What if the Witcher was a Woman?

(Disclaimer: before I begin here, I'd like to assure you that I'm not accusing The Witcher games of sexism, or any game for that matter. I'm merely trying to pose a question to potentially start an interesting and thought-provoking discussion on gender representation in games.)

So what if Geralt of Rivia, traveling monster slayer, and centerpiece in the events that redefine kingdoms, was a woman? I'm not really referring to a simple swap of private parts or anything, but rather trying to ask the question: what would be the result if a developer of high profile and good standing like CD Projekt Red made an open world fantasy RPG where the player had no choice but to play a female character?

Clearly it works when the player is forced into playing Geralt, as The Witcher 3 is one of the most hotly anticipated games of next year. Would it work the other way around? Assuming the Witcher never existed, and a fantasy game very similar to it came along right about now with a female protagonist, how would that game be received by fans? By critics? By click-bait seeking editors on game news sites? Would it be as successful of a game? Would it warrant sequels?

My theory: the game would be so scrutinized for its narrative, that it would take the focus away from the gameplay. Every white knight out there would be watching the game's every move, waiting for that time to strike, either to praise it for its treatment of women, or put it down for objectifying them or portraying them as weak. Who cares how the game plays, this game has a strong, self-sufficient female protagonist who shows all the men who's boss? Right? Or, while the gameplay is very satisfying, the game shows a disturbing trend where the protagonist can have sexual intercourse with a number of male NPCs throughout the game world, showing that men see the female lead as nothing more than an object to be fantasized over.

Why would a developer bother with this? Why would they even try, in the game industry's current state of crucifying anyone who fails to tiptoe over everyone's respective little feet? Safe choices dominate the way the industry is expanding, and making a female lead in an open world RPG is not a safe choice. But what do you think? How would you receive and evaluate a game very much like the Witcher, but with a lady leading the charge?

I love women... BRING IT ! :)

Not sure why you post this topic? do you really expect anyone to come out and say "Yes, The Witcher having a female instead of male would make a difference" And who knows what might have happened if they had chosen to make a female instead. The Witcher is one of those titles that almost no matter what would sell since people have built up a huge hype if they did it with Witcher 3, and if they had done it from the start would it have made a difference to its success, who knows.

I do not think it will be that good. The Witcher games' game play is not good. The setting is what makes those games and it would be sexist to just change Geralt into a female.

I think you both may have misread the post. This isn't about The Witcher having a female protagonist. This is about what would happen if a game LIKE the Witcher came along, one that forced the player into playing a female character. Meaning a new IP with no hype to work with, only the promise of a large open world, RPG elements, the kind of thing you'd spend hundreds of hours in. And how that game would be received and judged by the community.

I'm not actually proposing changing Geralt into a woman for future Witcher games. Also, was it really necessary to quote my entire OP?

I haven't seen anyone making complaints like that about Mass Effect's female Shephard, Tomb Raider's Lara Croft, FFXIII's Lightning, etc. You're just over-thinking it, mate.

Sigh...

No one complains about FemShep because you don't have to play FemShep if you don't want to. You have no choice but to play Geralt in the Witcher.

@hastati4: I am saying that the setting plays a huge role in the popularity of those games.

Without it then the games will most likely end up like the Risen or Two world games. Known about but not huge.

Unless the game sell using a freak-show aids by exploiting the fact that the main character is female, I do not see it doing that well.

I do not think of having a main character being a female is that important of a factor to how successful a game will be.

If it was just like the Witcher games then I do not think you will see a huge different.

@Jag85: It seem that some was welling rape with the new Tomb Raider. It seem more about a group using that game to push their own agenda than about being a female.

It seem many gamers hated how Samus was portray in Metroid other M. I do not want to remember my friend's long rant about they made Samus only doing what the male says and how shows her too stupid to think for herself. The worse part he ignored that what happens in many other games only that it is the male being told.

The witcher had a good story but it got boring at times, the fact that I could not rest and turn night into day like in skyrim was frustrating as I had to walk around aimlessly waiting for night or day to do a mission.

ts common debate ethics to quote the thing you are responding too, i know some don't do it anymore but i still do.

Anyways who knows how a game would do if it only had a female lead in a witcher type open world rpg (funny you don't mention the king Elder Scrolls) would it matter to me, not really i have played countless games with female leads so if its good then it would probably do as well.

But with the above said did you really expect any other response?

A female Witcher would be a Witch. Just sayin' :/

The real question is what would the critics think of the sex scenes.

Just get rid of this hollywood bullshit devs.

Just go look up Bioware´s fem on fem action scenes and read the reviews and you have your answer.

I'd be all for it. I don't see that many strong heroines these days. Plus, if I'm going to be staring at someone's ass for 20+ hours, I might as well enjoy it.

Personally: in the case of the Witcher I wouldn't really care if it was Geralt or Geraldia, but that's because most of the characters didn't really interest me that much. There are plenty of strong female characters in that game (although white knights can still complain about the way they are visually designed). Generally: I don't know. I think it'd be fine. Playing as a female character in fantasy rpg's is pretty well established, so having no choice in the matter would be fine, I think. Especially when it's a respected developer. People will probably trust that dev to make a good game. But maybe I'm being naive.

I'll go with your theory. Female protagonists (without choice) aren't that common, so people will notice and discuss it. But whether or not it'll influence sales? I don't know. If it's a good game, people can deal with a female protagonist (I hope)...

I'm all for variety, so I would receive any game that tries something new when it comes to narrative and characters with enthusiasm. But well, it's still a videogame, so it'll also have to be good gameplay wise. That is, if it is promoted as such. I'm not going to criticise Gone Home for lacking gameplay when you can clearly see what the aim of the game was. Let's just say I'm open to variety. Variety goes a long way into making videogames a more respectable medium. And I personally don't need a specific gender, sexual preference or ethnicity to relate to and/or care about a character.

You could rest if you found a campfire.

Then you could choose how long to rest to change the time of day.

Not sure how you could miss this as it was one of the first things you learn at the very beginning of the game.

The "rape" comment came from a PR representative who was talking out of his arse, making up nonsense that the game's designers and female writer never intended. The only "agenda" was from the PR representative blatantly misrepresenting the product he's trying to promote, i.e. not doing his job properly.

I haven't played Other M, but I can only assume a big reason it got so much criticism was because it was made by Team Ninja, who have always had a bad reputation when it came to female characters. Even before the game came out, a lot of fans already assumed Team Ninja were going to ruin their favourite heroine, without giving them much of a chance to begin with.

I truly believe there is absolutely nothing wrong with the lack of women "Heroes" or whatever you want to call them....protagonist in video games.

First of all, there are plenty of them. Second of all, maybe if women in general were more interested in Video Games and spent a fraction of the time and money as men do on them there would be more..May not be a popular notion but it is the truth.

This crap about no Gay protagonist or no Bi protagonist or any of that, It's a freaking business. People who Pay to have these games made want to make money. If Women, Gay, LGBT or anything else spent as much time and money on Video Game Product as guys did they would make this stuff. It's a business not a politically correct non profit entity!

If it was up to me I would I prefer to have every character be a blank slate that I create when the game starts. Crazy how much time and effort goes into some of these characters and I have zero interest in 99% of them. I would even say the amount of time and effort that is spent on it is a waste. Assassin's Creed for example...I think the story is awful. It's an "Ok" game, does not need to release every year, I put about 40 hours into each one. I can't stand the stories. For me the story is so bad It takes away from the game, not enhance it.

Bottom line, girls don't play games like guys do. If they did, they would be catered to better. Same goes for every other walk of life, People create stuff to sell to their customers & demographics. That's it. That's all there is too it. There is no sexism, there is no agenda or discrimination or any other factor at play here.

You make product that your customers will like so they spend money on it. If your customers are guys, then you make product that guys like. Guys like Sexy chicks, in sexy armor and stuff like that.

Would she sleep around all the towns like Geralt does? That would make for a pretty interesting game, actually.

Yeah. I got to feel for game developers. They have to deal with a ludicrious amount of attention and judgement poured over not only everything they do, say and make, but even implications and abstract readings into those things (as well as all the things they don't do, say or make) made by other people - in essence making them open to blame for other people's emotions. And they can't even opt out either.

Honestly, in the current climate if I was a developer I'd probably quit my job. I can't imagine anyone having any creative joy (not even as a small developer) when so many people are preoccupied with the elements of their work that weren't there to be scrutinised to begin with.

And yet they soldier on despite the long hours, terrible pay, poor work-life balance and unending misplaced criticism.

Now it would be fine if the people critcising spelled out exactly what they wanted so that when they got it they had to forgo their chance to complain, but the whiners inevitably never do that so they never have to be (begrudgingly) content.

That Woman Witcher game concept would be a massive subversion of genre expectations that most people should see as progressive, but I fear, as the OP does, that people will latch onto something to complain about no matter what. And developers can be forgiven for thinking "screw it, why bother? I'm gonna get slammed no matter what I do. Might as well make what I want".

well, the newest lara croft title came out last year and it was obviously a big game. it wasn't an open world fantasy RPG and it was a reboot, but i don't see what either has to do with the topic of gender. it had a fairly big controversy in the previous E3 because the developers decided to tackle the rape issue, but it came out, sold well, and major critics pretty much universally liked it.

what would be my reaction? it would be pretty much the same as usual. i'd check out some of the media released for it at some point (whether intentionally or not) and evaluate whether i want to play it or not. in the case of the new tomb raider i haven't tried it yet and i'm not too keen on it. the uncharted formula didn't appeal to me with a guy and i doubt playing as a woman would change much. although more to your point, i grew up in a time where lara croft as a character was sold as sleazy sex appeal and that image has never really left my memory. this year, i played transistor though and loved it.

Not sure why. There are plenty of games out there with great female characters already. Not every game needs a woman protagonist.

Does it really matter if Geralt was a woman or not?

I'd be absolutely fine with that, especially with a good story, would be awesome fun like the past witchers.

@hastati4:

"What if the Witcher was a woman?"

I would play it! It would be a much better game. The game would then be much more appropriately titled with a woman as the lead character. I always thought a male witch was a warlock.

Women don't have the strength to do what the witcher 3 does.

The success of the first Witcher game was mostly (at the beginning) because he was a hero from series of popular in Central and East Europe books.

There is an info, revealed by CDPR at Game Developers Conference in 2012 that they sold about 450k units in Russia and about 300k in Poland and Central Europe. There were also about 300k games sold in Germany and more than 400k in rest of Europe. In North America - only about 500k. But when this game was published in 2007 most of sold games were from Poland and Russia - the numbers for USA are mostly results of steam and gog sales for several dollars only several years later, not for full price during premiere. The first game was released only for PC (and MACs several years later) - which is popular in Europe, not so much in USA.

CDPR took popular book hero and the world he live in and this was a start for franchise. They wanted to do game with personal story, with non generic hero. Geralt is only moderately customizable by player - all choices are more or less believable from from the perspective of the book original. Player "only" chose his prioritys... but outcome of this can by enormous in terms of story changes.

So to duplicate the succes of Witcher game with hero who is women you should:

- find popular series of book with woman as hero, to have rich lore for game and fanbase who is very interested in your game

- make the game with one fixed hero - the story can be more personal, more interesting, less generic

- the choices made by player should have significance, you should feel that what you doing in game is changing game's world

the witchers not a woman? i only seen screenshots of the games, so i just assumed it was a woman from the long beautiful white hair.

but now that i think about it... she did have a rough looking face in the screenshots.

The Witcher is not, has not been and will never be a woman,pointless question.

/Thread

Honestly I wish Geralt was a woman. I don't like the way he looks for some reason.

It would honestly not make a difference.

then i wouldn't play it

There is this theory/thesis that a female lead would generate lower sales figures.

If you were to look at two similar games in approximately the same time frame and you ended up with "God of War" (Kratos) v. "Heavenly Sword" (Nariko) for your comparison you'd see that 'God of War' has sold a lot more copies. So is there truth in this point? Maybe, but there are a great many aspects that have to be taken into account before a claim like that can be considered true.
You could at this point simply motion to 'Tomb Raider' and argue that in over two dozen instances a female lead like Miss Croft has been very successful in selling games and building a strong franchise - not only 'Tomb Raider' but she herself has become a franchise in its on right.

Therefore, I believe that this claim can't be proven and will likely never be proven because in order to do so you would need two versions of the exact same game with a female (version 1) and male (version 2) lead character, both with very compelling background story as well as the same ability, personality, etc... whilst at the same time be in an environment that matches both a female and male character since this is likely to cause the biggest issue to the game story and design. (Imagine an all female Gears of War team, I don't think that would work so well in the environment of the first installment.)

So, the main difference would be that we would have an entirely different game.

It would be interesting to see how people react to a female version of Geralt, because, let's face it, he's a slut. The women in the Witcher games treat him like a toy because of what he is (they know he can't contract diseases or cause pregnancy), and, like most men wouldn't, he doesn't really mind. If you had the female equivalent of an adonis as your main character, that spent the game surrounded by hot male wizards who she made the rounds with AND was having sex with every random villager AND the occasional monster/faery, how long do you think it would take for certain GS editors to get on their soap box. My guess would be "not long."

In general there is inequality in how we view a promiscuous man and a promiscuous woman, so I expect the negativity would go beyond just the usual faces here at GS. This is not analogous to Mass Effect where there is some attempt at describing a relationship, and if you've only played Witcher 2, you can't truly appreciate the depths of Geralt's promiscuity. I definitely think there would have been some negativity towards the trading card aspect of Witcher 1 had the main character been a female. However, I think offering the option of playing as a male or a female effectively diffuses the situation, which is why I'd love to see more games do it.

If game like the Witcher, or even a Witcher game with a female lead character with their own storyline, possibly entwining itself with Geralt's, came out then I wouldn't mind that one bit.

If the Witcher were a woman she'd be accused of being a witch and be burned at the stake.

You're dividing by zero, here.

The amount of people in this thread that think I'm actually proposing turning Geralt into a woman is pretty hilarious. Reading comprehension of roughly zero.

I'm referring to the fact that in the Witcher, the player has no choice but to play as a male protagonist, one that can only be slightly customized in terms of hair, personality, armor, etc. I'm wondering if a role-playing game series could be started in this day and age of gaming with a locked female protagonist, and have similar levels of success. I understand that there are many other factors that played into the Witcher's success.

But hey, the goal was to start a discussion, and we got over 30 posts, so mission accomplished, I guess.

I won't quote your original post, but I found the idea of your thread quite interesting, if only for the fact that CD Projekt Red wanted (and intended for)the Witcher series to have a female protagonist, as evidenced by them here.

I don't know if you knew that, and were eventually going to post it, but yes, CD Projekt Red originally planned for the Witcher series to have a female lead.

Unfortunately, publisher studies/"input" quickly nixed that idea, causing them to change quite a few aspects regarding their franchise, including the gender of the protagonist.

Which is why I disagree with your original post. Yes, there are people out there (the white knights, as you deem them) who still find sometimes ridiculous ways to criticize a game that perhaps might be forward thinking when it comes to a fairer gender representation within its virtual world. But that doesn't even matter, simply because most publishers shut down the chance of a female protagonist franchise (be it open world RPG or otherwise) due to the obvious data that, sadly, most gamers are sexist.

Most people in this thread will tell you it wouldn't make a difference to them whether Geralt was female or male. That's because they have the luxury of never having to prove it. They can say anything they'd like. I could say I generously give to charities on a regular basis, and you'd never be able to prove I was lying. Same situation here.

But, as big name publishers know, the gender of a protagonist does make a difference when it comes to the sales and marketing of a game. It's sad, but it's true. This leads them to making the smart financial decision of "suggesting" a male lead to a developer who might have been thinking otherwise. That's the reality we live in, currently.

And to Jacanuk, who surely is going to come in here and refute the claim that developers get told what to do by publishers, I'm just going to quote back to our old thread and re-link every example cited that proves my point. Please don't waste either of our time.

The only real change I foresee of if the main protagonist was a woman is the the interactions between the existing characters. The Witcher's world is unique in terms of social aspects compare to our's, but in all honesty, I can't think of too many examples of it being too different.

Completely opposite. I would totally play it.

@experience_fade: Wow. Thank you very much for sharing that, I was not aware of that. That's very interesting, really. I agree with you 100% about how people would treat that game, in that for most, it would negatively affect their chances of buying it. My roommates in college, for example, never even considered the thought of playing a female protagonist when they had a choice, and thought it was strange that I actually almost always play a female protagonist if I can (though I will eventually get to both in games like BioWare or Bethesda makes). This is probably because I have a long history of writing fiction, and have a good deal of experience in making characters that I do not associate myself with. My roommate, though, would always use character creators to make something that visually looked like himself, in terms of hair color, facial hair, etc.

It's a shame, really. I think it would be very interesting if CDPR returned to the Witcher series after Cyberpunk 2077 and made another storyline, with a female protagonist. I feel like their games have about the most mature and well-crafted narratives of anything I've played, and I would completely trust them to create something compelling and fun to play, regardless of who the protagonist is.

Honestly Fade i don't understand why you keep pulling out things that you just cannot proof.

But you can believe a ex-ubisoft dev and guesses which your source even themselves say is a guess all you want, because you're just doing what people like you and Anita tend to do more than actually debate, put your fingers in your ears and yell Naananananananana i cant hear you, when people starts to think for themselves and question the statements.