The video game director who purposely kept an all-male main character cast in his latest video game is speaking out against gender bias in electronic entertainment.
Final Fantasy XV’s director Hajime Tabata’s remarks come during a year of controversy in the video game community involving females as playable characters.
“It’s not healthy to have a bias in genders,” Tabata said to IGN.
Tabata revealed that the latest installment of Square Enix’s best-selling series is about 55 percent complete, and includes an all-male cast due to the vision of former director Tetsuya Nomura.
Despite the decision, female characters could still appear in the game, according to Tabata.
Earlier this year, Ubisoft’s creative director Alex Amanico told Polygon that playable female assassins were cut from Assassin’s Creed Unity due to “the reality of production” despite the company already offering playable female characters in Assassin’s Creed 4: Black Flag.
Amanico’s comments were followed by a tweet by Rust developer Garry Newman against “self elected video gamer feminists” and an interview with video game voice actor Troy Baker talking about the “obligatory female character.”
There is currently no release date for Final Fantasy XV, but it is being developed for the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One.
