The following ad for “Last Chaos” popped up from some game site. Now, I do not know anything about the game (and don’t care much, either), but the images caught my eye, after reading various posts about the depiction of male and female characters in games recently.
The Titan character is one of the few examples of male characters without full plate armor, the rogue (Schurkin) one of the few of females with full (leather in this case) armor. [Note: The image is photoshopped to see both characters without the icy layer, which disappears on mouse-over.] Yes, the second one, the Knight, as well as the third, the Mage and the last, the Healer characters are pretty stereotypical again, but it was enough to screencap it and post it now.
However, seeing that this world seems to be covered in ice and the heading reads “Survive the icy times”, I don’t see much of a chance of survival for any of them if they don’t have a warm coat and thick fur boots ready somewhere.
I fondly remember Robinson’s Requiem and The Dark Eye/Realms of Arkania, where your characters would die quickly without the proper equipment. Mind you, I wasn’t so fond of this when they died the first time. 😉
So, as I said elsewhere recently, I either want all characters to wear silly armor that exposes their vital organs while emphasizing their assets, or the laws of physics (however exotic they may be in fantasy/sci-fi worlds) to apply to all sexes equally – and that means they should cover up for protection from the weather as well as their enemies’ steel.
Das wär’ mal was für eine Physics engine–Charaktere, die nach eingen Minuten erfrieren, falls sie zu dünn bekleidet sind.