[alt text: Text which says, "The 2 genders according to chuds". Below the text is two images. On the left is an image of Geralt from The Witcher 3, and he is labeled, "Male, parentheses (white)". On the right is an image of Ciri from The Witcher 4 trailer, and she is labeled, "Political".]
Developing from a pretty, young, "vulnerable" girl that needs saving (even though she's already tough as hell in TW3) into an older (chud translation: "ugly") main protagonist fighting back against the patriarchy has these fools spitting with outrage. Here's hoping CDPR doesn't give them an inch.
She aged naturally! Ugh, she was my hot sexy daughter in Witcher 3! Why would they... Have her grow up?! /s
Only thing I'm hesitant about is the actor, but I'm willing to give her a shot. Minor thing.
I doubt CDPR went into this without knowing how incels would react, and knowing they'll still buy it. After CP2077 with the whole customize genitals issue (that I'm sure most people had forgotten about), I don't think CDPR cares. They're Polish, I hope they laugh at our stupid ass "culture war" bullshit
Don't kid yourself, the culture war bullshit has been exported worldwide, all thanks to the internet. For instance, there used to be self-declared "LGBTQ-ideology-free zones" in Poland until February this year.
I wanted to progress the main story but every time it was a ciri part I was trying to rush through to get back to Geralt and go kill monsters and collect items lol
These people didn't play Witcher 3. It's mostly right wing rage bait podcasts. They'll move on to a different side thing to be mad about in a few days.
Game was so boring, so slow, so clunky, so bleak, I never made it that far. Tried twice over the years. I want to like it. It seems great, but then actually playing it becomes a chore quickly.
Same, about 2-3 times over the years. Had to start over each time because I forgot everything. Just looking at the map gave me anxiety because it was just so much. I'm an OCD completionist, so I have to do everything, visit every place, collect everything. That game was just overwhelming. Everything else about it was great though.
I'm 100% for Ciri being the main character and I'm also complaining "what about the lore". You can do both at the same time. There's a vocal minority of people who'll use the lore argument to be sexist assholes, but people who have actually read and understood the books can have some valid concerns (ie where and how did she go through the trials, why can she use magic again, where did she even find how to do the trials, and just... why? She didn't need them and it's a bit of a character regression. She was basically already a witcher by title.)
The way I understood it was that she did not loose her ability to use magic, but rather decided not to use it any more after what happened when she had to draw power from fire.
Spoiler
She also used magic to escape Bonhart/Skellen/Rience after Kenna's attempt to read her mind unintentionally gave her a bit of magical power.
Even if it would be a bit disappointing, I think an explanation as simple as "she grew older, and had a lot more time to deal with the trauma of what happened in the desert" would be sufficient to explain why she is OK with using magic again.
As someone who is curious about how they are going to explain the lore (in case you haven't read the books: Ciri forswore magic after she had to draw power from fire in an emergency situation and that nearly escalated - also, you are missing out, the books are great), I feel offended by your statement.
I think it's possible to have her somehow take back that magic in a desperate situation, or to have her go through the trial for some reason, too (she always was kind of interested, but Geralt didn't allow it)
I mean Geralt died in the books and is somehow alive for the games. A lot of stuff can happen and be explained in a way that fits with the lore good enough to spin a story around it
She's literally supposed to become a Witcher in her own right. Geralt isn't training her to be his eternal assistant or some kind of sidepiece, after all.
It would be neat if this leads to two storylines that sometimes intersect.
Why isn't the lady who's been training all her life to fight monsters in my grounded low fantasy game made to look like she comes from the place it is set, the same as my ones in Stellar Blade!?!?!
I wish people would just laugh at them, and tell them how fucking ridiculous they look and then promptly leave their asses behind and move on. Instead, we get news articles about a minority of people who have shit opinions about things they have no understanding of.
Kamela's early campaign of just calling Trump "weird" was all about this, for some reason she dropped it in favor of kissing the asses of the Cheneys for no payoff.
I wish people would just laugh at them, and tell them how fucking ridiculous they look and then promptly leave their asses behind and move on. Instead, we get news articles about a minority of people who have shit opinions about things they have no understanding of.
We tried that with GamerGate, and it didn't work. Keeping bad people away from levers of power requires constant diligence; we cannot simply dismiss and move on, because then while we are looking away, the trolls continue to build their base. I'm a strong believer in the power of memes in our modern digital age. Try to write a bunch of articles about a problem like this, and most folks will only absorb the pithy headline. Some will read the article, but mostly only college-educated folks. Instead, make a meme about it that distills the logic of your opponent down to its ridiculous conclusion, and suddenly everyone gets it. (this isn't to say we should never write an article to explore the nuance of a point, just arguing for the value of leftist memes)
We have the discussion out in the open so that the kids and other uneducated folks can read a variety of opinions. If we don't, the trolls swoop up and try to turn them into incels.
I just had a conversation with someone about this on Lemmy a few days ago. His response was to call the choice "modern identity politics" and then back up his point by saying he always chose the female choice in games if he could. As if he did it from any belief that women are strong and capable and didn't just want to see a woman on his screen. And the comment reeks of "I'm not racist! I have a black friend!" vibes.
Anyway he ended up saying Lemmy was just like Reddit and... oh, now he's in a different thread aggravating people and saying the same thing that Lemmy is intolerant.
I don't really understand people saying it's not part of the lore. I did the expansions and everything. I got the ending, assuming that I remember correctly, where Ciri becomes a witcher. And in the expansions, Geralt just wanted to retire on a mountain vineyard in not-France.
One thing I was thinking of with the announcement is what would they do with the witcher powers, but from the electric punch in the preview, my guess is they're going to expand her psychic powers to take the place of witcher powers.
I'm looking foward to it. It looks kick ass.
Also - are there actually as many compaints as people make it out to be? Like I've never met anyone in real life who didn't like that a game featured a woman.
as someone who read the books (like 10 years ago so i could be wrong), I'm pretty certain it is not psychic powers, but spellcasting. Ciri trained under Yennefer and went to sorceress school for while. Geralt has the Witcher signs, which are like an elementary form of spellcasting, but Ciri learned a bit more than Geralt. Separately, she also has her warping power that is completely unique to her and very important in the lore, but I won't say more for sake of spoilers. I don't remember how much of this they cover in the games.
100%! You can totally see her draw elemental magic from the water running down the cave wall then cast it as ball lightning (or electricity at least?). She uses both Quen and Igni in the trailer too though. There's also book lore about magic that could lend itself well to game play, like the costs of casting more than you've drawn and the skill required to draw from different "elemental planes." Witcher mage would be a fun build!
And originally created by a university design team with a female design lead, at that.
Even as Portal 2 adds male characters, one is greedy and responsible for all the conflict in the franchise, acting as something of a caricature for masculine stereotypes, and the other's only defining trait is that he's an easily corrupted idiot.
Portal is perhaps the best example of, and should be held up as the golden standard of, feminism in gaming.
The bad reactions to this seemed minimal to me, but my god the woman in the Galactic trailer is driving them nuts.
Which I really don't understand, because I find her look and vibe the good part of that trailer. The slurping drink and forced pop song on the other hand...
I also cannot understand how you could play the Last of Us Part 1 and not realise how horrible Joel is.
Spoilers for both games ahead.
The ending of 1 was super difficult for me to play and super powerful in its delivery. It was horrible to decide to "save" Ellie by literally murdering everyone in the research station and destroying all hope for a cure. I was really impressed that they went there storywise, but then when in 2 Joel gets killed, all these so-called "fans" are angry because their lovely protagonist was killed. It's like they willfully ignore the complicated morals that were already present in the first game. When Abby does horrible stuff, they hate her. When Joel does horrible stuff in 1, it's fine. Part 2 had some problems, but I hugely respect what they were going for and how it polarised the community.
Damn the trailer looked pretty cool. I love the modern retro vibe it has. They have space tech, but also CD decks etc. But the comments on Youtube are an absolute dumpster fire...
"How dare they have a female with short hair REEEEEEEEEEEEE"
No. They're whining about Witcher 4 using Ciri as a protagonist because they think she was made ugly.
Attractive women designed solely to be the object of male affection are allowed to be protagonists. When a woman stands on their own as a unique complex individual, they take issue.
It seems to me, some people just want to hurt others..
Best is to ignore the loud minority and focus on the not so loud majority, which will buy the game 😇