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We all saw this coming.

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I've played way too many games with character creators that let you change everything but gender later in the game, and honestly, I can understand why.

It could be lore breaking. It might result in inconsistent dialogue. The gender you choose for the protagonist might determine the genders of other characters. Character creation choices aren't one to one between the gender options, meaning you have to entirely re-customize your character. Etc.

I don't care. I want the option anyway.

Also, ideally, with presets created so I can go back and forth between forms without having redo their appearance each time.

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Comments

M.

I'd never thought about this, but I like it. :) And I'm looking forward to the romance options discussion. I always play a woman character if I can, and in far, far, far too many games, that means there are no women characters for me to romance. :(

Stephen Gilberg

Can't say I've played many games that let you change anything about the character as they progress. The only ones I know that sorta let you change your gender are LEGO games, and that's more a matter of switching among preset characters.

Notimeformeta

Sunset Overdrive let you do this. It was a fantastic game and I wish it was more popular...

Mark Williams

Rex Nebular and the cosmic genderbender had a gender switch mechanic. also Tedd should wear lipstick more often! Looks nice!

AstroChaos

On a personal level, can't agree with this one. I might choose to play as male or female for any number of reasons, but once I've made my character then any change would have to come from something in game or it would throw me off. So, basically, I'd have no interest in changing my character's gender but also no issue with a wizard doing it in the middle of playing. It is what I'd have expected Tedd to go with first though, and understandably so.

Connie Edogawa

you don't get to make your character beyond selecting a name, a birthday, and what clothes they wear to any given fight, all of which can be changed later, but Fate/Grand Order lets you swap gender whenever you want. all gender affects is minor bits of dialogue usually, and if you go through a cutscene with affected dialogue, change gender, and rewatch the cutscene, it alters the dialogue for your current gender. only downside to this is it's a gacha game, so.... that's got its own baggage to go through.

Somaria

Only game I know of with something close is Mabinogi. It's an MMO and you can change just about anything about your appearance except gender at any time but you can change your gender once a week. Main draw might be the clothes thats available, they very nice..... for female characters.

Anonymous

I mean just because it's an option doesn't mean you have to use it, same as with easy mode stuff, or really most any other optional content.

Foradain

When City of Titans launches, I'll expect that any character could have costume slots of different genders. Whether or not that will affect how NPCs refer to the character remains to be seen. Meanwhile, I'm going to have to find where in the forums this was most recently discussed, and link to this comic. ^_^

Anonymous

The newest Assassins Creed lets you change genders but I believe it is controlled by the game when this happens

Anonymous

Saints Row the 3rd doesn’t give a damn if you change your appearance or your voice at any time in the game. No matter what you are “The Boss”.

Viktor

For everyone in here complaining, definitely check out the Saint's Row series. Your appearance is completely cosmetic, there's no restrictions on clothing/voice/body/hair combinations, and SR4 even has quick romance scenes with a bunch of chars that don't care about any of that. The series has issues, but it's 100% down with letting you look the way you want. (I'd argue SR2 is the best in the series for detailed customization, SR3 and 4 each add lots of costume options, but have fewer things like animation choices)

M.

You can choose to set your gender, or you can choose to have the game pick which gender Eivor is at different times. As far as I know, it doesn't affect gameplay or anything. I played all the way through it as a woman, though.

Daryl Sawyer

Maybe the game could have more than two starting options for gender, and one of them could be "genderfluid", and their sex can totally change with their gender at a whim.

AstroChaos

@Daryl See, that I like because now it becomes something built in to the character, and - if the writing is any good - still something that the game can design around being an option. It doesn't change what came before and it isn't arbitrary... it's open and flexible instead. For me, plot and character build one another. So changing one without it impacting or being caused by the other just breaks the immersion. I should probably qualify my initial thought by saying that in my head at least I was referring to a serious game. There are plenty games where it wouldn't matter because the game isn't Serious Business. Someone else here already pointed out the Saints Row games as a perfect example of that. Whereas I've played both MaleShep and FemShep in my Mass Effect plays and enjoyed both but - again, me personally - would find it too jarring to switch between them at different parts of the game.

Michael C.

Champions Online recently added the option to flip gender for any costume you make. Genderfluid superheroes

Some Ed

Personally, I would prefer to also have an option to have the NPCs notice. I wouldn't want them to ever behave like transphobes, mind you, but sometimes it'd be nice to see a bit of surprise or confusion from them. Maybe they don't recognize the player, or maybe they're feeling disoriented because they'd mistakenly thought the player was the gender they were presenting before. There could be some NPCs who would always just roll with it regardless of the setting, and a few would mostly roll with it but note it. In any event, we'd always have the option of flipping that option off and have the NPCs be unaware that there had been a change and even not realize they'd previously noted a change.

John Trauger

Relationships would take *more* coding to react to differences like a gender swap. The devs simply don't bother with it and the NPC reacts to you and your actions and simply doesn't notice or care about things like gender swaps.

Anonymous

Beyond the break unnoticed changes present, my biggest concern is that you lose the option of having two unique storyline or experiences when the world doesn't care what you are. Imagine how much more interesting something like AC Oddessey could have been if each sex had different methods of accomplishing the goal. I'm not against having the option to change, but to discourage exploring the different experiences each would have seems a lost opportunity.

ijuinkun

My understanding of transphobia is that it's strongly tied into autohomophobia--i.e. the fear that you yourself (the generic rhetorical "you") might be gay or seen as gay by others. Basically, the thought that somebody with a wiener looks like a hot girl triggers fears that you are getting turned on by a male, and therefore might be gay or someone might interpret you as gay.

Foradain

And oddly enough, someone in that thread had already mentioned the possibility of a "Jeremy Gun". ^_^