Now, in the terrible situation of Covid-19 a lot of events have been cancelled all over the world, and with no place to show the likes of video games Ubisoft has officially announced Assassin’s Creed: Valhalla. I’m very excited for this instalment of the franchise as I have been a huge fan of the series, even causing my first conversation with my other half to be a drunken ramble from me explaining the story from the first game to Syndicate (the latest at the time). Somehow she still decided to date me and the story of Assassin’s Creed continues on to this day.
But I digress, a few years ago there was a large and needed movement in the video game community to have an increase in female protagonists in AAA titles. Although the split is still not a 50/50 split there has been an immediate increase in the numbers with titles such as Horizon: Zero Dawn, Control, and Star Wars: Battlefront 2. As well as other games giving the player the choice of having either a male or female protagonist, one of these being Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey, where the game begins with choosing between Alexios or Kassandra. Personally, I chose to play as Kassandra, in part to support the idea of an increase in female protagonists but mainly because between the two I preferred her voice actor over the other option.
Depending on your choice, whoever you don’t choose to play as becomes one of the games antagonist involved in a plot where the two siblings were separated at a young age with the use of a cliff. Other than that the only difference to the game comes in the first set of dlc, Legacy of the First Blade, where due to the biological need to continue the human race in Ancient Greek times one character changes gender depending on your choice. This is where some of the issues started, with journalists and bloggers complaining that there was even a choice to begin with because Kassandra is one of ‘the best female protagonists in the last decade’ (I paraphrase) which is incorrect for several reasons. One being that Aloy from Horrizon: Zero Dawn being a much more rounded and better written female protagonist, and two being the fact that dialogue for Alexios doesn’t change for Kassandra and to say she is one of the best protagonists in video games is to also say Alexios is as well.
And this is where the stupidity behind the complaints at Ubisoft’s apparent ‘sexism’ begins, people are rising to the internet comment sections as they tend to in times where they weren’t asked for. Now, through studies of market research we sadly live in a world where if a video game wants to sell more copies then put a rough muscly man on the front cover. Which for AC: Odyssey they did, all promotional material focused on Alexios instead of Kassandra. However, what Ubisoft then continued to do was to star Kassandra in all gameplay demos available so that she was also in the spotlight during the build up to the release. With the new instalment Ubisoft have released one cgi trailer to showcase the game at the time of writing this, the trailer follows the protagonist Eivor through several stunningly rendered Viking scenes.
Eivor, however, in the trailer represented as a brooding blonde male with a braided beard, dual wielding axes. But in interviews after the release the Narrative director and the Creative director have both stated how there will once again be a choice of gender at the start of the game with no name change or differing character roles for either option, both called Eivor. The directors making it clear that the story is to follow Eivor as they go along their mission in this Viking world no matter what gender the player chooses to be. And yet there has already been articles written in publications such as Forbes complaining about the abundant sexism in this new instalment. I will now present two sentences that were present in the live chats and the articles about the reveal and I would like to see if you can see which is the sexist one:
- “There shouldn’t be a female protagonist.”
- “There shouldn’t be a male protagonist.”
Answer: both sentences are equally as sexist. If you ever find yourself thinking either of these comments when looking at a video game or film or any media then congratulations, you’re sexist. And ultimately this is what the argument over this game’s reveal is boiled down to, people on either side saying that there shouldn’t be one or another. While what Ubisoft has done is try to give players the thing people were asking for and yet they’re still being labelled sexist for it? Do these people not realise how ridiculous this whole argument they’re having is? If they don’t want to have play this game with a female protagonist then choose male Eivor, if you don’t want to play this game with a male protagonist then choose female Eivor. But to complain about a video game giving you the choice? Idiotic.
In summary, I hope Ubisoft continue with giving the player the choice with every game the create and I hope that these idiotic, sexist people chanting about how one way is sexist but their way isn’t come to realise why what they’re doing is so stupid. I look forward to the game, and for those interested I will be choosing male Eivor because apparently beards are customisable in the game and the voice actor is known for his role in the show Vikings.
The Nerdy Bartender 