Natural Selection 2 Adds Female Marines

[Steven Bogos]

Natural Selection 2 Adds Female Marines

Natural Selection 2's female marine's armor puts function before form. There are no "boob plates" [http://www.tor.com/blogs/2013/05/boob-plate-armor-would-kill-you] here.

First Person Shooters are usually a man's game, often featuring dudebros with biceps as big as their heads and only including female characters as off-screen love interests. The developers behind indie smash hit Natural Selection 2 aim to break that stereotype, with the introduction of the female marine. "She is symbolic of the type of game developer that Unknown Worlds seeks to be. She was promised post-release. She is badass. And today, she is here."

Furthermore, Unknown Worlds stresses that the female marine is a soldier, and won't be sporting the kind of ridiculous outfits [http://repair-her-armor.tumblr.com/post/50474510652/clothes-im-forced-to-wear-in-the-majority-of-mmorpgs] that are usually forced upon female characters in games. "This is not good enough, and it's not a trope Unknown Worlds will entertain. Games are legitimate cultural influences, and game developers are responsible for the message they choose to convey to players. The Natural Selection 2 female marine is first and foremost, like her male colleague, a soldier."

Players will be able to choose from three versions of the female marine. Those that purchased the Special Edition of Natural Selection 2 way back before the Beta will be able to select the 'Black Armour' version, just as they can currently select the male Black Armour marine. Those that own the Deluxe Edition will be able to select the 'Deluxe Armour' version.

Right now, Unknown Worlds just has to finish up some of her animations, so she should be released, completely free, to all owners of Natural Selection 2 in late August/Early September. Every player will be able to choose to play as whatever gender soldier they feel represents them.

Source: Unknown Worlds [http://unknownworlds.com/ns2/the-female-marine/]

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[Easton Dark]

They've only been talking about making her for... since before the game released, jeez.

I'm definitely going to be picking her because I enjoy the imagery of a tough lady with a shotgun.

And yay NS2 news post

 

[Hagi]

Nice to see a game with consistent character design.

The marine looks awesome, although I would say the helmet for some reason doesn't quite match up to the rest of the armor.

 

[Sansha]

This is a very cool idea - setting the precedent for a female character actually having function before aesthetic.

Call of Duty 2 has some female soldiers in the Russian campaign, fully voiced and everything, and they were dressed and behaved exactly the same as the male soldiers. I thought it was a cool touch, historically accurate n' shit.

 

[Pedro The Hutt]

Well, I've had the game sitting on my Steam shelf for quite some time now, this seems as good a reason as any to finally start playing it.

 

[RJ 17]

It's called "Breastplate" for a reason, damnit!!!

Just kidding, I read the article in the headline and I have to admit that I had never considered what it brings up and it actually makes a lot of sense.

That said, out of the space marine games that I've played, few of them even offer female space marines. And the ones that do (again, at least as far as games that I've played) don't seem to have this problem...all their armor is indeed generically "flat". The only exception that I can think of would be FemShep. The female SPARTANS in the Halo series really don't look all that different from their male counterparts. Hell, even the females in the Gears of War series basically have smaller versions of the armor everyone else wears.

Just saying I didn't know this was much of a problem, at least in the sci-fi genre. Even Samus Aran, the original female space marine, doesn't have any gender-indicating aspects to her armor...remember everyone's surprise at the end of the first game when you find out "holy shit, it's a girl!" All I'm saying is that I don't see why it's such a big deal for a game to announce that they're not going to have space-boobs on their female space marines when it seems the majority of games don't do it anyways.

 

[Dragonbums]

Nice to see a game with consistent character design.

The marine looks awesome, although I would say the helmet for some reason doesn't quite match up to the rest of the armor.

Maybe her helmet has a moveable visor?

 

[Doom972]

None can stop the boob-plates. People will make it into a mod that I'm sure many servers would use.

It's a very respectable decision to stick to the original aesthetic and not pander. I should get this game when it's on sale.

 

[Abomination]

Been playing this a lot recently as the 66% Steam sale brought a lot of fresh blood in. The game has also had some significant changes to how aliens command.

Unknown Worlds are good people and Natural Selection II is a very worthy title for any FPS multiplayer gamer to own.

 

[Hagi]

Nice to see a game with consistent character design.

The marine looks awesome, although I would say the helmet for some reason doesn't quite match up to the rest of the armor.

Maybe her helmet has a moveable visor?

I don't know, could be.

Her armor just seems to say "badass marine", as it should. Her helmet however seems to say something more like "highway cop". Which isn't all that bad, they've got the high speed chases along with handing out tickets, but still...

 

[Dragonbums]

Nice to see a game with consistent character design.

The marine looks awesome, although I would say the helmet for some reason doesn't quite match up to the rest of the armor.

Maybe her helmet has a moveable visor?

I don't know, could be.

Her armor just seems to say "badass marine", as it should. Her helmet however seems to say something more like "highway cop". Which isn't all that bad, they've got the high speed chases along with handing out tickets, but still...

I haven't seen the male models yet.
However they can change this easily in game. I guess it's just that people wanted to see her face.

 

[lacktheknack]

It's called "Breastplate" for a reason, damnit!!!

Just kidding, I read the article in the headline and I have to admit that I had never considered what it brings up and it actually makes a lot of sense.

It's always bugged me. In Musical Theater at school, we always had disproportionately high amounts of girls to boys, and so we had girls in male roles. So, when we needed one well-endowed girl to wear a "suit of armor" for a gag, she got out the duct tape and magically made herself fit. To this day, I ask "Why don't soldiers do that in games, FFS?"

OT: I really dig the armor, it looks really cool, and it's not homogenizing either. Well done.

 

[RJ 17]

It's called "Breastplate" for a reason, damnit!!!

Just kidding, I read the article in the headline and I have to admit that I had never considered what it brings up and it actually makes a lot of sense.

It's always bugged me. In Musical Theater at school, we always had disproportionately high amounts of girls to boys, and so we had girls in male roles. So, when we needed one well-endowed girl to wear a "suit of armor" for a gag, she got out the duct tape and magically made herself fit. To this day, I ask "Why don't soldiers do that in games, FFS?"

Now I'm not saying I'm a history major, but my understanding is that female warriors actually would do something like that so they wouldn't be...ahem...bouncing around so much. I believe they'd use bandages/wrappings to pin down their breasts, basically making medieval sports bras.

That's reality, though, as far as sci-fi games are concerned, as the rest of my post said: I really have never noticed literal breastplates on space marine armor with the exception of FemShep. Now I haven't played every sci-fi space marine game out there that allows for female space marines in full armor, but I honestly can't think of another example other than FemShep, while in all the games I CAN think of, the female space marines are all essentially wearing the same bulky armor that doesn't reveal their physiques.

Fantasy games on the other hand...well, that's a different can of worms all together.

 

[Gindil]

Why is it that people forget that Halo armor was equipped for unisex?

I just find it odd that for this idea that female armor is skimpy, the author couldn't point to an actual game and only opted for someone's opinion.

DA2 kind of broke that tradition. How about showing that game?

 

[Combustion Kevin]

I didn't really see a problem with mass effect's "breast"plates, I always imagined they have to fit the suit to the body as closely as possible and it didn't look ridiculously proportioned either.

that said, I really dig this design choice, the flak armour style armour has a very "one size fits all" thing going and it would make sense to put it on both genders.

 

[Vivi22]

I just find it odd that for this idea that female armor is skimpy, the author couldn't point to an actual game and only opted for someone's opinion.

Why point to a single example when that tumblr presents many, and the trope is so ubiquitous that any reader who's played games for more than a year (and maybe even if they've only played for a year to be honest) can probably think of a dozen on their own in under five minutes?

 

[kael013]

It's great to see female armor that isn't pandering; this looks very nice. I wish more devs would follow Unknown Worlds example. I wouldn't complain if we could also get devs to add male models that are lean and mean like Hicks from [i/]Aliens[/i] instead of the bodybuilders that are so popular...

Anyways, love the female armor!

 

[shadowuser10141]

I don't get the problem with breastplates. This might come as a shock but women have breasts. I don't get why feminists hate their own anatomy.