Spot the difference: Male Video Game Characters

After last week’s E3 fiasco in which Ubisoft developers were caught with their pants down after they said that there won’t be any playable female characters in Assassin’s Creed: Unity due to the “reality of production”, Rebellious Pixels made a video showcasing 40 protagonists from upcoming video games that were shown at E3.

And well… Ubisoft probably shouldn’t have even said anything about the lack of female characters in Assassin’s Creed: Unity because that’s one can of worms no company wants.

So judging from this video, gaming developers not only think it’s too much work to animate female characters, but apparently it’s also too much work to make diverse and original male video game characters.

Okay, maybe they don’t exactly look like each other, but there are some very similar characteristics that seem to guide the way developers design character’s faces.

The vast majority of these characters have stubble, they have similar cheek bones, very similar nose shapes and they all have black hair. A couple of them had grey or silver hair, but none even had blonde colored hair. When you put them all together like this, it becomes pretty clear what “masculinity” means to the gaming industry.

Look at that sexy facial hair, though.

My problem isn’t that the gaming industry isn’t giving people what they want, it’s that they are being so lazy about it.

Check out my thoughts about the no playable female characters thing here. And also be sure to keep it on Unleash The Fanboy for more on this developing story.