Escape From Tarkov will not feature female playable characters for "lore reasons" and a lack of animations

[ken_matthews]

I do 3d modeling and animation as a hobby and it is a lot of work to create a game character, especially a main character. If your time and budget are limited, I can understand making decisons that result in less diversity, whether that is including additional sexes, humanoids, characters, or variety within each type. There is a reason why most games only have a couple of different body types for most characters and NPCs, and a lot of samey looking heads (especially for NPCs). And most of the variety happens at the texture level, not the model level. This stuff is not easy, especially if you want to do it well.

 

[Deleted member 13560]

I'm not for a second buying that the sexist comments were from one team member in a low position. The comments specifically say the decision was a group decision.

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It was another comment made in an interview that's mentioned in the other thread.

 

[Mr.Beep]

Women would break down at the scary loud noises of war.

 

[Deleted member 13560]

I agree it was something they could have budgeted or worked out from the start, but I guess they didn't. They are being shitbags about it.

In regards to using the same models/clothers/props it isn't always as easy as that. Models need to be re-wrapped per-object, realigned, re-weighted, re-baked from one model to the next so it animates correctly. Shapes and body scale change from person to person so a lot of models need to be redone to scale/fit correctly, even on similar or same clothing/objects. You can get a similar/same model object and re-wrap it to a new model, but it needs to work correctly. There are a lot of things going on that most people who have never done modelling/CG don't understand about it.

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I do 3d modeling and animation as a hobby and it is a lot of work to create a game character, especially a main character. If your time and budget are limited, I can understand making decisons that result in less diversity, whether that is including additional sexes, humanoids, characters, or variety within each type. There is a reason why most games only have a couple of different body types for most characters and NPCs, and a lot of samey looking heads (especially for NPCs). And most of the variety happens at the texture level, not the model level. This stuff is not easy, especially if you want to do it well.

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I agree 100% with what you are saying. But from what I understand the game is pretty big. I mean I hear people at work talk about it and they are by no means what I would consider gamers. So I just assumed that the devs had substantial funding if they needed it. Unless that's not the case at all.But at the same time I just don't see how smaller studios can seem to do this without issues while in games that have WAY more animations and huge amounts of clothing options. It's kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around this as someone looking from the outside when I see other studios pulling through with variety.

 

[A Strong Latte]

I agree it was something they could have budgeted or worked out from the start, but I guess they didn't. They are being shitbags about it.

In regards to using the same models/clothers/props it isn't always as easy as that. Models need to be re-wrapped per-object, realigned, re-weighted, re-baked from one model to the next so it animates correctly. Shapes and body scale change from person to person so a lot of models need to be redone to scale/fit correctly, even on similar or same clothing/objects. You can get a similar/same model object and re-wrap it to a new model, but it needs to work correctly. There are a lot of things going on that most people who have never done modelling/CG don't understand about it.

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Everyone is wearing chunky ass military gear you could just make some different heads and call it a day

 

[Akainu]

Who?

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

I agree 100% with what you are saying. But from what I understand the game is pretty big. I mean I hear people at work talk about it and they are by no means what I would consider gamers. So I just assumed that the devs had substantial funding if they needed it. Unless that's not the case at all.But at the same time I just don't see how smaller studios can seem to do this without issues while in games that have WAY more animations and huge amounts of clothing options. It's kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around this as someone looking from the outside when I see other studios pulling through with variety.

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You mentioned Moba games before, Moba games tend to have lower poly counts and no need for sculpted higher poly models. They tend to use lower poly models with base textures and painted normals. For a realistic model like Tarkov, you would need a 50+Million poly sculpt baked down to a 10k-20k model. I could do about 3-4 low poly characters in the time it takes to do one high poly character.

As for animation, realistic animation vs exagerrated key framed animation is a completely different ballpark. People will notice subtle problems with realistic animation vs cartoon/stylised animation. Realism is one of the hardest animation types to pull off, make natural and blend correctly.

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

Everyone is wearing chunky ass military gear you could just make some different heads and call it a day

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Heads yeah, no issue. But a lady that has big bulging arms, pecs and a wider top frame may not look quite right.

I am aware of female body builders before you ask.

 

[Mcfrank]

So do the fucking work?... everyone's job is hard.

 

[SugarNoodles]

When are we going to stop pretending that employees who are extremely vocal about their bigotry are just some fluke that "could happen anywhere"?

 

[Braag]

On one hand, it does double the amount of work you have to put into animations, gear, voice work and customization of the playable character. But on another, you could just design the game from the start to have both male and female choice and then cut back from other stuff if your budget doesn't fit everything.

 

[A Strong Latte]

Heads yeah, no issue. But a lady that has big bulging arms, pecs and a wider top frame may not look quite right.

I am aware of female body builders before you ask.

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Even then, if you just are smart with the rigs what's stopping you from modifying the body and just reusing the male anims? What is so expensive over making a female character vs a male character with different proportions?

Is everything in this thread BS?

On one hand, it does double the amount of work you have to put into animations, gear, voice work and customization of the playable character. But one another, you could just design the game from the start to have both male and female choice and then cut back from other stuff if your budget doesn't fit everything.

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If there's already more than one character, you're not doubling the work.

I wish people would be honest and instead of saying that it's "too expensive" they should just say that they didn't wanna.

 

[blitzblake]

I remember there was a clip of the Batman game but with Batman using cat woman animation and fuck me... if developers spend less time making female characters fuckable and just made them move like the male counterparts, would that really, really, be the end of video games as we know it?

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

Even then, if you just are smart with the rigs what's stopping you from modifying the body and just reusing the male anims? What is so expensive over making a female character vs a male character with different proportions?

Is everything in this thread BS?

https://twitter.com/delaneykingrox/status/1214326620309221376

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I never said any of this couldn't be done. I also never said making male/vs female was more or less expensive.

 

[A Strong Latte]

I never said any of this couldn't be done. I also never said making male/vs female was more or less expensive.

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True, sorry for sorta going in a bit there.

It's just annoying to me that in games like this that having at least one female character to pick from is made to be such an ordeal. Just plan it from the start.

 

[ken_matthews]

I agree 100% with what you are saying. But from what I understand the game is pretty big. I mean I hear people at work talk about it and they are by no means what I would consider gamers. So I just assumed that the devs had substantial funding if they needed it. Unless that's not the case at all.But at the same time I just don't see how smaller studios can seem to do this without issues while in games that have WAY more animations and huge amounts of clothing options. It's kind of hard for me to wrap my mind around this as someone looking from the outside when I see other studios pulling through with variety.

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Well give me an example of a small studio that was able to accomplish what you said. I'm not saying it's not possible, but I think with whatever example you provide, if you look at it more closely, you'll see a lot less diversity in the models and animations than you originally thought. If you diverge from the base model far enough, to the point that you need a new animation rig, then you're basically creating a new character from scratch. Think about this, there is a reason why almost every character within any game is the same height. Now, I'm not excusing this developer, they could be shitty people, but it is still a lot of work. Both things can be true.

 

[Deleted member 2669]

Please, tell us more about the ever important lore and why us women are too emotionally weak.

it is an entirely new animation set across all actions. That isn't no work. Whether it's too much is up for debate, but their is additional work required.

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It is additional work only because they prioritized men to begin with.

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

It's just annoying to me that in games like this that having at least one female character to pick from is made to be such an ordeal. Just plan it from the start.

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Bingo. I'm not sure why they didn't, but I'm more annoyed by their response than anything.

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

Please, tell us more about the ever important lore and why us women are too emotionally weak.

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You're not and never will be. Never let anyone tell you what you can't do.

 

[Deleted member 2669]

You're not and never will be. Never let anyone tell you what you can't do.

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I appreciate it. 👍

 

[WedgeX]

Create fictional game -> claim that lore prohibits certain people from being playable

If Mount&Blade could do it...

 

[HardRojo]

What exactly are these lore reasons? Thankfully, in an interview back in 2016 they elaborated.

https://wccftech.com/escape-tarkov-interview-truly-hardcore-first-person-shooter/

It's been six years since Ubisoft said that it was too hard to animate women assassins, and we're still hearing statements like this. Why are women so problematic to rig?

Spoiler

They're not.

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Oof! Fuck that shitty excuse.

 

[ken_matthews]

It is additional work only because they prioritized men to begin with.

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Yeah, I think that is true. There is no reason why you can't build a game where all your characters are female. They chose not to, and criticism of that may be fair. But if they did that, and budget and resources are a real constraint, then you're not going to get any more diversity within the game than you have now. It's just going to be females as opposed to males. Maybe a game where all the characters are female is a win in the larger scheme of things, I would support that.

 

[lvl 99 Pixel]

Female trader NPC lol
Its a multiplayer game about a fantasy conflict in an invented region involving made up PMC's. Does anyone know which "lore reasons" they're referring to?

 

[AdamT]

I literally bought the game yesterday because of the positive comments from a thread on here...

Also, if they plan on having female NPCs already, doesn't that mean there is less of an excuse not to include them as playable characters? Edit: guess it was 2D art, never mind!

 

[Tokyo_Funk]

On the bright side we still have Insurgency Sandstorm that has both male/female characters, and thankfully they budgeted it from the start to have all models made/skinned correctly.

 

[A Strong Latte]

Well give me an example of a small studio that was able to accomplish what you said. I'm not saying it's not possible, but I think with whatever example you provide, if you look at it more closely, you'll see a lot less diversity in the models and animations than you originally thought. If you diverge from the base model far enough, to the point that you need a new animation rig, then you're basically creating a new character from scratch. Think about this, there is a reason why almost every character within any game is the same height. Now, I'm not excusing this developer, they could be shitty people, but it is still a lot of work. Both things can be true.

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Is your standard really just "a game with men and women of different heights and body type"?

You can see it in like, any fighting game. Killer Instinct Xbox? Yes it was Microsoft but Double Helix did most of the work with a small team and shoestring budget.

Like unless they have 1 3D artist on staff total. Even then it's doable.

 

[A Strong Latte]

I literally bought the game yesterday because of the positive comments from a thread on here...

Also, if they plan on having female NPCs already, doesn't that mean there is less of an excuse not to include them as playable characters?

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Yeah I missed this originally. Just adapt the NPC rig to be a player character?

 

[JigglesBunny]

Fuck outta here with that. Nonsense excuses that nobody in their right mind would believe.

 

[pj-]

I literally bought the game yesterday because of the positive comments from a thread on here...

Also, if they plan on having female NPCs already, doesn't that mean there is less of an excuse not to include them as playable characters?

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Yeah I missed this originally. Just adapt the NPC rig to be a player character?

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They aren't modeled NPCs, they are 2d sprites in the trading screen

 

[Siresly]

This thread shifted places or something. Was originally 163361, now it's 163364. Weird.
Anyway.

Wonder what about the game's lore prevents female playable characters.
Do women breathe through their skin, and so would suffocate if they wore military uniforms?

I heard this game is doing well, so hopefully that can counter-act the other obstacle of features requiring resources to implement.

 

[Splader]

Feels pretty obvious that they want to appeal to the sexist gamer crowd that went off on stuff like BFV.

I don't really boycott games, or haven't before anyway, but something as blatant and stupid as this will be an exception.

 

[ken_matthews]

Is your standard really just "a game with men and women of different heights and body type"?

You can see it in like, any fighting game. Killer Instinct Xbox? Yes it was Microsoft but Double Helix did most of the work with a small team and shoestring budget.

Like unless they have 1 3D artist on staff total. Even then it's doable.

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I don't think fighting games really fit into what we are talking about. But if you think about it, they kind of prove the point. There is a lot of complexity in the fighting systems, but in general, fighting games are rather simple when compared to something like an RPG or action adventure game. There are a lot less systems and interactions between the systems. And the the animation is very different. The vast majority of the work is the characters. There is not much else beyond that and those games still cost millions and take years to make. What do you think it would take (time, people and money) to have the character diversity of a fighting game in a game like The Witcher?

 

[Inugami]

This thread shifted places or something. Was originally 163361, now it's 163364. Weird.
Anyway.

Wonder what about the game's lore prevents female playable characters.
Do women breathe through their skin, and so would suffocate if they wore military uniforms?

I heard this game is doing well, so hopefully that can counter-act the other obstacle of features requiring resources to implement.

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There were two threads and they got merged with the earlier thread becoming the base.

 

[texhnolyze]

I still don't understand about the lore part. Do they ever explain that? I noticed that they denied that interview from years ago.

Who?

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Escape From Tarkov, the most popular game on Twitch nowadays. Get with the times. :P

 

[A Strong Latte]

I don't think fighting games really fit into what we are talking about. But if you think about it, they kind of prove the point. There is a lot of complexity in the fighting systems, but in general, fighting games are rather simple when compared to something like an RPG or action adventure game. There are a lot less systems and interactions between the systems. And the the animation is very different. The vast majority of the work is the characters. There is not much else beyond that and those games still cost millions and take years to make. What do you think it would take (time, people and money) to have the character diversity of a fighting game in a game like The Witcher?

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A 3D character artist is going to do the exact same job whether they're working on a fighting game or the Witcher. The systems required in an RPG don't effect the 3D art.

 

[ken_matthews]

A 3D character artist is going to do the exact same job whether they're working on a fighting game or the Witcher. The systems required in an RPG don't effect the 3D art.

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A game character is much more than 3D art. It's about time, money, and people. If you are making a fighting game, you are spending most of your time, money and people on the characters. If you are building an RPG, you still need the time, money, and people to build everything else beyond the characters, which is most of the work for non fighting games. Developers have finite resources and the short cuts they choose to make for their game characters are practical decisions because of how coastly they are to make, and because the rest of the game is so much more work.

 

[sabrina]

Yeah, I think that is true. There is no reason why you can't build a game where all your characters are female. They chose not to, and criticism of that may be fair. But if they did that, and budget and resources are a real constraint, then you're not going to get any more diversity within the game than you have now. It's just going to be females as opposed to males. Maybe a game where all the characters are female is a win in the larger scheme of things, I would support that.

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this is exactly what's being criticized

nobody thinks you get diversity for free. We're questioning their horrible priorities

 

[A Strong Latte]

If you are building an RPG, you still need the time, money, and people to build everything else beyond the characters, which is most of the work for non fighting games, as evident by the lack of diversity in game characters. Developers have finite resources and the short cuts they choose to make for their game characters are practical decisions because of how coastly they are to make, and how much more work the rest of the game is.

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Making a single female base body/character would be a fraction of the total cost of all the other assets in a large ish action game. There's is no reason to shortcut female characters and fuck over 50% of the population. It shouldn't be even controversial- how insane is it that it's acceptable to have a world where it's literally only men

It is a relatively small time investment that makes a massive different. There's no excuse. And the only reason people do it and get away with it is gaming is still in some ways a boys club and male devs either don't wanna or feel threatened by femininity.

 

[packy17]

Yeah I missed this originally. Just adapt the NPC rig to be a player character?

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Scav NPCs can only spawn with a smaller selective pool of gear. There is a *massive* amount of gear overall in EFT, and fitting each piece to work on a different sized model would be - despite what many armchair devs here think - a ton of work for a small studio. In the end, it comes down to how to best make use of their time, and since they are a business trying to make money, they will choose to work on things that they deem most necessary to make that happen.

 

[A Strong Latte]

Scav NPCs can only spawn with a smaller selective pool of gear. There is a *massive* amount of gear overall in EFT, and fitting each piece to work on a different sized model would be - despite what many armchair devs here think - a ton of work for a small studio. In the end, it comes down to how to best make use of their time, and since they are a business trying to make money, they will choose to work on things that they deem most necessary to make that happen.

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Did you read Delaney King's twitter thread about the tools in unreal, unity, and blender for just this purpose?

Should have had a better workflow to begin with.

 

[ken_matthews]

this is exactly what's being criticized

nobody thinks you get diversity for free. We're questioning their horrible priorities

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Sure, if that's what you want to criticize then I don't have an issue with that. But regardless of their starting point, they're still constrained by resources. That's the only point I am making in the argument than I'm having in this thread. Some people don't appreciate how much work it is to make a game character. Like I said both things can be true. They may have made a shitty starting choice, but they can also be right about how much work it is to expand beyond that starting point.

 

[ken_matthews]

Making a single female base body/character would be a fraction of the total cost of all the other assets in a large ish action game. There's is no reason to shortcut female characters and fuck over 50% of the population. It shouldn't be even controversial- how insane is it that it's acceptable to have a world where it's literally only men

It is a relatively small time investment that makes a massive different. There's no excuse. And the only reason people do it and get away with it is gaming is still in some ways a boys club and male devs either don't wanna or feel threatened by femininity.

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I don't know, maybe. I'm just saying it's a lot of work. It's a lot more work than you think it is.

 

[Deleted member 62221]

Why do they need new animations? many engines (if not all) allow animations to be shared among different models because the rig (skeleton) is the same. Unless they are adding specific female animations then it makes little sense to me. Of course, I'm just an indie with limited knowledge so I'm open to be wrong, but it still sounds weird.

Not that it matters though, I'm sure "gamers" will die on this hill now (unless the dev decides to add female characters in which case we'll probably have another Ion Maiden shit show).

 

[SonovaBeach]

These are combat ready women, they aren't going to move all that differently unless you intentionally make the animations "girly".

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Especially considering the current animations are... this.

 

[Exposure]

I don't know, maybe. I'm just saying it's a lot of work. It's a lot more work than you think it is.

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Isn't there literally a whole tweet thread linked in here from an actual game developer experienced in the exact field saying it's a lot easier than you might be giving the benefit of the doubt to developers for?

Like yeah it's still work, but that + my recollections of tweet threads back when the statement being memed on was "women are too hard to animate" is that in terms of "good enough for combat gameplay". it's pretty doable nowadays with a wide variety of tools meant to make that kind of job way easier, especially if you're working with "this isn't a released product and imperfect models/animations should be expected" standards for your requirements in Escape from Tarkov's case.

 

[BadWolf]

Especially considering the current animations are... this.

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lmao

 

[Deleted member 31817]

What the fuck? Why are they repeating their same shitty stance? They had this damn near exact comment over a year ago, which is why when a friend tried to convince me to buy the game, I opted out.

Yeah, back in 2016. Not exactly the same like I thought, but fuck ever giving them a dime:

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Lmao that quote holy shit

 

[Noodle]

I'm confused as to what special animations female soldiers would need. They're human. They don't have extra joints. They're not walking down a catwalk with hips swaying side to side. They're well-built and wear the same heavy gear as men.



Could you even tell what gender these soldiers were with only their nose, lips and chin visible? I'm sure there are subtle differences on average in movement, but you are not going to notice ingame.

 

[Waffle-Stomper]

I'd love additional characters rather than just russian men, but as someone who bought it and isn't protesting the purchase of the game I'd rather they focus on finishing some of the maps first tbh. Give me the city and suburbs please