The reactionary women-hating alt-right gamer-gate neo-nazi losers should just be ignored at this point.
To be fair, this post is the first I’ve heard of people upset about it
The thing about them is that they are loud, directed, and often affect the first impression a game gets. If this wasn’t with The Witcher fame, the effect would be more notable, and oftentimes they don’t admit why they really have a problem with the game directly.
and oftentimes they don’t admit why they really have a problem with the game directly
I think in many cases they aren’t even admitting it to themselves. Self-delusion is kind of a recurring theme with them.
“at this point”
You’ve paid attention to them at some point?
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If a game is deemed “woke” by right-wing shitheads, that’s like a seal of approval for me. Now, the game might still suck, but it’s not because of being inclusive and diverse.
If it does “flop”, they undoubtedly would chalk it up to it being inclusive and diverse though. Otherwise they just quickly move on to the next target.
Yup, with movies and games alike if it’s “woke” and flops they always say that’s why, when the truth is it just sucked.
This is the first I’ve heard of this game being deemed woke.
If a game has a non-white or non-male protagonist, it’s automatically “woke.”
Didn’t you hear? Ciri is older and therefore ugly now. The worst offence that a designer could make for a female character.
It’s a lot easier - if Americans don’t like what Europeans are doing, then it’s a great thing they’re doing!
Plenty of American developers are making “woke” games. This isn’t a country-specific thing. But in general, yes!
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No one who matters does, no. “Woke” is in quotes because it’s a bullshit term.
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I’ve never read the books, but… It was clear from game 3 that she was going to play an important role in the future. The entire plot of the main campaign in Witcher 3 was about HER powers. The Wild Hunt wanted her, not Geralt.
Plus also she’s awesome anyway. What the fuck is wrong with people? Oh I can’t enjoy my vibeo game with a wahmen as main character, it’ll ruin my mood!
Honestly I’d rather be looking at a cute girl dashing around than an old man, even if I identify more with the latter. Video games are for exploring things. Fantasy worlds, dragons, wraiths… And the biggest problem with suspending disbelief is playing a character who isn’t the same gender as the player? lmao.
Maybe I’m just not enough of a gamer. Only been two and a half decades or so since I first touched a computer and played games.
I’ve only played Witcher 3, and I thought it was obvious that it’s Ciri’s story being told from the perspective of the supporting cast, and that is an incredibly cool literary device.
Honestly the longform books take a similar approach, telling several very important people’s stories from the perspective of how their stories intertwined with Geralt’s and later Ciri’s
I’m trying to remember the first game I played with a female lead and I think it was portal. And that woman didn’t speak. Strangely the next was transistor and she technically didn’t speak either.
Plus also she’s awesome anyway. What the fuck is wrong with people? Oh I can’t enjoy my vibeo game with a wahmen as main character, it’ll ruin my mood!
That’s what I don’t understand, like, have people not played the Horizon games? They’re awesome, they’re fun as hell.
She is great in the books. One of the most unique characters in fiction imho. CDProjekt did really well adapting the continuation of her story in the games.
People like Geralt, they like his brooding attitude. Making. Game about ciri means they don’t get a game with Geralt. And they really want another game with him for some reason.
Idk why they blame woke though
Tomb Raider. That’s all I’m gonna say.
Tomb Raider is not a woman protagonist game though, at least in the first game they wanted to have Indiana Jones but didn’t got the rights to it. So the developers replaced the assets with a female.
In whole series there is not much that makes her a woman, more like an American gun-maniac guy that looks like a girl.
The protagonist is a woman.
The first game didn’t have much in the way of story. The focus was on the puzzles and adventuring. I don’t think that makes her less of a woman character. In a video game, the assets are the only difference, anyway. Not that women can’t be rough and adventurous and physical and like guns.
I didn’t played the game or read the books but I think if you are playing a game that is called Witcher and the Witcher himself is missing that is a big issue.
Normally you would get a new game with a new title but big companies want to use the IP and think using a known title is always better than coming up with a new title.
As I said I didn’t played Witcher 3 so dunno if it makes sense, but I wouldn’t be surprised if people are unhappy when their main character is missing in the game.
Reading is also woke
Well I have had dreams of reading books. They’re weird. Like, I know it’s a dream and the sentences don’t make any sense. But I keep reading it anyways.
People are complaining of having to stare at a female’s body while playing? They prefer looking at at male’s butt? That’s soooo gay!
I’m a straight male who is very secure in my masculinity. But I’ve gotten shit from people when I use female characters in games. Never understood why that’s a problem.
I usually play as a female character in games too. I prefer to look at pretty things.
Can we stop with this stupid and homophobic argument?
- This seems sarcastic. I can tell by the punctuations i am seeing.
- It’s abit gay tho
Lol yes, thank you. I’m of the opinion that using /s defeats the whole point of sarcasm… But at the same time I suspect the world is going crazy via misinterpreted sarcasm on the Internet… It’s a tough decision, maybe I should be using /s but then it’s not sarcasm anymore…
Poe’s law is an adage of Internet culture which says that, without a clear indicator of the author’s intent, any parodic or sarcastic expression of extreme views can be mistaken by some readers for a sincere expression of those views.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Poe's_law
Poe’s law is based on a comment written by Nathan Poe in 2005 on christianforums.com, an Internet forum on Christianity. The message was posted during a debate on creationism, where a previous poster had remarked to another user: “Good thing you included the winky. Otherwise people might think you are serious”.[4]
The reply by Nathan Poe read:[1]
Without a winking smiley or other blatant display of humor, it is utterly impossible to parody a Creationist in such a way that someone won’t mistake for the genuine article.
The original statement of Poe’s law referred specifically to creationism, but it has since been generalized to apply to any kind of fundamentalism or extremism.[3]
Since when is Poe making laws? I thought he’s an X-Wing pilot.
🤣
I don’t think sarcasm is the problem. The bad actors are. In fact i think sarcasm is more necessary than ever:
- If we don’t understand what is and IS NOT sarcasm, the opinions of bad actors won’t be laughed at. If they aren’t actively laughed at they’ll be encouraged by the idea that they’re being taken seriously.
- If people don’t learn to recognize bullshit with friends(in a safe environment) then they’re going to fail to differentiate the truth elsewhere where it can truly hurt them and those around them.
Have you considered that the comment could, in fact, be a joke?
His point is that making it a joke is kinda homophobic. Like being gay is a joke.
It’s making fun of idiots that think like that, not gay people.
the joke isn’t about being gay at all. it’s about reactionary people complaining about things being woke and gay but refusing to play with a woman on camera at all times. it’s using their inconsistency against them; not advocating for it.
Yes
Why the downvotes though!? This is GOLD!
I’m sorry, but I still can’t help but laugh about the anti-woke Asterion flat-butt mod, and now in my head I just see all anti-woke gamers as jealous flat-butters.
They hate us cause they anus
Woah… Is that a… A Triple entendre?
Aint us (the original idiom)
They’re anuses/assholes/jerks (the pun)
No cheeks, just anus (literal)
The complexity was initially sensed, though I did not encompass it at the time of writing
E pluribus anus
Unpopular opinion:
Witcher 4 won’t be as good as Witcher 3 cause the third one was very good.
So no matter who they chose, it’s probably gonna be underwhelming.
This is why we’ll never see elder scrolls 6
Eh, I didn’t like Skyrim as much as Morrowind, so I think there’s some room for ES6 to improve on ES5.
Morrowind is the best. Oblivion remaster is better than skyrim (in my Morrowboomer opinion) and that was just refreshing a 20 year old game. I feel like there is a lot of hype for TES6 that it may not live up to, but surpassing skyrim is definitely doable.
Honestly TES6 has one thing going for it and that’s that Skyrim is over a decade old now so matching the scale and scope of Skyrim is much more achievable.
In my opinion when a sequel falls flat or is outshined by an earlier entry in the series, it’s usually because the studio messed with the formula for the gameplay, not because of a change in characters
Oblivion and Skyrim were both massive disappointments to me.
If ES 6 comes out, it’ll have maybe three skills - magic/combat/sneak. Any interesting/complicated lore will be retconned and shoved aside. (Why wasn’t Cyrodil a jungle? Where are my river drakes? What happened to Sutch? Where is my Colovian armor set?)
But it’s being made by the Bethesda that made Starfield. It’s going to have a terminal case of Emil.
He apparently worked on Oblivion (and Skyrim), so there’s a chance. He took a chance on Starfield and failed, so hopefully he learns from that instead of doubling down.
Yeah, but I don’t have a ton of faith in him, especially given that one whiny twitter thread he made.
Oh we will see it ! I’m confident it’s going to be shit, but who knows
also the formula is starting to feel old so it won’t have as much lustre as long as they don’t reinvent themselves
Nah, if the next Witcher MC was Dandelion, that would absolutely be the best one.
I thought the same thing about Cyberpunk, they couldn’t make lightning strike twice. But in the end, once the issues were fixed, it’s also one of my favorite modern games.
Although I really liked cyberpunk and I’ve finished both that and Witcher 3 and cyberpunk is my favourite…
Really? I thought Witcher 3 was iconic, like it broke out of the regular gaming culture and into the mainstream, idk if cyberpunk did that.
My world would be better if Witcher 4 is better than 3 but I have doubts
That’s probably true, W3 is iconic in that regard. But Cyberpunk is just a great follow-up.
It can be better
If they fix the horrendous gameplay
People downvote you but I feel you.
The gameplay just doesn’t hold up, the combat is too basic, has no depth and become stale really quickly
Fix two things:
- The weird loot range issue, where if you’re not standing in juuuuust the right angle, you won’t be able to loot certain corpses or containers.
- The fact that, outside of combat, controlling Geralt feels like driving a boat. Weird large turn radiuses, slow start and stop, etc… The devs did this to make his movement look more natural, but it feels like the game is constantly fighting against or trying to correct your inputs.
Combine those two things together, and you get a consistently frustrating experience outside of combat. Installing a ranged loot mod was one of the biggest quality of life upgrades. You walk near a corpse or container, and it automatically gets looted.
The combat can also get repetitive at times, and the difficulty scaling is weird too. But as long as those two things and still deliver a good story, I think players will ultimately walk away happy.
I feel like the repetitive combat is more a result of combat that actually encourages dodging and using signs rather than just standing still and slicing while the enemy either hits or not based on RNG, and the fact that in combat you truly are jumping around, dodging, parrying, etc. makes it more true to the source material.
The style of combat in The Witcher 3 also makes it so that if you do find yourself in a much higher level fight than you should be you can with enough tries manage to beat it. I had one playthrough where I took on the werewolf quest while too low level for it, didn’t preserve any saves before the no turning back point for the battle. In order to save my save file I had to keep trying and failing to defeat the werewolf until I finally got the hits and dodges just perfectly enough to defeat the werewolf. It sucked but ultimately it was possible to complete and not just by an attempt with golden RNG rolls results
If I ever replay it I’m going to try and remember the existence of this mod because it was painful
I’m mad about Ciri being the main character, however the reason I’m mad is not because of her character or her being a woman. What I’m upset about is that I thought this game would take place in a completely different time period or region. Like maybe during the first witchers? Maybe in the future? But no, CDPR is just force extending existing characters and a story that clearly ended. Zzzzz
Exactly my opinion as well, last game ended perfectly for a new story.
Yes. The games already retconned the ending of the books, which was pretty finalized. But whatever, the games were good. But now they’re just force extending an already forced extended storyline rofl. I was hoping for completely new characters in a completely new settings/time period. Such a fucking shame.
They made such a big deal about the witcher 4 not being about Geralt and being it’s own story, and now they’re just extending Ciri’s storyline. Pretty braindead decision in my opinion. It feels like they are just lazy and gave up on making a new character.
I think it’s risk aversion to some extent ?
It’s the same bullshit that has ruined hollywood. It’s safer to just reboot some bullshit or force a sequel vs. coming up with something new and original.
I’m not saying doing another Witcher game in general is a forced sequel. But using the same damn character is definitely a forced extension.
Quite the opposite for me. Having only random ass characters in the story would kill all my hype. Also I wished for Ciri as MC in the next game ever since I player W3, so for 10 years now.
My dream witcher game is set like 150 years in the future (early industrialized time period of the witcher universe.) And there could be tension as guns are invented and witchers aren’t needed as much. How great would that be?
Wanted to mention - The Season of Storms Witcher book has a short flash forward to around 150 years in the future, and they’re starting to burn fossil fuels. That’s where I got the 150 years.
My man Geralt looked like he was in dire need of a nap during the entire run of Witcher 3. Let him rest, people.
I want to believe this is just s straw man argument but sadly I know there are enough jerks out there who absolutely call everything that doesn’t cater precisely to toxic masculinity wOkE.
I think it‘s a bit of a bummer that the ending of Witcher 3 that does make the most sense in-universe isn‘t canon in favor of what I think is pure fan service. I will probably still play the shit out of this though because all of their games have been hitters for me. Even Cyberpunk at launch. Even Witcher 1.
I don’t know if I have met anyone complaining about Ciri being the protagonist of Witcher 4. Even the most conservative people I know who are fans of the series are pumped about her being the main character because they love the story and it’s the only logical way forward. The only complaints I have heard are that in universe she’s kind of overpowered for a video game protagonist. I think people whining about this are fake fans or just agitators who don’t even play these games.
just agitators who don’t even play these games.
Duh, however, they get millions of views across YouTube and X and hundreds of thousands of followers on Steam.
It’s about time women got more accurate representation in games. How many games have you play as a man compared to playing as a woman? Technically it should be 50/50 to more accurately represent the real world.
I don’t think representation is the main issue, it is more about how they are presented.
Striding for a perfect 50/50, doesn’t really sense if they are all just stereotypes and sexual objectified. Also there are many other underrepresented population groups.
IMO, it is more important to focus good well written and complex characters, that represent real circumstances right.
I don’t complain that AAA studios have gone ‘woke’ because they now include choices to select from marginalized groups, I complain about them because they are often do not offer a deeper perspective of people in that group and are just different skins.
In some way, I can understand, games often happen in a Fantasy world, but I would wish that selecting different characters would do more than just exchanging the player mesh, texture and voice pack.
Unless you are also complaining about it when white male characters are also surface-level, 2-D, copy-and-paste characters then all you are saying is “Only white male characters are allowed to be simple or a stereotype/trope.” Lets be honest, not every game needs a complex and well written character, and that is fine. If they choose to go that route it doesn’t matter what race, religion, or gender the character is in the first place. So it doesn’t matter if they are a white male, a latina woman, or a black non-binary person.
Now I’m also not gonna shut down your solution without being constructive and providing my own solution, cause I don’t think quotas are the answer either. Instead we should be uplifting and empowering marginalized creators and game designers so that they can make more characters that they want to make. Which is generally characters they can relate to. If people want more characters that are women, then the game industry needs to become a safe space for women and empower them so they can provide more representation for characters. Same thing for any other demographic. That will make sure that these characters are being made in an aethentic and organic way, and not just being pumped out to meet a quota, but also isn’t restricting when marginalized demographics can be used as characters.
Unless you are also complaining about it when white male characters are also surface-level, 2-D, copy-and-paste characters then all you are saying is “Only white male characters are allowed to be simple or a stereotype/trope.”
What? Where am I saying that?
Yes I would complain about all kind of stereotypes. Even the “white muscular tough guy” could be considered sexual objectification. IMO CoD is sometimes pretty gay coded.
Lets be honest, not every game needs a complex and well written character, and that is fine. If they choose to go that route it doesn’t matter what race, religion, or gender the character is in the first place. So it doesn’t matter if they are a white male, a latina woman, or a black non-binary person.
I wasn’t saying that. You can have games without a single character. Or where the character doesn’t really matter, because it just an empty shell you are driving around and not more.
But IMO I mostly play story driven RPGs, where you are someone, and where you want the environment to react to you. It would be awesome if when you run around with colorful hair or tattoos, it would slightly change the disposition of the NPCs or cause them to comment on your appearance. Don’t let this stuff be just cosmetics, it should be more meaningful, and embedded into the game world.
Then yeah I get that. Your initial argument without the context you just added was just reminiscent of bigoted arguments. It was wrong of me to assume
That’s why the trailer has me so hyped for this game. It looks like the game is going to be different because Ciri is the protagonist. Her experience, reactions, and approach to saving a young woman from being sacrificed are totally different than what Geralt’s would be. I hate it when games like Mass Effect are like “Oh! You can play as FemShep! That totally counts as representation!” even though it changes literally nothing about the story.
I want more games that actually address the real and significant differences in the experiences and perspectives of different characters. I’m always disappointed when there’s a “female” option that’s just a re-skin of the male character with no changes in how the character interacts with the world and the story. (This happens a lot in non-video game media too.)
The well written part is my concern. Or we will get the same quality as a lot of recent movies and shows. Where the characters are stereotypes, poorly written, poorly developed. With plot points that are just randomly forced into the story, and that plot point has nothing to do with the rest of the story. You know the ones, where something has been added to the story and has no reason or meaning or benefit to being part of the story.
Video games are not the real world. They do not have to follow the rules of the real world. Even if parts or all of the game model the real world, video games are artwork, and artwork invents its own rules. Trying to enforce rules onto art has not worked well in the past, and will likely not work well in the future either.
Oh boy the only issue I have is that I’m going to be unstoppable, Ciri is literally a broken main character nearing her full potential.
Bitch can fucking dimension travel, trained in sword and fight by other witchers and IIRC Yennefer trained her in some sort of sorcery arts as well so it’d be like having an OP mix of Geralt+Yennefer
Yennefer trained her in some sort of sorcery arts
So I recently devoured the book series and can clarify, she was first trained as a Witcher, then as a sourceress by Yennefer, but after she was teleported into the middle of the desert and tried to use fire as a source of power out of desperation, she gave up all magical abilities as the fire was trying to consumer her. So shes a brilliant swordswoman, has partial Witcher mutation (some of the mutations come from the secret Witcher diet which she was fed at Ker Moren while being trained) and depending on when in the timeline the game takes place she would have incredible reflexes and some interdimensional travel capabilities.
There’s also some really interesting opportunities for storytelling given how Ciri’s background is just soaked in trauma. On that note, I am also curious if they intend to play down the salaciousness for this entry or not. In the books Ciri was definitely curious (and heavily implied to be bi) but remained a virgin, and by the end of the series she was still a minor by modern standards. I want to say she was 16 or so at the end of the last book.
I’m super excited to see where this game goes, because if its worthy of being released after the masterpiece that was The Witcher 3, it’s going to be brilliant
With regards to Ciri’s age, she’s 21 during the main events in The Witcher 3.
At the end of the books she’s 17.
No idea if they’ll play down the salaciousness or not, but given when the game will likely take place that at least won’t be any issues with the main character being a minor.
Don’t forget the carnivorous unicorns
I mean, she couldn’t even counterattack in W3.
Bitch
Why?
Is there an interpretation where it means somebody who is shockingly audacious?
Honestly I think W3 jumped the shark when it added a fifth faction for Gwent, and I know I’m not alone in this opinion.
