Do you think The Witcher series is "mature?"

[Moonlight Butterfly]

snip

I'm not 'trying' to see it. And to be honest if you think monsters and elves are perfectly acceptable but physically capable or otherwise dominant females will break your suspense of disbelief then I don't really know what to say to you.

Skyrim has this and it does no damage to the game whatsoever. I find it kind of disturbing that society being dismissive towards women is part of the male power fantasy.

 

[Something Amyss]

Well, it seems to be aimed at a slightly older batch of teenage boys, so I guess so.

Misogynistic? It's a game with strong women, with weak women, with honourable women (heck, the only truly "good" character I met in the course of my first playthrough was a woman), with despicable villainesses, and men of every stripe as well.

I'm going to say this, especially since he clearly commented on the writing. You can have strong women and still have misogynistic writing. The end result? Misogynistic, still.

As the two are not mutually exclusive, the argument presented here is worthless.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

It would be nice to enjoy the gameplay without that stuff being rubbed in your face but what can you do. Hoping cdprojeckt bring an RPG out one day with a different setting so maybe I can play it.

Are you aware of their upcoming Cyberpunk 2077 [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5y9711pvZkc] RPG?

It's the only AAA game series I really feel excluded from as a female.

I'm kind of sad to hear that, although to be honest I'm not surprised. Treating sex like a mini-game is a little too...James Bond. You probably couldn't get away with it in the current climate.

You might prefer the second game. It's still very forward about the sex, but it's only with two characters (Triss and Ves, both of which are very well-rounded and developed) and there's only two real sex scenes, both of which you can skip over entirely if you're not careful. More importantly, it treats the sex scenes as an actual romantic interaction between the two characters, rather than as a card collection minigame.

In CD Projekt's defence, they were being faithful to the source material (in that Geralt is a promiscuous horndog in the books as well). And the game itself is...what, five years old? It was never meant to reach a large audience outside Poland, and I don't even think CD Projekt expected it to reach a large female audience to boot.

 

[hazabaza1]

snip

I'm not 'trying' to see it. And to be honest if you think monsters and elves are perfectly acceptable but physically capable or otherwise dominant females will break your suspense of disbelief then I don't really know what to say to you.

Sorry, but The Witcher 2 has a lot of capable females compared to many other games.
The entire lodge of Sorceresses that Smash was talking about, a commander (possibly ruler of a new state), probably the best soldier that a certain group of warriors has, and a lot of the member of the elvish freedom fighters/terrorist squads are all female. I even found some random NPC with a full conversation that was a member of a woman's suffrage movement.

Yes, the sex cards (and most of the first game) was fucking dumb, and yes the games do have incapable women in them, but from someone who's not even a massive fan of the series you're speaking from ignorance and you're just going to get people annoyed and correcting you.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

I'm not 'trying' to see it. And to be honest if you think monsters and elves are perfectly acceptable but physically capable or otherwise dominant females will break your suspense of disbelief then I don't really know what to say to you.

Just a tip - there [http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Triss_Merigold] are [http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Abigail] plenty [http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Toruviel] of [http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Rayla] physically [http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Ves] and mentally [http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Shani] capable [http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Philippa_Eilhart] female [http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Sheala_de_Tancarville] characters [http://witcher.wikia.com/wiki/Saskia] in the Witcher 1 & 2.

The society depicted is sexist, but the writing itself is far from it.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I would like to try the second game but I'm kind of worried that I will hate it. I think I will wait until it's on steam sale at the very least.

 

[Piorn]

I like how the political stuff and fantasy racism are mature enough to be not easily black and white.
If you think about that, it's surprisingly rare nowadays. I'm sick of "bad guys" with red glowing eyes that only serve as cannon fodder, be it Nazis, Sith, Zombies, SpaceNazis, Robots, Evil Aliens, Mutants, you name it.
In the Witcher 2, neither of the two factions are the "evil" one. You can side with either, giving you another perspective.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Misogynistic? It's a game with strong women, with weak women, with honourable women (heck, the only truly "good" character I met in the course of my first playthrough was a woman), with despicable villainesses, and men of every stripe as well.

I'm going to say this, especially since he clearly commented on the writing. You can have strong women and still have misogynistic writing. The end result? Misogynistic, still.

As the two are not mutually exclusive, the argument presented here is worthless.

While a work may be capable of having strong (if we mean "physically capable" rather than "well-written") female characters and still be misogynistic, it is a little harder to reconcile "work has positive depictions of independent, intelligent and capable female characters" with "work is misogynistic."

I mean, I've yet to really hear what was so misogynistic about the Witcher 1 & 2's writing. The sex card thing, yeah, I can see the problem with that. I don't see how the writing is misogynistic, though.

 

[bastardofmelbourne]

Again, this just goes to show how bloody clueless you are. No wonder when you didn't play either Witcher game for any considerable amount of time. It just astounds me because despite this, you still stick your head into every thread about the games to say idiotic things.

You probably aren't aware - she (I'm assuming Moonlight Butterfly is a she) has said that she hasn't played the games, precisely because the sex card thing turned her off.

It's a perfectly valid opinion, so there's no point lambasting her for "not playing the game." She never claimed that she had. She said she was turned off from playing the first game because of how it treated sex as a card collection minigame, and hasn't played the second.

A better response for people who want to defend the game's merits is "The game is not as disrespectful of women as it may initially appear," not "shut your trap, you're bloodly clueless." The first might actually sway their opinion. The second is just going to make the game look bad.

 

[AT God]

I haven't played the second one yet, however I think the first one handled the mature elements pretty well.

My fear is I will end up similar to how I felt about Mass Effect, really on edge because the cliff hanger will make me impatient.

However, if the third game ruins everything I will probably slam this series for being immature, evil, violence causing, pretty much anything to make my rage subside.

 

[In Search of Username]

I think it's mature in terms of the way its overarching storyline deals with the actual political issues that might arise in a fantasy world. I think some of the presentation treads the line between forced 'maturity' and actual maturity. The constant swearing for example sometimes feels quite unnecessary and childish, especially the use of words like 'pussy' which feel really out of place in a medieval setting. But at other times it quite effectively gets across the vulgarity of the Witcher's world. The portrayal of sex is kind of a mixed bag too; it's good that they actually show sex in the games without hiding anything, but the fact that the Witcher's constant womanising directly contradicts his apparent devotion to Triss, and that this is never really addressed as an issue within the game, strikes me as a failure. Also the fact that sex is often used as a selling point of the game (nudity appears sometimes in the trailers, and the whole sex card gimmick was just ridiculous) cheapens it a lot.

So, yes, I think it deals with mature themes, but is occasionally quite clumsy about it.

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

I'm sorry if I come across as hostile to it. I am a fan of RPG's and it's frustrating when everyone is saying how great it is but you are unsure because of something out of a previous game.
I remember being excited by the first trailer of The Witcher and the disappointment I had with the game. Most people would not want to be stung twice.

 

[Zhukov]

Yes, what you encountered was just garden variety fanboyism. See, after Dragon Age 2 went down the gurgler and The Witcher 2 was a hit, there were some people hailing CDProject Red (developers of The Witcher) as "the new Bioware" or "like Bioware but better". To a hardcore Bioware fan, this would be akin to a needle under the fingernails, so they respond by hating on The Witcher games with all their might.

As for whether or the Wither games are mature.... hahahahahaaa... nope.

The first one was laughably immature. Surely we haven't forgotten the Gotta Bonk 'em All collectable sex cards.

The second one was a bit better. But it's the kind of maturity you'd expect from a 14 year old boy who wears his father's pants, desperately shaves his bumfluff and swears loudly in the schoolyard. "Hey, hey, have you noticed how totally mature I am? Here, have some more cussing! Ohh, and I'm dark too. See, here's implied rape scene number four!"

Hang on a sec here Zhukov I need to call you out on something. A random guy on the Bioware forums calls the Witcher games immature, which according to you are grounds for being a fanboy (and all the negative connotations that term carries with it). You then turn around and say "Yep, the Witcher games are pretty immature". Care to explain this morsel of double standardism? Or do you have something against Bbioware fans in general?

No, I don't have anything against Bioware fans. Hell, I kind of am a Bioware fan myself. Well, a Mass Effect fan anyway, but please let's not have that conversation for the hundredth time.

However, I also know the Bioware fanbase has some pretty unhealthy elements within it. One of those is the people who will attack any perceived competitors to their beloved darlings. They raise their ugly little heads every now and again. For example, a while back there was an attempt by Dragon Age fans to review bomb The Witcher 2 on Metacritic.

Note that the OP described what he read as "incredible hatred" for the Witcher games, not just calling them out for being immature. Given that he saw this on the Bioware forums and given what I know of the Bioware online community, I feel entirely confident in dismissing it as fanboyism, with all the unflattering connotations of that term.

As for my opinion of the Witcher games, that's, well... simply my opinion. I do not find them remotely mature and find it pretty laughable when people try and claim that they are. I don't see the double standard. One can dislike the Witcher games without automatically being a sobbing fanboy. I just think that the people the OP described were sobbing fanboys.

 

[Auron]

Why people keep comparing worlds with medieval social paradigms with modern western society and condemning it when it's not up to par?

 

[BloatedGuppy]

Again, this just goes to show how bloody clueless you are. No wonder when you didn't play either Witcher game for any considerable amount of time. It just astounds me because despite this, you still stick your head into every thread about the games to say idiotic things.

Yeesh, settle down dude. There are ways to debate this that won't have you driving a bus straight into the heart of Infractionville. Did you have a big bowl of Angry Flakes this morning or something?

 

[Moonlight Butterfly]

Why people keep comparing worlds with medieval social paradigms with modern western society and condemning it when it's not up to par?

Yeah because medieval worlds totally had elves and monsters. The thing you can't possibly miss is sexism?

What is wrong with people.

You are pretty new here, so allow me to fill you in: Moonlight has done this in more than one thread about The Witcher. And every time she meets numerous people who politely lay out why she is too quick to judge the game/not in a position to judge it. Sorry if I come across as overly aggressive, seeing the same thing over and over just wears you down.

I've maybe mentioned it in like one other thread.

And I'm pretty sure people agree with me about the card business. There is such a thing as being over defensive.

 

[RobfromtheGulag]

Only played 1 so far.

Not 'mature' in the immature way we'd like (what, semi-clothed pics on cards? Don't make me laugh), but more mature based on the gameplay. I never went the magic route, but a purely magic game would probably require even more foresight. The sword combat was involved and underpowered if anything. The story was not sweeping and epic, rather it was one guy having trouble fighting what, 2 other guys? The potions again were terribly involved and the rewards were less than earth-shattering.

So, based solely off my experience with the 1st game of the series, it's mature.