Gamers put fans in a bad light – embarrassing!

Hate reviews for Horizon Forbidden West on Metacritic reveal that some gamers may never have seen a real woman — and don’t want to. Because the main character Aloy is simply not attractive enough for them. For some, the fact that she is a woman at all is already pushing the limits of their questionable taste. Don’t these gamers have other problems?

A comment by Marina Hansel.

An old debate boils up again with the release of Horizon Forbidden West and with it Hate reviews on Metacritic. After a trailer reveal in 2021, some players reported that Aloy was too ugly, too fat or too muscular – on Reddit for example, users debated how it was possible that Aloy could have put on weight despite all her adventures. You do sports! She must look like a model!

The question comes up: Have these players ever seen a real woman or are they just looking at glossy magazines with photoshopped model pictures? Are users aware that exercise does not transform every body into the western ideal of an eating disorder person? That every body, just for example, distributes fat in a completely individual way – and that muscles also look different in everyone? Aloy is to some extent a realistic female character, in part because she is played via motion capture by Dutch actress Hannah Hoekstra.

And even if Aloy wasn’t cast into the game by a real-life actress: Is the representation of unrealistic or morbid faces and bodies so important that some players go on the barricades without them? Why do female characters have to be malnourished or come with an impossible waist to be accepted? Isn’t it – a very daring thought! – maybe even quite gratifying when a developer tries to portray realistic people that are more reminiscent of the players themselves? If some people can no longer feel any sympathy for realistically portrayed women or men, then that is all the more remarkable sadder picture of some gamer communities.

The perfect woman – or preferably none at all?

It is an incomprehensible topic for me: Why do gamers react with anger towards women in games? In 2018, for example, the strategy game Total War: Rome 2 received bad reviews when an update introduced more female generals into the game. The (apparent) reason: A woman as a general would not be historically correct. However, the developers pointed out that Total War: Rome 2 is not – and never has been – an accurate history simulation.

I’ve never seen such hate comments due to too many male characters in a game. But should a woman play the main character and look too manly, so the net is full of angry cries again. Or should, God forbid, a non-heterosexual character appear in a game – on the barricades! Burn everything down! At least that’s what some players in The Last of Us 2 seemed to think.

It’s like this: We live in a society where people look different, women can be muscular, men can be feminine, and anyone can love whoever they want (within the law). Of course, all of this has always existed, it just took our western society a while to be able to accept it. If you can’t keep up, maybe you shouldn’t turn to new media and read books from the 19th century. And those who weren’t progressive at the time either.

Sometimes I really have to ask myself why there are discussions among gamers that our society had about fifty years ago. Games are a comparably young medium, but part of the audience seems to have stayed behind in the last millennium.

And even if the sight of a woman inspires horror and fear in someone, why doesn’t he stick to other games? Instead of doing review bombing, which not only messes up user scores, but also has next to no impact on a topic like this – besides giving the term ‘gamer’ an awkward connotation. Does it have to be that way?