Escape from Tarkov creator gives terrible excuse for not including playable female characters

Were in a brand-new decade, but that hasnt stopped some video game developers from falling back on inexcusable explanations for why you cant play as female characters in certain games. This time, its courtesy of Escape from Tarkov creator Battlestate Games, which offered two convenient excuses for why despite the requests of many players

We’re in a brand-new decade, but that hasn’t stopped some video game developers from falling back on inexcusable explanations for why you can’t play as female characters in certain games. This time, it’s courtesy of Escape from Tarkov creator Battlestate Games, which offered two convenient excuses for why — despite the requests of many players — it will not let you play as a female character in its ultra-realistic military survival sim.

Excuse number one is that, as the Russian-based developer explained on Twitter, playable female characters can’t be included “because of game lore.” It’s not exactly clear what that means, but Battlestate seems to be suggesting that its game, which is set in a fictional region of Russia and features an armed conflict between fictional private military companies, doesn’t have a narrative that supports female combatants.

That’s despite the insurmountable narrative evidence of female characters who are present in pretty much every piece of post-apocalyptic fiction ever made — because, you know, women exist — and in basically every other military survival sim and battle royale shooter on the market.

Excuse number two is a bit more forthright: “there will be no playable female characters because of... the huge amount of work needed with animations, gear fitting etc.”

The developer is getting predictably eviscerated on social media, especially considering its previous tweet seemed to suggest it had no problem animating in non-playable female characters for storyline quests, thus undermining its “lore” excuse.

It’s also curious that Battlestate is only responding to the idea now because a three-year-old interview with an employee of the development team had been recirculating online in which the employee insisted women couldn’t cut it in the high-tension environment of Tarkov. “We came to the conclusion that women can’t handle that amount of stress,” Battlestate dev Pavel Dyatlov said at the time. “There’s only place for hardened men in this place.” Battlestate has since said the employee was “reprimanded and properly instructed,” presumably only in how to talk to the press.

Thankfully, we’ve seen this excuse fall out of favor among developers. It appears many have decided that gritty realism — however twisted to serve some goal that requires they do marginally more work — for games where you run around shooting people in the face and magically come back to life isn’t really a good reason to not include half of the human population as proper player stand-ins.

Although it shouldn’t need to be said, women have been able to participate in active military service — yes, even in Russia — for decades now. Perhaps Battlestate should take a few immersion cues from the real-world history of planet Earth; here’s a Wikipedia page to start.

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