HOW DO YOU FEEL ABOUT ONLY ONE GENDER AS PLAYABLE CHARACTERS

I think it really depends on how well you can justify it and what kind of game you're aiming for. Most "war" themed games, like Dynasty/Samurai Warriors or the dreaded Call of Duty use only male characters for realism, with the exception of a few main characters in the Warriors series. It's easy to justify, since most armies do not allow women to go into combat, if they even allow them to enlist at all. You'd think that maybe all these CoD games that are taking place in the future would address that, but no. The Warriors series is loosely historically based, so they have a bit of an easier time getting away with it.

When it comes to fantasy or post-apocalyptic themed games, it becomes harder to justify using only a single gender. If your game doesn't take place in the real world, why should real-world restrictions apply? If the world has already ended, why are you even denying somebody the option of helping you take over the remains of Las Vegas based solely on their gender? If you can tie it to the plot then it works, like an all-male brofest or a group of female friends, but some games come off as creepy when there's only one male and a dozen females. It's like reverse China.

I'm interested in seeing what Final Fantasy XV is going to be like with its apparently all-male bro cast, which I'm sure is going to excite a lot of the current fan-girls who were getting tired of an identical male lead in most of the series (Cloud, Tidus, Vaan).

author=Backwards_Cowboy
for realism,

???

author=Backwards_Cowboy
It's easy to justify, since most armies do not allow women to go into combat, if they even allow them to enlist at all.

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The US army does not allow women to serve as infantry, among other things, though their plan is to begin allowing this by 2016. A large number of military occupational specialties are closed to women, and until this year there were also still many individual combat units that were closed to women as well, even if the combat unit needed a role that women were allowed to do. If you look at most other countries, or if your game is set, like, even a decade ago, the situation is much more restrictive.

infantry is hardly the only aspect of an army, and it's hardly the only one that sees combat -- and the US military is not the model the rest are molded from, either! when there are records of female flying aces dating back to the 1940s, women leading combat units, captaining warships, using guerrilla tactics, and what else have you, a statement like that comes off very poorly-phrased! women have been an aspect of more contemporary militaries than you might assume, and more and more evidence is being uncovered to reveal their presence in ancient warfare as well.

the relative absence of women in history is often entirely manufactured, and recent history is no exception. consider your preconceptions carefully -- and especially consider the role your preconceptions play in your own worldbuilding.

it's frustrating to me that this is the one aspect of 'historical accuracy' that people are willing to go down to the wire for, even in cases where it's debatable or outright false. Oda Nobunaga has steam-powered robots? cool, this can pass. women occupy a large military role? well, HOLD UP NOW.

(we're getting sidetracked here, but I think this is a really good example of what I was talking about earlier re: people expecting women to justify their place in a narrative to a larger degree than men)

it's always weird seeing people using historical sexism as a catch-all excuse for this sort of thing. it's not me omitting women from my setting, it's people from the past!

Why is that weird at all, when you're trying to represent a certain society in a certain world, to paint this particular aspect of it semi-accurately?

Is it also weird for people to use historical construction methods as an excuse for their story's buildings not meeting modern building codes?

As long as it's well done, I don't care.

Good writing can make virtually any setup work.

this isn't the place to pretend to care about that.

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