Gender Option (Concept)

Gender Option

CONCEPT

Picking the gender of your character can help immerse you in the game world. Sometimes this leads to different abilities in-game, sometimes it means nothing at all.

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Overview

Some games will let the player choose their character's gender near the start of a game. This is typically done as of a character creator, though some games will also give the player a choice between pre-set characters of different genders. In some cases, this choice is merely limited to aesthetics; the selection of one gender over another merely affects the character's appearance, and NPC dialogue may differ slightly to reflect the player character's gender. As an example, in Pokemon titles such as Pokemon Black/White, the playable male and female trainers are equal in terms of their abilities and their interactions within the game world. At no point does the gameplay itself alter based on the gender of the character chosen. In other games, selecting a character of a particular gender may grant the player access to certain things or limit others. In the Fallout (Franchise) series, for example, the player may earn gender-based abilities or traits that affect their interactions with certain members of the opposite gender or their own gender. In Dragon Age, the gender of the player's Warden affects which party members that the player is able to romance. Since the late-2010s, it has become increasingly common for games with gender options to decouple a player's chosen gender from physical appearance traits. Sometimes this is done by removing any direct mention of gender from a character creator, while other times this is done by letting the player choose a gender option without any ramifications on appearance. Some games will even go as far as to let the player choose which pronouns other characters refer to them as.

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