Female representation in fighting video games has never been great, but, by 2019, I expected more. Video game development is a field still widely dominated by men. Behind the scenes, only about 22% of video game developers are women. The lack of women in this billion dollar industry is the reason why developers have rarely been able to include women, and non-binary characters, and give them worthy storylines with depth. This is, also, the reason why women are hyper sexualised in video games.
Video games are divided into different major genres and sub genres. Major genres include action, action-adventure, role-playing, simulation, sports, and strategy. Sub genres include shooters, survival horror, life simulation, visual novels, and fighting.
Fighting video games are a type of action game that focuses on one on one close-range combat with exaggerated and violent attacks that occur in a limited stage setting. Players choose a character from a roster, with each character having their own unique abilities, weapons, and attacks. After this, they choose a stage. Matches typically consist of three rounds; the player who wins two out of three wins the match. The abilities a player needs to master depend on the fighting game, as each game has its own mechanics. However, players usually need to master blocking, close-range combat, zoning, combos, using melee weapons, counter-attacks, among other things. Additionally, special attacks are performed by inputing specific combinations.
Popular fighting games include Street Fighter, Mortal Kombat, Tekken, Super Smash Bros, SoulCalibur, Dead or Alive, Naruto: Ultimate Ninja Storm, and Injustice.
All of these games have female characters, but representation has been less than stellar. Take Mortal Kombat as an example. The first game came out in 1992 and it changed the genre completely. Mortal Kombat introduced “fatalities” (sequences after the defeat of an opponent during which the player can “finish” and kill the opponent) and a gorier, more violent side to fighting games. It featured a 7 character base roster, of which only one was female. This character was Special Forces agent Sonya Blade. By the time Mortal Kombat II rolled around, Sonya disappeared from the base roster and developers added two new female characters, Kitana and Mileena, in a 12 character base roster. Additionally, new character Jade was a secret boss and an unplayable character. The problem isn’t just that there was a lack of female characters, but that the female characters wore little to nothing. Kitana, Mileena, and Jade all wore a leotard with knee-high boots, long gloves, and a headband. By contrast, male characters like Scorpion and Sub-Zero were completely covered.
This didn’t change in later games. For reference, look at anything related to Mortal Kombat (2011). The ninth entry in the franchise had appalling outfits and unrealistic body proportions for its female characters. All 7 female characters, from a 32 character roster (including DLC’s), had an abnormally large body with enormous boobs. Kitana, for example, wore a short, cropped halter top that did nothing to cover her chest and stomach. She also wore a matching thong and thigh-high boots. Her alternate outfit is a blue-and-silver halter top with matching bikini briefs, as well as a loincloth at the back, knee-high boots, and detached sleeves.
Furthermore, during a scene where Kitana arrives at Shang Tsung’s flesh pits to see what was going on there, she finds Mileena barely covered by bandages. This “skin” can be unlocked later in the game. Which raises the question: how can someone fight against someone else while wearing only a bandage? A similar outfit was seen in Street Fighter V, where DLC character Menat also has a skin where she wears bandages. The bodily proportions in Street Fighter are so bad that we shouldn’t even get into them.
While Mortal Kombat no longer designs it’s female characters with revealing clothing, see Mortal Kombat X and Mortal Kombat 11, they haven’t fixed their representation issue. MKX had 7 female characters in a 29 character base roster. One of which was a bug and another was a child on a creature’s back. They had nine DLC’s, yet only one was a woman. MK11 had a 24 character base roster and only 9 women; out of the six announced DLC’s, only one is a woman. Things are no better in fighting games like Super Smash Bros. Ultimate. The base game includes 76 characters and only 13 are female.
There’s no need to look further than a base roster to see how disproportionately female characters appear in fighting games. Fighting video games, like all games, cater to an audience. In this case, that audience is straight white men. This means that female characters need to be attractive to them. Take the change of Cassie Cage in Mortal Kombat X into the Cassie seen in Mortal Kombat 11 as an example. The change was so unexpected that I was at a loss for words when I saw it. In MKX, Cassie was very sarcastic, masculine, had really short hair and, was likely a lesbian. By contrast, MK11 Cassie was a typical white blonde rich girl from California who only cared about boys. But, the erasure of LGBTQ+ characters in the Mortal Kombat franchise is a topic for another day.
As female characters need to cater to what straight white men like, they tend to not include more women and to not make them “unlikable” to this key audience.
Can this problem be fixed? It could, but developers don’t take the necessary steps to do so. It’s great that female characters won’t have unpractical barely-there clothing in newer games, but that doesn’t take away from the fact most of the characters in a game are men and that they will always be the saviours and main characters. Men are featured as the main characters because video game developers are scared that their game will flop if done otherwise. Many doubted Guerrilla Games’ choice to have Aloy as their main character in Horizon Zero Dawn; just like many doubt Naughty Dog’s choice to have, perhaps the first, openly lesbian protagonist and playable character in The Last of Us Part II.
Video game companies, also, need to hire more women and non-binary people who can provide their knowledge. A white man will never understand the experiences of a black transgender woman, for example. But, if necessary, they can work together to create a real impactful story because everyone’s experience is different. This being said, it’s sad that hiring diversity in a video game workplace is considered a “risk”. A man’s masculinity can sometimes be so fragile that the horrible and bland designs and personalities of women in past video games have happened. We can’t erase the past, but fighting video games can do better. It’s disappointing to see how a toxic man who is also an abuser like DC’s Joker is featured as a DLC in Mortal Kombat 11, yet other worthy female characters from the franchise were killed and not brought back.