The hilarious front line in the tragic war against ridiculous female armor
Tag: creative freedom
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Battlerite is a recent addition to the growing popular genre of “just fight people in multiplayer” games that continue to come forth with no end in sight. Given the starter line up in this game, I’m sure you’ll be shocked to discover a large portion of their tag on Tumblr is Rule34.
What’s interesting about Battlerite, though, is that it only released on 8 November 2017, it already has two characters added (both female).
The first was Destiny.
She was released with the first patch seemingly as some sort of afterthought that there may actually be people out there who wanted to play a female character who did not look like a child, was clearly recognizable as human, wasn’t in a hyper sexualized costume and appeared to turning up to the fight because was a warrior.
In December, they released Alysia… who looks kind of presentable from the waist up but has weird thigh highs. In her video she spends her time prancing and talking about being an artist. I guess they’re trying to find a magic mix of objectification and actual good design.
tl;dr: Not only do they appear to be copying Smite’s core gameplay, they’re also copying their strategy regarding attempting to have their feminist cookie and gratuitous cheesecake too.
– wincenworks
This game seems to go through some sort of visual identity crisis regarding female characters. A reader actually noted us that the white-haired lady, Jade, went through a “sexy” redesign some time ago:
You already talked a bit about Battlerite’s Freya before, but I was looking at this character named Jade, and noticed this. On the left is her old design, notice how apart from her hairstyle everything is very practical. Low, chunky heels (I’ve been told 1" heels are better for your back than flat heels), a full-coverage coat and shirt, a mask to protect her from inhaling dust, etc.
On the right is her current design, complete with useless-to-dangerous mini armor plates, stiletto heels, boob window, shoulder windows, and a big hole in the back of the coat making it essentially useless.
It’s sad to see that such a good design has been replaced with a generic “sexy” design.
What a waste of a design that was both practical AND much more interesting visually (just compare the silhouette!). The new one could easily just come from some random shovelwareweb ad. She sticks out like a sore thumb, even next to other sexualized ladies, due to a slightly different (generic and overly detailed) art style.
Battlerite is in a desperate need of rehashing its art direction to something more consistent and not at all dependent on the creepy marketing guy.
~Ozzie
edit: Fixed link to Alysia’s video.
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I have to admit that Oraco has been impressive in their dedication to minimizing the amount of creativity in their designs. Sometimes I joke about some studios using a spinner to pick random design elements, but it seems genuinely possible (example: nature + League of Angels)
Seriously the recycling art assets on the front page and committing to this level of generic imagery, is impressive in a terrible kind of way. Not to mention the combining with @eschergirls type anatomy.
No surprise that it’s not only incredibly generic in gameplay, but often accused of another game which is essentially a game that plays itself (so not quite an asset flip, but close enough it may was well be).
This is why we say that if you’re counting on sex to sell, it’s probably because you don’t have anything worthwhile in your game.
– wincenworks
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From the same publisher as TERA Online, it seems that Kritika Online has decided the best way to celebrate Halloween is to release the most generic bikini armor humanly possible.
Kamihime Project is a strategy game where the player controls a bunch of hot girlsmercenaries Goddess Princesses. Wait, where have I heard that before?
This particular lady is apparently Gaia. It’s hard to tell whether there’s any inspiration from the mythological Greek figure… but then again it’s hard to tell anything with this. I just get more confused the more I look at her.
I get the feeling that this game will be making many more appearances on the blog, especially with Creative Characters like these:
Not to mention their interpretation of Hecatoncheires, the Greek giants with 100 arms and 50 heads….
I guess the wreath on her head is supposed to mean ‘Greek?’ I just… mm.
-Icy
Apparently (some of?) those are supposed to be actual figures from different mythologies… This game makes me want to apologize to SMITE, it really hurts.
Also, even though the promo material attempts (if you can call it that) to establish a “personality” for Gaia… it’s amazingly bland and vague AND doesn’t match the character design at all!
MUCH CREATIVE!
~Ozzie
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Art is not made in a vacuum. It is tangible communication – a powerful object formed from varied experiences and views, and the implications it derives from the world in which it was born.
Pretending that something is “only” a piece of art/fiction/game/whatever and therefore can’t possibly be emblematic of its creator’s own biases (and form further bias among the audience) is ignorant at best.
Art and entertainment are, by design, media for transferring ideas. Not always intentionally in the propagandist way, but the transfer happens constantly. That’s one of the reasons media criticism is needed: to seek out and analyze what media communicate.
This is why we don’t buy “Oh, let those hundreds upon thousands of fictional ladies fight wars in metal bikinis, what bad could possibly be taken from all those stories they are featured in?” argument.
You have men yelling: “yay! Boobs in games! Bigger boobs! More boob! Naked boob!”for decades. When female gamers finally got enough of a voice to say: “hey, I kind of wish there were women in video games who weren’t 80% boob by body weight”: those same men utterly flipped their shit.
This whole “why complain? You can’t tell designers what to do!” only seems to come up any time anyone but straight, white men dares make their opinion heard.
Sadly accurate.
Note how whenever cishet white audience members demand changes, those demands are met, or at the very least acknowledged. Whenever anyone else does that, it’s gonna be called “whining” or “entilement”.
Emphasis mine.
~Ozzie
Video game has a single gay male character who flirts you? Riot against the developers. Protagonist options do not include a white male? Riot against the developers. Age of Conan reduces bust sizes on female characters? Riot against the developers. Didn’t get the ending you wanted? Riot against the developers.
Women who have been gaming for years point out obvious problems?
– wincenworks
It still baffles me that wanting women in games to be designed appropriately for their job/setting is a controversial opinion to have, apparently.
Look at the design variety! So many lingerie options!
The strategic cutouts from the dress fabric are just hilarious. How does she walk? These are Carnival outfits, not armors.
The most empowered man I’ve found in the labeled promotional material is the following guy on the left, though his image is completely ruined by monster-truck-wearing scowly man on the right.
And even he’s not reaching anywhere near the levels of empowerment of the ladies in this post.
We have to stand up to this reverse sexism! This particular MMO is apparently undergoing a relaunch, so now is our chance to let the developers know what we gamers really want.
-Icy
Edit: there have been a few comments about the potential child in one of the pictures, to which I reacted with a “(kill me)” and you are correct! That does appear to be a child. Here’s a better picture, for better or worse.
