In an interview with The Last of Us’ voice actress for Ellie, Ashley Johnson has criticized bigwig publisher Ubisoft for Assassin’s Creed Unity’s male-only characters, calling for other video game developers to include ” stronger females that are not just the damsel in distress, the love interest or oversexualised. ”
” I’m sort of coming at this as an actress but also as a female gamer, ” Johnson told VideoGamer on Friday, July 18 in a discussion about controversy over lack of playable female characters in games.
“Assassin’s Creed: Unity is a great example of when I saw the gameplay and saw that [in] their multiplayer you do not have the option to play as a female. I was like, ‘Give me a fucking break! It’s 2014! How many video games do you have to make to realise maybe have an option to have a female be in there?’ And maybe not just on PS Vita.
But it did make me upset. There are so many female gamers, ” she continued. ” I don’t know what the percentage is at this point but there are a lot of females that play video games and it would be nice to see stronger females in a game that are not just the damsel in distress, the love interest or she’s oversexualised. She doesn’t even necessarily have to be a badass. Just like a normal female character. ”
Johnson also told Videogamer that she believes that males should receive better representation in video games.
” And not just females ,” she added. ” On a broader spectrum, also male characters. Have a good story, have real characters and… I think the audience is changing so hopefully that’ll change a little bit more. ”
Assassin’s Creed Unity has recently become the subject of controversy, as it was revealed that you won’t be able to play as a female character throughout the game. Ubisoft’s explanation for this decision, delivered as “ realities of production ”, was soon called out by a former employee , who chastized the developer for its reasoning.
We’ve also established that, according to statistics published by the Entertainment Software Association back in late-April, an equal percentage of both males and females purchase games within their respective households, 50 percent each . The statistics themselves cover over 2,200 nationally representative US households that play games, as well as what platforms they play on, top-selling genres and more.
Assassin’s Creed Unity was announced back in March , and posters depicting pre-order bonuses were leaked a couple of months back. The game is slated to release worldwide on Tuesday, October 28 for PC, PlayStation 4 and Xbox One. Ubisoft has also reassured that it’s trying not to delay the game’s PC release .
[ VideoGamer ]