The new controversy in the world of video games came a little before E3 when Sony decided to show something from Horizon Forbidden West, one of its new projects for PS4 and PS5. What was shown was rather continuous with respect to the first installment and, although it looked spectacular, little was said about the playable mechanics or the fact that it is supposedly a PS4 game.
What was talked about (and is still being talked about) is the new design of Aloy, the protagonist of the game. At some point in the trailer she was focused on a certain angle that made her see more meat on her cheeks compared to Horizon Zero Dawn. What could have remained as simply a weird camera angle or a mistake, turned into a controversy that marks our industry as one that has yet to mature.
What some gamers hate
In the image above we can clearly see how it is true that in the trailer we see a clear difference between Aloy’s face compared to the first installment. However, nobody mentions that the image on the right is an image that you get if you manage to stop the trailer at a precise moment when Aloy speaks so that it appears to have more cheeks than it has, it is an image deliberately manipulated to generate discussions of Twitter
And it is perfect for generating discussions because one of the reasons why many players can come to hate a design is if they notice it too manufactured, created in a marketing room. The “theory” that some have is that Aloy has a more realistic design because Sony wants its female characters to stop being archetypal and one of the characteristics of the female archetype in video games is that she always looks like a model.
In this way, Guerrilla would have purposely changed Aloy’s design to suit a female audience that aspires to play with more realistic characters. Needless to say, this theory warrants putting an aluminum hat on your head, changing a character’s design to suit an audience is believable (and normal), but drawing that conclusion from cheekbones at a certain angle is hair-pulling.
All designs are manufactured
What few players know is that absolutely all characters go through the approval of the studio’s marketing department, even those who seem genuine go through this test. Almost none of these AAA studios approve the release of a game without the approval of this department. In fact, when the anomaly of giving free rein to the artist without paying attention to the sale of the game happens, this title does not sell well and we remember that the purpose of these studies is to survive by selling games.
Great examples are in Bioshock that was published with a cover without people and without weapons, something very rare and a serious error for a first-person shooter. As a result we have the cover of Bioshock Infinite, which had the main protagonist on the cover in a commanding position and a large gun in his hand, something that barely communicates the depth of the game’s story, but it sells well. This is why Bioshock Infinite sold better than Bioshock despite not having such good reviews.
Returning to the female leads we have Faith from Mirror’s Edge. The title of DICE had an Asian protagonist on the cover, the game is cult at this point but it sold badly and for the second installment, her features were made more Caucasian, Faith went from Asian-American to American with slanted eyes.
The market rules
These examples (and there are many more) are essential to understand how the sale of games works, most of them focus on North America because it is all part of a cultural battle that we lost a long time ago. It is proven that most players do light roleplaying when playing, that is, they seek to use the mask effect with the protagonist, something that is more difficult if the character is of another race or another gender.
Why do you think the main characters in most AAA are always white? It is the race that we have accepted as universal (despite the fact that there are many more people of other races), the same as what happened with English, accepted as a universal language. That is why most of the characters are white men or women (the most present race in North America with 75% of the population) and that’s why Faith went from being Asian to Caucasian.
The playable mechanics are not seen on the cover, nor the duration of the game or if it will run well on the console, you only see how the protagonist looks and his design remains the main aspect for which many people are still guided to buy or not a video game. Because those who watch gameplay and read impressions and analysis are the minority.
The importance of character design
So it makes sense that some don’t want a different Aloy, for the average player how their character looks is very important. Their expectation was to play with the same Aloy from Horizon Zero Dawn with better graphic details, now they are disappointed by the change and some cheeks that for many no longer make her so “attractive”. We can agree that it is a very bad reason not to enjoy a video game, but we cannot force anyone to think more about other aspects (such as gameplay) before the cheeks of the protagonist.
That is why many reacted negatively to the change. The ideal would be to understand that it is valid that for many how the character looks is more important than other aspects, understanding this we can at least empathize or come to understand why a few simple slaps generated so much controversy. But there is a limit, especially when criticism for Aloy’s change goes from being constructive to a much more toxic plane that borders on machismo
The center of the controversy
Of course, what it generated was more commotion was the thread on Twitter by @ApexAlphaJ. This user took a fan-created image of Aloy in which she looked more “feminine and attractive” and criticized Guerrilla Games for not making Aloy what he thinks is best. The thread of this user goes for almost 12,000 comments, 25,500 retweets and 6,700 likes, this indicates that it was a very controversial publication
The image, which by the way was created as a parody To make fun of those who wanted a more feminine and less “political” Aloy, it represents Aloy with a lot of makeup and very smiling in the apocalypse. What can be criticized is not offering fan art of a character that you like, but demanding that the developers only design to your liking.
If Aloy does not have this design it is for something, not all female characters should be the same and bet on being the attractive girl in history, there are more spaces for femininity and wanting to limit them to attractive ones is quite simple. Above all, because in the event that you do not like the new design, the ideal is directly not to buy the game, instead of criticizing the artists for having a “political agenda” with the intention of making women uglier.
Do you hate Celtic features or something? Cause like this is woman with Celtic features, and the fan art changes it to Anglo features. it seems you’ve kind of been given a very narrow view of what “feminine” features are, because I’ve seen plenty pics of her and shes feminine
— Capt. Dr. Proff. Dummy, phd (@ComradeCutie) May 30, 2021
We also have another type of player who accepted the Guerrilla Games design and called those who saw a change in Aloy’s cheeks macho, a change they didn’t like. However, this side is also wrong, it is not good to judge others by what they expect from a video game, it is also valid to buy games for how attractive a character seems to you and this does not make anyone macho or misogynistic.
Diverse and always annoying gamers
We are not going to lie, the subject is even difficult to tell, a few simple slaps in a frame of a trailer have made the community want to kill each other. In fact, @ApexAlphaJ reveals that he has received dozens of death threats after posting the image of Aloy with makeup, the community has been driven to extremes and clearly there is a much deeper discussion related to politics and social movements in the background.
Some want attractive and idyllic characters (good), others want more realistic designs (good) and the studios offer perfect experiences sometimes for one side and sometimes for the other (good). The point is that when a AAA targets one of these groups, the other responds harshly and vice versa, so the case of Aloy’s cheeks reveals that it is impossible to please all gamers.
Always something annoying in the community, there is always something. But it is obvious that the design of the characters is one of the aspects that generates the most controversy. There is a false association between the political left and more masculine, realistic and “progressive” female characters, and a false association with the right offering more traditional female characters.
Conclusions
As a result of these associations, many nonsensical discussions have been generated in this community, Aloy’s is the last one. And it all started with an image that was intentionally taken at a bad angle for Aloy, we haven’t even seen the final design to judge anything, it was just a trailer for a game that doesn’t even have a date, that’s how easy it is to have controversies in networks.
It would be nice not to jump at the first time we see a design change to point out, as has not been heard a few times, that feminism does not want attractive female characters. However, we know that it is difficult for the polarization of opinions pushed by networks like Twitter to cease to exist, so it seems that he touches the controversy of Aloy with resignation.
But let’s not scourge videogames either, the same has happened with the design of comic books, movies and series, it seems that negative clickbait has come to stay and the worst thing is that we do not know what the consequences of this “non-controversial” will be for the game. Many have already decided to criticize it for a few cheeks and, as we said, they are within their rights, but it is still a stupid reason to annoy you with a developer and “punish” him for having different intentions to your tastes.
Table of Contents
