Binary Domain

“Inclusivity only appears in a video game when it’s convenient to the developer.” – Sun Tzu, The Art of War.

Illustrated by Sara Moana (she/her)

The year is 2077.

It is the future.

Limb replacement, cybernetic organs.

I have a cell phone in my brain, my arms can turn into knives in an instant, and on every streetcorner there are advertisements for a penis enhancement called ‘Mr Stud’.

I’m able to have conversations with Keanu Fucking Reeves’ ghost whenever I please.

Yet, for whatever reason, I am restricted in my pronoun choice, and cannot have anything that isn’t he/she/him/her.

One of Cyberpunk 2077’s biggest flaws is evident right off the bat, and this isn’t one which can be chalked up to crunch-time, pressure to release an unfinished product or too wide a scope of what the game should be.

A video game based all around the concept of choice, with a backdrop that depicts a city where a person can be whoever they want to be, does not even have an option to pick non-binary pronouns.

The biggest irony here is that the depicted world is one that has no overt prejudices towards gender or sexual orientation, yet every choice the player can make in regards to these things is solely binary. The game attempts to feign inclusivity, by allowing the player the option to customise their character with biologically male and female genitals, as well as their character’s voice. Funnily enough, voice dictates which pronouns your character goes by for some insane reason that I cannot figure out.

What this all boils down to, is a character customizer with the illusion of depth and inclusive choice, the reality of which is, “What if a woman could have a penis, or a man have a vagina?”

The most mind-boggling aspect of all this – the games industry has actually done right in this area in the past, albeit most likely for convenience’s sake (refer back to Sun Tzu’s quote at the top of the article).

Before becoming an off-the-wall superhero sim about bashing an alien’s face in with a giant glowing dildo, the Saints Row franchise was a game about creating your own character, lovingly called ‘The Playa’, and building a street gang. It’s earliest iteration, surprisingly called Saints Row, assumed that The Playa would most likely be a male and only gave options for male presenting customisation.

This all changed when the sequel, surprisingly called Saints Row 2, realised that people other than dude-bros exist and enjoy videogames, adding the ground-breaking option of female presenting character creation. I am taking the piss a bit, but it must be said that no matter how unintended the games creator was for inclusivity, it did a fucking bang-up job of it.

If we ignore the options titles (male voice 1, 2, 3, female voice 1, 2, 3, etc.,) and focus on how any combination of these can be put together, the game lets you create whoever the hell you want to be. No restrictions of facial hair, hairstyle, body shape, size or whether breasts are on the body. And NONE of these options affect pronouns, with every character calling The Playa either Boss or just referring to them with they/them pronouns. This trend continued right through to the fourth game, surprisingly titled Saints Row 4, and will most likely continue onto the genuinely surprisingly titled, Saints Row (not to be confused with Saints Row, which came out almost twenty years ago).

The choice to only use they/them pronouns was most likely done to avoid recording character dialogue multiple times, but it still adds another layer of inclusivity that cannot be ignored. Such a simple decision saved the development team time, but also made the game that much more open and accessible to people who do not identify with binary pronouns.

More recently Call of Duty, a series with a reputation for homophobia and racism being slung around its lobbies, has taken steps to actually allow pronoun choice.

In the campaign for Black Ops: Cold War, after the player enters their name, they are asked to select their preferred gender from the options male, female, and “classified”. Classified results in the player being referred to with they/them pronouns throughout the game, with their selection only influencing dialogue in this regard and not how characters interact with them. It’s not perfect, but it’s a step towards a more diverse and inclusive games industry.

So, if Saints Row can do it without trying, and Call of Duty has even managed to attempt it, why are so many other developers having a hard time getting this simple option into their games? If a player is being given a choice to create themselves, or represent their own identity on a pre-made character, why does it get so half arsed?

I would rather a game give me a set protagonist, with a set identity, pronouns, orientation, than have the game present the illusion of choice with only two available binary options. Cyberpunk 2077 wants you to explore Night City as yourself, it wants YOU to become V, but within its own restrictive parameters.

During Pride Month of 2019, Sony adapted their usual PS4 marketing slogan from “for the players” to “for ALL the players”. While this is obviously just the usual corpo support during Pride (they made merch of it for fuck’s sake), it is a sentiment that the rest of the industry needs to figure out. Inclusivity is not a timed exclusive for Pride. It’s not something to be used when it’s convenient to cut down on cost or development time. If games are for ALL the players, why do developers continue to exclude?

Time and money are no longer viable excuses for a lack of diversity within games media. The amount of cash pumped into these projects is enough to fund all our degrees three times over, so it’s definitely enough to ensure an extra sprinkle of inclusivity in what we play.