" would just be the gender they identify as, the notion does get more technical with non-binary people where they would need a non-binary option, at least for things like pronouns.
Avelog's Mouse Simulator, but weather or not the character is trans is random. It's random IRL, so why should you get the option to choose in a game? /s
So, kind of separate from the discussion of customization, but something I always wanted to see a game do was have a character that transitions over the course of a playthrough. Sorta of like the old Fable games, where leveling up strength made the character more muscular, leveling up skill made the character taller, and leveling up magic gave the character glowing tattoos. Now to be clear, I'm not saying "transness" should be tied to specific RPG stats, I'm just saying I'd like to see a game where the player starts the game as one gender and ends the game as the other. I know there have been a few games that offer mid-game options for gender swapping, but what I'd like to see is game where it happens gradually and automatically.
