Examples of Damage Control in Gaming: Quiet Time

Metal Gear Solid V: The Phantom Pain
has been in the news cycles a lot this year, starting from when
the official name and first real
trailer were shown at GDC back in March, and when
it kicked off Microsoft’s E3 conference earlier this year. Now the press
was given a special demonstration of the “current generation” version of the Ground Zeroes portion — as in, it was
demonstrated on a PC with specs similar to current gen consoles — who all put
their impressions of it online Friday. Opinions are currently mixed, with Kojima
Productions showing a game that contains numerous Metal Gear hallmarks, but has
clearly been streamlined in a few places. Those of you waiting to see the next
generation console version should stay tuned for Tokyo Game Show late next
week.

 

But in a twist,
that hasn’t been the most discussed Metal Gear-related topic on the internet in
the last week. It’s all been focused on a sniper named Quiet, first introduced
in the E3 trailer back in June. She’s who’s lost the ability to speak (hence
the name “Quiet”), possibly due to torture, and struts around in a bikini with
a G-string and fishnets. There were a few remarks about her outfit then, but most
wrote it off as the typical kind of fanservice every Metal Gear game has,
though this installment is far more realistic in appearance.

 

But it was
when creator and director Hideo Kojima commented on her outfit that started a
miniature controversy. He
explained that he ordered character designer Yoji Shinkawa to design the
character to look sexy, saying he’s had many characters designed this way
recently — a fact you’ll now way too
well if you played Peace Walker. (Though
in his light defense, PW had some male fanservice too.) Kojima is aware that
some people like to cosplay as Metal Gear characters, but he lamented that they
might find Quiet’s outfit too risqué to use. He’s probably right; Metal Gear Solid 3’s Eva is probably
the farthest they’ll go — unless their name is Jessica Nigri.

 

After detailing
her outfit’s fine intricacies, some critics took to Twitter, message boards,
and various comment sections to voice their disappointment about her design. They
explained that it’s the kind of character design the gaming industry as a whole
should be getting away from, to make it ostensibly appear more inclusive and
less juvenile. It’s awfully similar to the
Dragon’s Crown fiasco that
happened throughout the summer, with its scantily-clad Sorceress and Amazon
(though it was the latter that generated the heat).

 

This, of
course, came with the usual crop of people who accused the critics of the
design of being the kind of feminists ruining gaming as we know it.  Both sides tend to get way too abrasive for
their own good, though the latter group loves to show everyone how immature
they can be.

 

But a god
deal of noise came from 343 Industries designer David Eills, which recently
completed Halo 4. “This character
design is disgusting. Our industry should be better than this,” he said on his
Twitter account. He didn’t set off a firestorm solely because of his
critique of Quiet’s outfit, but because he works on a franchise whose key
female character has been sexualized more and more as the franchise has gone
on. It just so happened that someone had whipped up a handy comparison of
Cortana’s designs from the original Halo
to Halo 4. It’s tough to deny her increasing voluptuousness.

 

Upon seeing
the controversy swirling around the web, Kojima once again took to Twitter
to address what he said. He realized some thought Quiet would be the typical
sexualized female character that graces too many games these days, and acknowledged
that she would be the antithesis of that. Basically, the current criticism
stems from the lack of context currently surrounding the character, and he
wants us to play the game to understand how troubled the character is. And once
we do, both characters in the game and the audience playing it will feel uncomfortable.
Those are some big words, so we’ll have to see if he can back them up.

 

That’s
assuming people can stomach the wait to see if he’s being entirely truthful.
MGSV isn’t due for release until sometime during the next fiscal year, between
April 2014 and March 2015. And it’s unlikely that it will release in the first
half of that timeframe. Look forward to more media until then. Or not, if you’re
on a blackout. Sometimes Kojima Productions tends to spoil a little too much in
trailers and gameplay videos.