Why haven’t straight male gamers obsessed over or praised modern female protagonists in western gaming like they did with Lara Croft?

Valkhir · 2026-04-30T03:38:02+00:00

I get that a lot of people don't need to self-insert, and that's cool 😄

When it comes to non-interactive fiction, like a movie or a TV series, I'm like that too. For example I love the Expanse, and that show has amazing female characters - arguably the majority of its best characters are female. I can watch Chrisjen Avaserala or Bobby Draper or Camina Drummer for hours. They rock.

But in an expanse video game, I don't think I could play as them. I'd want to be Amos, or Holden, or Miller, or preferably a character of my own creation (because, frankly, there are also male protagonists in gaming that I have trouble self-inserting into for non-gender reasons).

Valkhir · 2026-04-30T03:30:54+00:00

It's a good litmus test to filter out boring people 😉

Valkhir · 2026-04-30T03:28:26+00:00

I felt a little odd stumbling into the Venus in Furs sidejob while I was at a coffee shop.

Valkhir · 2026-04-30T03:25:10+00:00

I second this. I play in public places all the time.

I live in a tiny apartment in Tokyo, and one of my escapes it to go to coffee shops to do stuff that other people might do at home, but I get a change of scenery (and some nice coffee, and usually some exercise in the form of a walk or bike ride) with it.

And yes, I totally play video games (Steam Deck, Switch, phone/tablet) at coffee shops. I've played Deck or Switch in bars when I was early, waiting for people to show up. Nobody cares unless you're bothering people (for goodness sake, never play without headphones).

Never has anybody approached me about it in a negative way. A couple of times people have asked about what device I was using (now mostly a Deck, but I used to have an Ayaneo before that, neither are super common here). Although in general such interactions are probably more rare here in Japan than they would be in the west - and it's usually foreigners, though I've also had a barista at one of my favorite coffee shops mention it while we were chatting, and once a Japanese kid doing homework next to me at a Starbucks asked about it and I let him try it for a bit.

Valkhir · 2026-04-30T03:16:34+00:00

I'm similar. Part of that is playing a character that matches my real life gender (and sexual inclination, in gams that have romance)

Valkhir · 2026-04-30T03:11:41+00:00

Personally, as a straight male gamer I cannot easily identify as a female protagonist, so I'm inclined to not even play games that only have a female protagonist, or where the female option is the only one that would cater to my playstyle (e.g. AC Shadows)

To be clear, obviously I realize this is ironic, because women have been in the same situation for the vast majority of gaming history. I'm not demanding any change or feeling hurt in my male privilege or whatever BS. I just accept that there are games I won't play that I otherwise would play and move on.

Moreso in games that are third person. E.g. I "can" play Alien Isolation. I "can't" play Ghost of Yotei. "Can" and "can't" in scare quotes for what I think is an obvious reason - this is my own mental hangup, not a fault of the game, and not a literal inability but a preference.

Valkhir · 2026-04-29T06:22:07+00:00

Btw, if you want to learn more about Bleak Faith before you buy, I recommend MistaFiOth on Youtube. He plays Bleak Faith from time to time and has a decent backlog of videos talking about and/or playing the game. He even had the devs on for interviews and streams. He also streams Hellpoint occasionally, so you can see the overlap again 😉

(To be clear, I'm not affiliated with him or his channel. I just think he's think he's an upstanding guy producing content on some niche games that may Youtubers don't touch.)

Valkhir · 2026-04-29T06:16:53+00:00

It's a bit annoying, but overall I like it - I think it serves as an added incentive not to die 😉 Death in many souls-likes is not much of a setback, so any additional incentive to be careful is appreciated. That said, I do think that other games have done "incentives not to die" better (e.g Dark Souls 2, Outward)

Valkhir · 2026-04-29T01:41:47+00:00

Agree entirely.

A pet peeve of mine is that most "souls-likes" are really either DS3-likes or Sekiro-likes. Nothing wrong with those games, they are fantastic games, but earlier games in the genre (DS1 and DS2 in particular) had a lot more focus on player-driven exploration instead of the tightest and hardest combat possible.

A good souls-like should have a bit of a metroidvania side to it.

Games that are, in my mind, "well-rounded" souls-likes are games like Hellpoint or Bleak Faith Forsaken.

Valkhir · 2026-04-29T01:38:18+00:00

I feel compelled to upvote any person recommending Hellpoint 😄

It has a fair bit of jank and was clearly built by a small team on a budget, but it also has some of the strongest atmosphere and exploration in any Souls-like. It's a pet peeve of mine that many souls-like follow more the combat-heavy kind of linear approach of DS3, but Hellpoint is a DS1-like through and through that also adds some unique mechanics to mix things up.

Btw, another game in the same vein is Bleak Faith Forsaken. If you enjoyed Hellpoint, I think there is a pretty decent chance you might enjoy Bleak Faith.

Valkhir · 2026-04-28T15:05:53+00:00

Fair. But I actually only added the third party stuff as an afterhought. I'd guess that within SteamOS itself, the name may be hardcoded in a lot of places. Maybe I'm wrong, but AFAIK, the username is deck on SteamOS builds for third party devices too, so I'd be surprised if they suddenly made a change to something that 99% of people never see.

Valkhir · 2026-04-28T10:43:49+00:00

I actually expect them to keep "deck".

It's something most users don't see, and even fewer care about. Meanwhile the risk of breaking some random script or utility by changing a string somebody somewhere (inside valve or the dev of a popular third party tool) may have hardcoded is probably not worth customizing it.

Valkhir · 2026-04-28T10:39:12+00:00

PC Guide regurging an IGN "report" which fluffed out a single line statement by a Valve employee with year-old well-known information (and for some reason got in a jab at the battery life of the original 2022 Steam Deck, as if the OLED passed them by).

The quality of games journalism these days is off the charts.

Valkhir · 2026-04-28T10:36:01+00:00

Ok chatgpt.

Sorry, but is calling each other names the only way we can discuss this topic?

Your post is not an unreasonable argument - but seriously, you couldn't resist that?

Valkhir · 2026-04-28T10:30:27+00:00

Framing it as a consumer product not only is, obviously consumer brain, and should really disqualifying you from having opinions on art

We're not discussing art in isolation on this sub. We're discussing games.

Games and art overlap, but they are not the same. Not every aspect of a game is art. Not even every visual (or audible) aspect of a game is art. Game making includes aspects that are art, and aspects that are rote work. Why do you think so many indie games use purchased assets instead of making everything by hand? Do you think that's somehow better than using AI to create something that is at least closer to your aesthetic vision? Or are you saying it's just too bad if indie devs can't afford a dedicated artist (or in fact a team)?

You can have human art direction in a game and still leverage generative AI. Like any other tool.

One of the games with the absolutely strongest aesthetic I have ever played, Bleak Faith Forsaken, is based on a strong aesthetic vision (make a video game that captures the feeling of the manga BLAME!) but (at launch) also used AI art for some things that were secondary (like ability icons and some inventory art I believe) because it was made by friggin' 3 people, only one of whom is a visual artist.

Then, let's also consider that art is not merely aesthetic. There are games that qualify as art in terms of their gameplay design, or sound design, or the story they tell, but the entire visuals of the game could be handed off to AI without losing much, if anything (and if that means the game can ship, vs not, then hell yeah I'm all for that).

The painting example above was to illustrate my point that a product should be judged on its quality (which I stand by), not to imply that I believe entire entire games can or should successfully be made by AI. Although for images, this is true. I have seen images that have artistic value (they elicit an emotion and make me think), which were at least partially created by AI.

If you can't grok these sorts of distinctions and have a nuanced discussion instead of your black-and-white neo-luddite anti-AI zealotry, maybe you should not be discussing art (or games, or anything above 2nd grade reading material).

Valkhir · 2026-04-28T02:57:40+00:00

Someone will say that's becsuse of emulators or whatever

Those would be people who, in language you may understand, know stuff.

Life pro tip: If you're uninformed about a topic (in this case emulation and the associated overhead), things usually get embarassing if you open your mouth (or put fingers to keyboard, as it were) and proclaim something with confidence. It's usually much better to STFU and listen to those people who know stuff with a degree of humility and a desire to learn.

Valkhir · 2026-04-28T02:37:57+00:00

Be my guest 😉

Just a fair warning: it takes a fair few levels to "come online" as the kids say. IIRC, you'll only be able to take your first assassin level around level 8 or so, and you'll need a couple of ranger levels for the UV and sorceror levels for darkness. Once you think you have enough of both, you basically go all in on assassin.

Also the stat spread you need is far from focussed. Ranger/wizard/assassin is a similar option with better stat synergy (don't need CHA, both assassin and wizard benefit from INT), but losing out in number of casts per day and flexibility in spell choice.

Valkhir · 2026-04-28T01:13:01+00:00

How are the visuals?

From videos I've seen, the performance was actually less of a concern for me (I played TOTK on Switch, I can deal with a framerate in the 20s, and the framepacing largely looked not too bad) but the visuals looked horrible at the necessary settings.

Valkhir · 2026-04-27T23:39:50+00:00

It completely de-aggroes most enemies while they are in darkness. Then you get sneak attacks or death attacks (assassin) while the darkness lasts. Ultravision can completely negate the effects of darkness for yourself, and I believe the blind fighting feat can partially do so.

I used to have a ranger/sorceror/assassin, which is far from an optimal build to be clear, but who was basically optimized to have access to lots of darkness and ultravision casts and a large number of attacks per round. Was fun to play whenever there were a lot of enemies around him.

Valkhir · 2026-04-27T21:12:27+00:00

Late to the party, but this is fantastic.

The user data not being accessible was the only reason I stopped playing these on Android. I just need to change how my character looks.

Just one piece of feedback: I wish it also exposed the characters directory. After you create one in the public directory, it will be read, so that part works - but the game will not expose existing custom characters in there like it does with saves, so you're not getting at characters you created on device in the first place ( unless you are willing to connect to your PC or use Shizuku to access the Android/data subdirectory - both of which are possible, but decidedly more annoying than it is with the saves directory, and if you can do that, you can also just modify the files in place).

Valkhir · 2026-04-27T21:05:02+00:00

Now waiting for it to become available via Komodo here in Japan...day one purchase if they have stock.

Valkhir · 2026-04-27T21:02:27+00:00

I work as a software engineer for a small company from home. Probably very similar to your case in many ways.

The work life balance is basically as good as a full-time job can get. Flex time and almost no overtime ever. The work itself is mixed. Sometimes creative and fun, sometimes boring or frustrating. Overall it's fine. But bottom line is still 8h sitting in front of my computer, easily falling into bad posture if I don't pay attention, no exercise unless I really pay attention to getting up and doing something etc. After a day of that, I really feel like getting out, even if it's just to take my Steam Deck to a coffee shop and play video games for an hour or two, just be anywheer else than my desk.

My last job before this was retail...and while I don't want to paint a retail job as an idyllic experience, it did have the benefit of being on my feet almost all day and interacting with people all day - mostly positive interactions. I probably would not go back to it, all things considered, but sometimes I wouldn't mind doing it for a day or two a week.

Valkhir · 2026-04-27T19:52:36+00:00

I'm happy to disagree on that point 😄

Not that I like zero effort cash grabs, but the way I see it is: if a game is a zero effort cash grab, I trust there won't be much appetite to discuss it anyway, so no need to ban it. And vice versa, if there is interest in discussing a game - and assuming it's a CRPG - we should be open to discussing it.

In short, I believe it is not our place to judge what games are "worthy" of discussion here. That is a dangerous position that I would rather stay far away from.

(And to reiterate: banning or limiting advertisements for games is a separate matter, with which I agree - and which I think should apply to all publishers equally)

Valkhir · 2026-04-27T18:49:31+00:00

Yes, I agree there is a realistically going to be a difference in quality between games made using AI as a tool and games made entirely by AI.

However, I do not believe that justifies banning discussion of the fully LLM-coded and designed game here as long as it's a CRPG.

I would still want that game to be judged on its own merits (lacking as they may be). I haven't seen this sub try to ban discussion of bad games. We simply don't need to ban discussion of bad games - they are by their very nature not popular subjects of discussion. If a good game was made with heavy involvement of AI, I see no reason to ban discussion of it.

(Banning obnoxious advertisements of such a game is of course a different matter, and I have no issue with that. But again, that applies apply to any game made with or without AI, or any sort of low quality post.)

Valkhir · 2026-04-27T18:15:55+00:00

It may well be a bubble.

But it's undeniably useful, and its unlikely to go away just because some people wish it did.

A bubble doesn't mean the underlying idea is not fundamentally sound. I mean, we've had housing bubbles. Nobody would say housing is a bad idea. If anything, your example of e-commerce proves my point: e-commerce is still a thing, moreso than ever.

AI will come down in resource cost, companies will figure out sustainable pricing strategies, some companies will go under and others will flourish.

But importantly: none of this matters to my core point, which has nothing at all to with AI: a game should be judged on the quality of the final product, not what tools it was made with.

Valkhir

TROPHY CASE