MMORPG’s often have extensive character customization options. Developer Smilegate’s MMOLost Arkis one such game, offeringa highly in-depth character customization system. Different players have varied philosophies about how they design their RPG characters. Some treat it like a pure creative tool, while others do their best to recreate their real-life appearance in the game engine.
Popular Twitch Streamer Asmongold definitively falls into the latter category. During a recent stream, he discussed the possibility of playingLost Arkas a female character, saying that him playing a woman would be “weird.”
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The topic came up while Asmongold was browsing theLost Arksubreddit on stream. At around the 1:32:06 mark, he comes across a post titled “It’s not a complaint…” and a meme consisting of two images. The top image showed artwork of an armored and bearded sorcerer with the caption: “The sorcerer I wanted to be.” The second image shows a quartet ofLost Ark’sfemale magic-users with the caption: “WhatLost Arkforces me to be.” The post is, of course, a reference to the fact thatLost Arkhas gender-specific classes, with both of its Mage subclasses being exclusively female.
Asmongold took the opportunity to once again express his distaste for playing as a female character, stating that he will never play asone ofLost Ark’sfemale-exclusive classes. “I think it’s weird,” he said, explaining why he doesn’t want to play as a girl. “I understand this is theApexboomer take. I don’t like playing girl characters in games.” He explained that this is because he sees the character as a physical representation of himself in the game. Asmongold acknowledged that the current Lost Ark character doesn’t look much like the real him either. However, he still felt that it was more clearly a version of him than a female character would be.
This is, of course, a perfectly reasonable way to experience a game, and he is right that it’s unfair to lock gameplay behind cosmetic decisions. However, Asmongold seems to take things a bit further than that, disliking the very concept of male gamersplaying as female characters. His distaste isn’t just about MMOs either and even extends to offline games with fixed characters. In a clip from 2019, Asmongold explained that he stopped playingMetroidafter learning that Samus Aran was a girl and refused to play theTomb Raidergames because they have a female protagonist.
The older clip also has him saying he at least respects the “honesty” of male gamers who “admit” they just like “pretending to be girls.” However, he seems to believe that playing as a different gender is dishonest in an MMO and simply “weird” otherwise. And while Asmongold is entitled to his opinion, one might wonder if he’d get less backlash if he didn’t frame it with a degree of moral condemnation. Still, regardless of Asmongold’s personal feelings about playing as non-male characters, it highlights the issue with having gender-locked classes in an MMO.
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