Makes me frustrated and hopeless, Its quite clear that they do this for the male gaze and whatever its called, but that doesnt justify it and makes me very sick.
Not saying that beautiful characters are bad, but semi naked characters with unrealistic beauty which both have nothing to do with the game at all is terrible, very terriole.
Why ruin a good game for the so called" male gaze" or “sex sells” thing? why?
I feel like a hypocrite and a loser.
Not sure if indie games are any better, itch io is very good, it has great (hidden) gems.
But its also filled with dating games and whatnot, I didnt check the nsfw games, but I wouldnt be surprised if they filled the entire front page.
Anyway, Its a deep issue for me, wanted to vent, thanks for reading.
There are possibly more relevant examples than Hades, it was just the first that came to mind. It is not a complete departure from typical male character design, don’t get me wrong, but I do think there’s a greater variety than most games - Hypnos, Sisyphus, Orpheus, Icarus, Apollo, Hephaestus, and Narcissus are who I’m thinking of more specifically. The general character style does still lean on muscular definition (and they’re generally still pretty unrealistic bodies for irl humans) but there’s more room for a variety of builds and not everyone is portrayed as particularly strong or lean. You are correct that a lot of it comes down to outfit design, but that is still part of the overall character design and it does still feel like a step outside the norm.