It is crucial to understand that a character design has to be informative of who the character is. And that sexualized designs do not inform us of it, just break the immersion.
Quiet’s a mercenary with a fictional condition that requires her to uncover as much skin as possible? Fine, then either make her totally nude or give her minimal clothing that is actually comfortable for her job.
If you are put off by the costumes and lack of protagonist representation in Phantom Pain, but still kind of want to play it for the gameplay/story/etc then Brianna Wu has a method to let you play most of the game as something other than the default protagonist (who I now dub Standard Snake).
The focus of the article is how to play as a woman, but as Brianna points out the same system opens up the option to play as a person of color (of either gender) as well. It also has minimal spoilers.
This method is so secret not even Hideo Kojima knows about it! Or if he does he doesn’t care enough to share, promote the article or even mention the feature of playing as anyone but Standard Snake. It seems while someone was very determined to include these options, that someone was not him.
The integration is fairly complete but has some note worthy limitations:
You must start playing as Standard Snake.
NPCs will still react to you in game and in cutscenes as though you were Standard Snake, using male pronouns and descriptions.
In cutscenes, Snake’s lines will just appear as captions instead of being delivered by a voice actress (or alternative voice actor).
Other problems with plot arcs and treatment of female characters remain.
It does have a few extra benefits:
In cut scenes, Snake’s lines will just appear as captions instead of the generic, over the top, alpha male grunting.
NPCs will treat your Snake with the same respect and admiration they’d show Standard Snake.
Now for how to get Quiet into some clothes. The bit lots of people will tell you is possible but won’t explain how or what’s involved, again – spoilers under the cut!
(Edit: Between when I did the majority of this writing and when it got posted there was single tweet by Kojima, it was a retweet of someone thanking him with elaboration afterwards. x )
– wincenworks
There is one fully covering (Gray XOF) and one mostly covering but with ridiculous cleavage (Lone Wolf Sniper) outfit available for Quiet via unlocking in the game. There are still some issues:
Both outfits are only available a long time after first having the option to take Quiet as a Buddy (Mission 15 onward). (Lone Wolf Sniper outfit is available for completing Mission 40 on Extreme, but the Grey XOF outfit can be unlocked earlier around Mission 30.)
Quiet’s overall plot arc will remain the same (including scenes of heavily sexualized violence against her).
NPCs will still react to and describe Quiet as though she was wearing her default “Naked” skin. The game may also default her back to her Naked skin for some cutscenes.
In order to unlock the Grey XOF outfit you need to watch the cutscene of Quiet’s interrogation where she is tortured – yes we’re at a point where cutscenes are something they have to reward you for watching. There’s mixed information on how to trigger the cutscene but general consensus seems to be:
Complete Mission 29 (Code Talker appears in the cutscene) and then keep making trips back to Mother Base to trigger all the information about the main plot, do side missions, etc and eventually it will appear. If you prefer to skip it by turning off the tv or monitor+speakers, it’s about seven minutes long.
If you are put off by the costumes and lack of protagonist representation in Phantom Pain, but still kind of want to play it for the gameplay/story/etc then Brianna Wu has a method to let you play most of the game as something other than the default protagonist (who I now dub Standard Snake).
The focus of the article is how to play as a woman, but as Brianna points out the same system opens up the option to play as a person of color (of either gender) as well. It also has minimal spoilers.
This method is so secret not even Hideo Kojima knows about it! Or if he does he doesn’t care enough to share, promote the article or even mention the feature of playing as anyone but Standard Snake. It seems while someone was very determined to include these options, that someone was not him.
The integration is fairly complete but has some note worthy limitations:
You must start playing as Standard Snake.
NPCs will still react to you in game and in cutscenes as though you were Standard Snake, using male pronouns and descriptions.
In cutscenes, Snake’s lines will just appear as captions instead of being delivered by a voice actress (or alternative voice actor).
Other problems with plot arcs and treatment of female characters remain.
It does have a few extra benefits:
In cut scenes, Snake’s lines will just appear as captions instead of the generic, over the top, alpha male grunting.
NPCs will treat your Snake with the same respect and admiration they’d show Standard Snake.
Now for how to get Quiet into some clothes. The bit lots of people will tell you is possible but won’t explain how or what’s involved, again – spoilers under the cut!
(Edit: Between when I did the majority of this writing and when it got posted there was single tweet by Kojima, it was a retweet of someone thanking him with elaboration afterwards. x )
– wincenworks
There is one fully covering (Gray XOF) and one mostly covering but with ridiculous cleavage (Lone Wolf Sniper) outfit available for Quiet via unlocking in the game. There are still some issues:
Both outfits are only available a long time after first having the option to take Quiet as a Buddy (Mission 15 onward). (Lone Wolf Sniper outfit is available for completing Mission 40 on Extreme, but the Grey XOF outfit can be unlocked earlier around Mission 30.)
Quiet’s overall plot arc will remain the same (including scenes of heavily sexualized violence against her).
NPCs will still react to and describe Quiet as though she was wearing her default “Naked” skin. The game may also default her back to her Naked skin for some cutscenes.
In order to unlock the Grey XOF outfit you need to watch the cutscene of Quiet’s interrogation where she is tortured – yes we’re at a point where cutscenes are something they have to reward you for watching. There’s mixed information on how to trigger the cutscene but general consensus seems to be:
Complete Mission 29 (Code Talker appears in the cutscene) and then keep making trips back to Mother Base to trigger all the information about the main plot, do side missions, etc and eventually it will appear. If you prefer to skip it by turning off the tv or monitor+speakers, it’s about seven minutes long.
Next time someone brings up “historical accuracy” as an argument for some ridiculous double standards in costume design, don’t forget to bring up this Renaissance fashion curiosity. And how conveniently it is never incorporated into male characters supposedly inspired by the era of codpiece popularity.
Thanks to she5los for tagging us in one of the reblogs to this 🙂
Next time someone brings up “historical accuracy” as an argument for some ridiculous double standards in costume design, don’t forget to bring up this Renaissance fashion curiosity. And how conveniently it is never incorporated into male characters supposedly inspired by the era of codpiece popularity.
Thanks to she5los for tagging us in one of the reblogs to this 🙂
“The most intriguing duel fought between women, and the sole one that featured exposed breasts, took place in August 1892 in Verduz, the capitol of Liechtenstein, between Princess Pauline Metternich and the Countess Kielmannsegg. It has gone down in history as the first “emancipated duel” because all parties involved, including the principals and their seconds were female… Before the proceedings began, the baroness pointed out that many insignificant injuries in duels often became septic due to strips of clothing being driven into the wound by the point of a sword. To counter this danger she prudently suggested that both parties should fight stripped of any garments above the waist. Certainly, Baroness Lubinska was ahead of her time, taking an even more radical take on the (at the time) widely dismissed theories of British surgeon Joseph Lister, who in 1870 revolutionized surgical procedures with the introduction of antiseptic.
With the precautions Baroness Lubinska recommended, the topless women duelists were less likely to suffer from an infection; indeed, it was a smart idea to fight semiclad. Given the practicality of the baroness’ suggestion and the “emancipated” nature of the duel, it was agreed that the women would disrobe—after all, there would be no men present to ogle them. For the women, the decision to unbutton the tops of their dresses was not sexual; it was simply a way of preventing a duel of first blood from becoming a duel to the death.
…
It is humorous that most recounts of this historic event fail to mention two important things: the winner of the duel (Princess Metternich) and the reason why the women came to arms in the first place—they disagreed over the floral arrangements for an upcoming musical exhibition.”
^ best part of the entire article.
Emphasis mine.
BABD blog usually advocates for covering female warriors as a protective measure, but here’s a proof that taking everything off is not a bad idea either.
Oddly enough there was a good REASON to fight in the nude… Before modern medicine, a majority of deaths from combat were caused by cuts and stab wounds getting infected. Often this was because the weapon forced a scrap of clothing into the wound, where it would fester… If you aren’t wearing any clothing, this can’t happen!
This week’s throwback, one of my favorite and most informative reblogs on BABD: historical evidence that fighting topless against melee weapons is a much better and (relatively speaking) safer idea than insisting on “modest” wear that’s there basically to just cover the nipples.
“The most intriguing duel fought between women, and the sole one that featured exposed breasts, took place in August 1892 in Verduz, the capitol of Liechtenstein, between Princess Pauline Metternich and the Countess Kielmannsegg. It has gone down in history as the first “emancipated duel” because all parties involved, including the principals and their seconds were female… Before the proceedings began, the baroness pointed out that many insignificant injuries in duels often became septic due to strips of clothing being driven into the wound by the point of a sword. To counter this danger she prudently suggested that both parties should fight stripped of any garments above the waist. Certainly, Baroness Lubinska was ahead of her time, taking an even more radical take on the (at the time) widely dismissed theories of British surgeon Joseph Lister, who in 1870 revolutionized surgical procedures with the introduction of antiseptic.
With the precautions Baroness Lubinska recommended, the topless women duelists were less likely to suffer from an infection; indeed, it was a smart idea to fight semiclad. Given the practicality of the baroness’ suggestion and the “emancipated” nature of the duel, it was agreed that the women would disrobe—after all, there would be no men present to ogle them. For the women, the decision to unbutton the tops of their dresses was not sexual; it was simply a way of preventing a duel of first blood from becoming a duel to the death.
…
It is humorous that most recounts of this historic event fail to mention two important things: the winner of the duel (Princess Metternich) and the reason why the women came to arms in the first place—they disagreed over the floral arrangements for an upcoming musical exhibition.”
^ best part of the entire article.
Emphasis mine.
BABD blog usually advocates for covering female warriors as a protective measure, but here’s a proof that taking everything off is not a bad idea either.
Oddly enough there was a good REASON to fight in the nude… Before modern medicine, a majority of deaths from combat were caused by cuts and stab wounds getting infected. Often this was because the weapon forced a scrap of clothing into the wound, where it would fester… If you aren’t wearing any clothing, this can’t happen!
This week’s throwback, one of my favorite and most informative reblogs on BABD: historical evidence that fighting topless against melee weapons is a much better and (relatively speaking) safer idea than insisting on “modest” wear that’s there basically to just cover the nipples.
It is certainly true some people went naked or near naked into battle, but not alongside warriors in proper armor and not in battle bikinis. There are some other important factors involved in their choice to do so. Firstly it usually only in cases where they didn’t have access to armor and/or the battles were largely ceremonial or otherwise non-lethal.
Armor is developed in response to weapons and usually the first forms of defense were shields. So if you had no nudity taboo and hadn’t developed armor due to lack of resources or lack of regular conflict, you didn’t really have much choice in the matter. Particularly since your weapons are usually tools that are made for hunting or other work.
In areas where this happened, usually the battles were no war in the sense of systematic killing of the enemy but more demonstrations of strength to intimidate others – usually over a piece of farm land or livestock. It was used to resolve grievances and sometimes even as a regular sport.
Usually this happened where people needed everyone to work together in order to provide essential, which means you also don’t need any more land than you already control and work every day. When you have an argument with your neighbours, you settle it to both sides satisfaction so you can resume living next to one another.
The ability to make sophisticated items like bikini armor (which is surprisingly complicated) comes from civilizations where they have sufficient surplus of resources and people they can have specialists who can trade goods and ideas. By the time you reach this level you also a real incentive to try to obtain more and more land.
At that point civilizations can start developing dedicated weapons, training dedicated soldiers (to expand your nation or defend against invaders) and their battles start to involve countless fatalities. Then it becomes worthwhile to begin the cycle of making armor to protect against the enemies weapons, and weapons to beat your enemies armor.
TL;DR: If you’re in a society that has warriors and the know-how and resources to make bikini armor, you’re in a society where your warriors wear actual armor. There were civilizations that fought nude or near nude, but they didn’t have bikini armor, fancy swords, professional warriors or sophisticated combat techniques.
