Imagine a world where video game characters were real, there would be some downright monstrosities walking among us (looking at you, Baraka). But about the female characters?
Unrealistic body representations for women is nothing new in the world of video gaming. But what would some of our female leads look like if they were more realistic, or existed in the real world? Let’s take a look.
Many leading female protagonists within video games resemble similar personality traits:
Strong-willed, witty, clever, robust, and some impressive breast plates.
But what if these female characters took a more natural approach. What if Sylvanas from WoW had some stronger hips to help carry such heavy armour? Or if League of Legend’s Leona’s porcelain skin was actually a battle-worn canvas in need of some TLC? Click on the female characters below to find out.
According to Dill and Thill, female video game characters are represented as either: (1) sexualized, (2) scantily clad, and (3) a vision of beauty. The study revealed that over 80% of women in video games represented one of these depictions.
(Dill and Thill, 2007; Downs and Smith, 2010; Scharrer, 2014).
We polled a group of 70 video gamers on which female protagonists they felt were problematic in design in representing real life women’s body sizes and standards. A shortlist of 30 characters was narrowed down to 10 fan favorites; each character had to appear in a recent game or franchise edition from the last 2 years.
A panel of women were questioned on areas of their bodies that they felt self-conscious or worried about.
The female video game characters were then redesigned to reflect the average American female body, plus elements from the issues raised from the panel discussion.
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