Even those unfamiliar with gaming as a whole will recognise that, of course, there’s discourse around female leads. We see it in film, TV and even static art, so it is a part of the videogame discourse too.

Today’s specific event is Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, a 2018 open-world semi-historical adventure from Ubisoft.

Who is the main character of Assassin’s Creed Odyssey?

When AC Odyssey released, there were two playable characters. Alexios, and Kassandra. Players could freely choose between the two when starting a new game, and the idea was that the game would react to both equally.

At least, that’s the situation players were handed on release, and if that had been the truth of it then Ubisoft might have avoided the discourse on this occasion. Female leads have existed alongside, equally, to male ones before, so what makes this case different?

Design, Intent and Implementation

To understand why this case was problematic despite having both male and female playable leads we have to go back to a year before release.

Ubisoft are well on their way through the concept and development of AC Odyssey, and know it will be releasing in 2018. The team know the characters, know which areas need work and can begin prepping dialogue recording schedules for the coming year.

All of this development and design is focused on Kassandra.

Did the team really expect to be able to recreate the world for Alexios, plus make his unique assets, voice and more all before release?

No, they didn’t.

Because, until the marketing team and Creative Lead Serge Hascoët caught wind of the idea, Kassandra was the de-facto protagonist of AC Odyssey.

“Women Don’t Sell, They Said”

In a now-famous Tweet (For ’twas Twitter at the time) reporter Jason Schreier uncovered the truth that Kassandra was, as suspected, meant to be a solo female lead for AC Odyssey.

Alexios’ role in the game existed and was part of the Canon, but was not intended to be an option for a playable character.

You can tell this from the many lines which are female-coded and were never changed when addressing Alexios, and the fact that Alexios just straight up performs better as Deimos than Kassandra.

The problem here is that the artistic intent (and development time) for perfectly valid storytelling based around a female lead had to be changed not because of a realisation by the team, or an epiphany about gameplay, but because “Women don’t sell”.

Not only is the phrase ridiculous in the face of the successful Tomb Raider series, Horizon Zero Dawn, Stellar Blade and others, but the idea that a game in an iconic franchise from a AAA studio needs a man to sell doesn’t inspire confidence in, you know, the actual game.

Imagine making a game with a de-facto protagonist and then being told it won’t sell not because you messed up the gameplay (fixable) or the textures are bad (fixable) or the writing needs more work (fixable) but because the main character is female.

You really want to say that’s “Fixable”? The lead character being a certain sex isn’t something you “Fix” it’s just something that happens.

A Case of Mistaken Timing

And this is where the discourse kicks in, as of course thousands upon thousands of gamers play the game, see a choice of sex, and think “Oh cool, they have both playable, that’s inclusive”. And you’d love for those players to be right, but in the face of the lead-up and development process, that logic is flawed.

Can we expect all players to know, though? Perhaps not, but we should certainly expect the ones loudly proclaiming Ubisoft did nothing wrong to know.

We also got the classic “Both are playable, if you only make female the lead that’s not equality either!” which falls flat on two fronts:

1. It would take literal decades of female-only led films, books, TV and games to actually “equal” the amount of preferential treatment men have gotten over the years.
2. The devs should never be able to be offered the ultimatum of removing Alexios as playable, because he never should have been playable. By focusing on the game on release, not at the artistic intent stage, people miss the point entirely.

Why Do We Question It At All?

This case is a particular thorn in the “women in videogames” discourse as there are 4 groups, rather than the standard polarised 2. There’s people who agree or disagree, but also people who base that on release or people who are informed on the development. That creates a foggy field to fight on, and has meant that more often than not there’s not been a clear outcome.

People get distracted talking about the game on-release as if it was like any other, without accounting for extra information that, unfortunately, they also don’t want to be educated about after-the-fact.

If Odyssey had been designed from the ground up for Alexios no one would ask “Why’s it a male lead?”, so when it’s build for Kassandra from square one why would anyone bat an eye?

But people do. People see a woman and ask “Why?” and that is the sticking place.

If someone asked “Why’s it a male lead?” the answer is “Because it is” and that’s enough. If someone asked “Why’s it a female lead?” the answer is “Because woke” and that’s the end of reason.

Pre-emptive Failure

By creating a culture where a developer is forced to change a game before release, for no reason other than preventing cries of “wokeness” and appealing to a male-centric gaming audience, we’ve already lost.

If a creator cannot make a game with a female lead and it be not be seen as “feminism” then we’re too far gone. Including a female lead in your game is not feminism, in the same way that including a male lead in your game is not misogyny.

But, changing a male lead to female for no other reason than to make a statement is feminism, and changing or devaluing a female lead for no other reason than to appeal to men is misogyny.