For Honor's Lack of Sex Appeal Blurs the Line Between Male and Female Characters

Ubisoft’s For Honor avoids sex appeal with its female characters in favour of practicality and a juxtaposed equality between the sexes. However, the results whilst naturally will be favourable to some gamers isn’t as forward thinking as you might expect because it means there’s little distinction between the male and female warrior.

[GrimDragon]

Dam if you do dam if you don't. This is why you should just stick to your vision of a game instead of trying to appeal to a certain demographic in an effort to avoid accusations of sexism. People these days are chronic complainers. Let this be a lesson. Not having sexy babes in your games and not defining a sexual difference is not the answer. Even though Iam sure fat feminist would disagree. As well as those who talk constantly about not being a specific gender binary and how gender is a social construct. If we keep losing our way in a sea of insane thinking we will lose ourselves in a whirlpool of chaos.

Personally I don't mind a mannish female in my games if that's what it calls for. but we can't exclude the classic femme fatale completely because of a few insecure complainers either.

[annoyedgamer]

There shouldn't be any females at all in this particular title, this is a classic example of revisionist history. This kind of gender dissolution will ultimately destroy western culture through the destruction of breeding habits. People wonder why places like China and Korea have surpassed us, this is one of the reasons why.

[naruga]

@ annoyedgamer --agree ......Ubisoft EA games feel damn sterile, tasteless and boring without sexual appeal/flirt/or humor (since they decided to include female characters) ...thats what you get when you follow SJW agendas and unfortunately will see more ...thats why Japan keeps ignoring all the fks who complaining about sexism, feminism(or any other agenda) and just create what they like making superb games ....though idiots like Capcom start spoiling their games ...see ugly as f,, Chris in RE7 or Claire in Revelations 2

[Rachel_Alucard]

This game has no relevance to real history beyond the factions existence. The places in this game don't exist, the continent is fictional, the fact that every character is giant in comparison to the tiny soldiers, and none of these factions ever came into contact with each other nor did they coexist in the world at the same time. The only thing this game shares with the real history is the factions themselves and the architecture of their structures is similar. Anything else like sexism and racism, doesn't exist in this game world. Hell the main villain is female for starters

[cleft5]

Have you not heard of Joan of Arc, Fu Hao, Trung Trac and Trung Nhi, Laskarina Bouboulina, Juana Azurduy, etc. These are all women that where warriors from ancient times. Women warriors are nothing new, it isnt revisionist history at all. You just need to broaden your knowledge base a little and you will realize that or do a quick google search.

[MeteorPanda]

okay... females have fought in these time periods. half the population not fighting is suicide on the battlefield. Don't be a dense mother f'ker

[TWB]

I didnt even realize that there were female characters in For Honor. I guess I would prefer little more historical accuracy, but I guess its not that big of a deal since For Honor seems to be some sort of "fanfictionists wet dream of different waring factions" with all the different groups fighting each other.

Considering this article, though, I sure never heard this type of bitching about Rainbow Six Siege, which has a pretty even divide of male and female characters. Varying degrees of cuteness too. In the context of Rainbow Six, this gender balance is also pretty believable.

I guess RSS wasnt topical and milkable enough for this BS? Glad that it didnt, because they have done a good job with interesting and unique characters.

[annoyedgamer]

lol, because we all know women were beating down men on battlefields. Thanks for reminding me why I stopped buying Ubisoft and EA games.

[pasta_spice]

Ignoring the fact that For Honor isn't going for historical accuracy (e.g. Vikings never fought Samurai), there actually were a large portion of female samurai back in the day. Granted, they still faced obstacles due to their gender and many were expected to simply guard their homes and families instead of going into battle. But there were many who did fight alongside men, and were considered no less skilled or talented than male samurai. Well-known female samurai include Tomoe Gozen (who fought in many wars, and was known for riding unbroken horses and beheading multiple samurai), Hojo Masako (who fought alongside her husband in battle), and Nakano Takeko (who led a group of female samurai in the Aizu war)

[annoyedgamer]

Again, few and far between and surrounded by men who likely protected her by instinct. This does not change the fact that women aren't charging on battlefields.

[MeteorPanda]

you can't cure stupid. This guy is too far up his own hide to hear reason XD

the fact these woman fought tooth and nail against not only the enemy but their very society's norms tells you that yes they were fighters - you wouldn't of dared tell them to their face they couldn't fight.

[pasta_spice]

Yeah I don't know why I even bother half the time, because some people are just completely unwilling to accept that there have been badass women in history who didn't just sit in the kitchen all day waiting for their husband's to put babies in them. Apparently acknowledging that there have been MANY warrior women throughout history makes me some sort of sjw or something? I don't know...

Many of the women were NOT accepted by the men they fought with, let alone protected by them. In fact, Tomoe Masako was even asked to leave the battlefield when a comrade was dying because he thought it was shameful to die next to a woman. And Nakano Takeko fought alongside other women - no men in her army, so who was she being protected by??

These women were no less brave than the men they fought against, and many of them died on the battlefield along with their male comrades....so it's sad that people nowadays are brushing away their achievements with "they were probably just being protected by the men" or "there were no women charging on the battlefield." :(

[Cueil]

exceptions will always exist... but they will always be exceptions

[TWB]

I think some of the objections are simply the case of historical exception instead of a rule, but it all also depend on how accurate/fantasy the devs want the game to be.

In BF1, I do feel that playable women in MP would be really stretching it even though there were few small groups that fought in WW1, but making a campaign around those people would be awesome.

But thanks for those interesting stories. I do like hearing about exceptional people like these.

Not defending annoyedgamer btw. Just speaking about some people in general.

[81BX]

@annoyedgamer
Jesus dude... do you even stop to think b4 you type? You are clearly out of your element.

[game4funz]

I assume people will take you to be sexist and name one of the few women in history who were the exception and pretend that of course because they were the exception that men didn't do what comes natural out of instinct which is to protect them regardless if they needed protection at all.

[ameliabaz]

Way to invalidate the contribution of every female warrior or soldier in history.

[ravinash]

yes, because the first thing you think when you have an army bearing down on you wanting to kill you is, oh gee, I better protect this women. /s

[Brohan]

Dude you are clearly a dumbass

[Summons75]

This is the most ridiculous. After years of hearing "armor for women is soo unrealistic" argument we finally get a game (granted there are others too) that have appropriate attire for women in a game and now we are crying about it. Just ridiculous. I haven't gotten the main game yet and spent maybe an hour and knew which models were male and female without having the women 99% naked.

[Elda]

It's great that way & the women in the campaign are some badasses!

[MeteorPanda]

you can't tell the pk is a female?

You realize we never see their faces right? Stop sexualizing helmets

[Max-Zorin]

Even on a warfare game, people are worried about sex appeal? These people today, would get you killed, because of their concern about how they look, on the battlefield.

[ameliabaz]

Yeah I'm a little confused by what the author is trying to say. It sounds like he can't tell which characters are female because they aren't sexualised enough. Which says more about his perception of women than a fault of the game developers.

[Derceto]

Hadn't Ubisoft pretty much gone on record whining that animating female characters is just a crazy amount of work, when addressing the lack of in Assassin's Creed series?

https://www.autostraddle.co...

Yep, they sure did.

I guess they found the best way to address that concern in this turd. Just cover them in armour, and make them completely discernible from men.

LOL Typical Ubisoft slosh. What a pile of garbage this thing is.

[Pearljam]

Here come the liberal cucks

[game4funz]

No one cares. The point of the game isn't about looking at the sea of the character you're bludgeoning to death... Seriously no one with a right mind cares.

All the racist and sexist scum of the industry probably look at these things more intently then the average gamer.

[opinionated]

It's a gender option, who cares? It's not like they have personality traits, they are generic soldiers. The "representation" folk are impossible to please. It would be comical if it weren't so persistent. You just want to grab these people by the ears and shake their head while screaming STFU.

[sullynathan]

non-issue. Hey N4G users, why don't you stop approving retarded articles?

[Cy]

There is literally no pleasing these people. At this point, they're not even pretending not to be whiny children who just complain because they like complaining.

[WelkinCole]

Don't understand why people care about any of this. I honestly never play games to look at sexy and scantly clad girls. I have the internet/porn for that