Star Wars Outlaws Kay Vess And Stellar Blade's Eve Are More Similar Than They Seem

This article is part of a di🥂rectory: S💟tellar Blade: Complete Guide And Walkthrough

Summary

Western game design has changed in recent years, but to argue every character is ugly now is ridiculous.
Characters like Stellar Blade's Eve offering interesting variety, but not every character needs to be there.
It's hard to understand why a fiesty action star like Kay Vess is now in the firing line.

One of the worst things about being on the internet these days is navigating extremes. I don’t even mean that in the sense of political extremism, but in that everyone seems to care so much about things that ultimately don’t matter. That’s why we have 30-tweet threads and hour-long videos about the attractiveness of the characters in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Stellar Blade and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Star Wars Outlaws.

My general opinion on all of this is *shrugs*. I think if you care enough about this issue to send threatening emails to people who disagree with you (and have no say in how these characters are designed), there is probably 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:quite a bit wrong with you. But there has been some unhelpful gaslighting 𒉰going on around this whole issue, too.

There Is Still A Place For Stellar Blade's Eve

I’ve written before about how cool I think✨ Stellar Blade’s Eve’s design is, and about 168✤澳洲幸运5♐开奖网:the place raunchy characters have in gaming before Stellar Blade was even revealed. But I’ve also written about 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:the strange persecution complex people who like Eve seem to have developed for themselves, and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:how embarrassing they are making it to say “yeah, I&rsquo♒;m looking forward to Stellar Blade”.

But that’s only half the story. There has been a deliberate shift away from overtly sexy female characters is Western game design in recent years, and it’s odd to deny that there hasn’t. In the ‘90s and ‘00s, many female ch⛄aracters were designed with the aim of being eye candy, even if they were also able to contribute to the game’s story or themes. In the paꦡst five to ten years, there has been a deliberate move away from this - personally, I think this is fine and maybe even good. But it’s strange to act like things haven’t changed at all and deny that the issue even exists.

By moving away from jiggle physics and supermodel designs, female characters have become so much more diverse. And I don’t even mean diverse in the scary ‘inclusivity’ sense, I just mean that there’s much more variety to their designs. It is crucial to Abby’s story in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:The Last of Us Part 2 that she has closed herself off from the world and 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:become a meathead beefcake - that she is isolated and steadfastly dedicated to vengeance is a key 𒐪part of her arc. Making her prettier wouldn&rsqu♐o;t appease fans mad that she killed Joel, and it would make the game worse.

Not🎃e: Looks matter, and people wouldn’t make these hour-long videos on Eve if they didn’t agree.

Another character often trotted out as proof that games are evil attacks on gamers’ collective manhood these days is the unnamed protagonist from Fable 4. On the one hand, yes, that gurning screenshot everyone shares from the reveal trailer makes the main character look very ugly. On the other, Fable is a comedy where one of the main cast was the narrator from Come Dine With Me. Everything is meant to be silly. I would bet there is at l🦂east some degree of character customisation too, and if you’re basing your thoughts on modern gaming on a single shot of a character pulling a face in a teaser for an unreleased silly British fantasy romp we’ve seen no gameplay footage for, you might need to get out more.

Star Wars Outlaws Kay Vess Should Not Be Causing Outrage

Kay Vess sat in a chair in a spaceship in Star Wars Outlaws

You are right that women in gaming have a broader range of looks these days, and thus not all of them are conventionally gorgeous. I think there’s a clear reason for that, and as we get better at depicting realism in the medium, we’re going to see more variance. It’s a deliberate design decision to give games more grounding and link female characters more closely to a game’s themes and narrative, but ultimately it’s a decision you’re free to disagree with. When you bring in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网ꦆ:Star Wars Outlaws though, you give the🦂 game away.

Star Wars Outlaws is led by Kay Vess, to my mind a cute and feisty character with a messy ‘80s hairdo. She’s a criminal keeping herself alive with her own wits and a deadeye shot, so no, she’s not bouncing around with long blonde h💦air spilling out of a cheerleader outfit, and she’s not running through the desert in a vinyl catsuit and six inch thigh highs. She’s an attractively designed character with some nice design quirks and a determined attitude. In one scene, her chin looks a little too pointy, or creates too much of a shadow, and thus this cabal of victims have taken offence.

I can understand liking Eve and wanting a softer, more sensual design to yꦇour gaming characters. It doꦛesn’t make you a pervert to think Tifa is hot. But if you think Kay Vess is an ugly insult to everything you stand for, I suspect you just like getting angry.

We gain as much as we lose in this new methodology. By ushering in an era of more varied designs, it does mean attractiveness is no longer the focus. This often makes for stronger character writing and deeper stories, but even if you ignore all that, consider 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Baldur’s Gate 3. Karlach was my pick of the very attractive bunch in 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:Larian’s RPG, and we wouldn't have 168澳洲幸运5开奖网:muscle-bound stars like her i🥂f devs thought they needed to make every female character conventionally ‘pretty&⛎rsquo;.

A pretty Karlach would just be a red Shadowheart, and Lae’zel would be a grꦺeen Shadowheart. It’s incredibly dull and reductive, yet people have convinced themselves that because they like Eve, they want every character to be like Eve forever. The butt physics would lose their lustre pretty quickly, I promise. But this victory parade Eve is being escorted through feels less like a celebration of how she is designed and more ownership of her as a sexual object, as a tool to harass. Characters like Shadowheart prove there can be beauty and substance, but she is never mentioned as an example because her story and her game are pr🐼ogressive, and thus offer less fuel for the flames ideological anger.

It’s fine to like Eve, and celebrate her design, look forward to her ga❀me, and even to miss the era in Western game design when Eves were more plentiful. But you have to consider what you’d lose along with what you gain. And if Kay Vess is your latest example of how video game characters are ugly monstrosities because of woke, you might be too far gone.