Article: Final Fantasy XV is an All Male Road Trip

[Freya]

Final Fantasy XV recently had another trailer released to show off the in progress demo. As we join our party to glimpse their adventure, many fans noticed and felt that the game had a road trip like feel. 4gamer (as relayed by siliconera) asked Hajime Tabata, the new director, just that.

"Exactly. We’re designing it to be a road movie that you can experience as an RPG. You’ll feel the romance of going on a trip, and such," Tabata says.

While that's all well in good, they went on to mention that it is all male characters on this adventure, of what we've seen that is. They commented on how the only women we've seen so far have been in cutscenes. Will there be any playable women? "The party will only have male characters," replies Tabata, "and that hasn't changed since its previous form of [Final Fantasy Versus XIII]."

Guys night out! Road tripping, grilling burgers and fighting adamantoise. Unlike the previous numbered single player console only Final fantasy that focused on a female MC, Final Fantasy XV will not have any playable female characters.

Thoughts about the road trip of brotime?

[Del Murder]

It's certainly disappointing to hear about the lack of female characters. Very disappointing. When was the last time FF had an all-male cast? Back to the NES days, when you couldn't really tell gender in the sprites anyway.

I'm trying to look at this game as just another game and not hype it up with the 'numbered FF' label but it's just hard. As a main FF I don't like the direction it's going in but then again most of this stuff sounds cool for a typical game. The action gameplay, real world-like setting, and lack of female party members are par for the course in a typical AAA title but are big departures from the stuff you've come to expect from the main FF franchise.

[FFFFsephychibi]

Roadtrip brotime is a win, I'm all for these studs.

[Shauna]

I... see. If that's what they think will be cool...

[Freya]

I'm a little bothered that there wont be any female playable characters. I mean it may fit the setting to have a bunch of guys but, come on. :/

This also means, yes, the car is an entire game thing.

[Pumpkin]

I am very disappointed by the lack of female playable characters. When I look at a game, that's one of the main things I look for and I have shot down a good number of games because they had no playable ladies.

This has dropped my hype about 80%

[Freya]

Although it makes me disappointed, I don't want them to just add a female character just to have the token diverse character either though. Maybe they NPC females will be awesome. Stella was supposed to be a strong female character so we'll see. I just want another freya

[Bolivar]

The more I hear about this game, the less interested I am. I typically roll my eyes at the feminist angle in gaming today but having no female party members really rubs me the wrong way.

[Sephiroth]

This is not cool and it would never have been done if another title was planned as Final Fantasy XV in the first place. I hope Stella is very present in the story and that Noctis at least has a real love interest in a way. I knew why I was interested in Final Fantasy XIII more. Still it could easily be a great and entertaining experience.

[Spooniest]

I sense a disturbance in the Force.

[Sephiroth]

I also have the feeling that no character will join the team.

[Jinx]

Dumb and boring. Agree with shion: definitely less hyped now.

And while the roadtrip concept is kind of cool, I'm not sure how invested I'd be in an entire game of it.

[metagloria]

Given that one of my all-time favorite FFs had a single-gender cast, I can certainly get behind this.

Also, here's hoping they use this opportunity to advance a gay character. (Not that I'm equivocating "gay" with "female" or even "feminine", just saying, it would bring some sort of diversity.)

[chionos]

I don't know that not having a female is necessarily a sexist issue. The overall story will determine whether or not it was an essential move or an arbitrary one. I mean, it kind of sucks either way, but the reactionism is a little silly. If the story warrants an all-male cast than that's what it should have.

That said, I can't wait for SE to get past FFXV. I'm actually looking forward to the game now, but I'm also more looking past FFXV toward them finally giving us some real old-fashioned quality JRPFFG love, with Real Fantasy^TM, elements, crystals, moogles, knights, castles, airships, fun (if ridiculous) weaponry, CLASSES/JOBS, bad guys with mmmph, bad guys who are psychotic and fun, stories that suck me in and keep me playing for hours and days and weeks, plot twists and sacrifices, dirt and grime and ugliness*, honest-to-goodness humo(u)r, a world I actually want to experience and can experience, and lastly but not leastly a cast I can give a smurf about. Seriously, when 16-bit sprites evoke more emotion than your million-dollar CG centerpiece, you're doing something wrong.

*Final Fantasy used to do dirtiness so well. FFVI, FFVII, FFVIII, FFIX, FFT all had a certain level of grittiness and ugliness built into their worlds that juxtaposed so nicely with all the prettiness, and also came across as more realistic and more poignant. The heroes weren't shiny and sleek. They weren't perfect. Think of any character from any of those games: they all had serious and interesting flaws that added tension to the characters, that added tension between the characters, that propelled the stories' plots, that made the player feel involved and made the player actually care. Steiner, one of my favorite characters, is a typical knight-in-shining-armor, except he's a bumbling idiot, his armor is rusty, his valor and honor are unbalanced, in short he's a wreck of a character, AND SO THERE'S SOMETHING TO DEVELOP. For a while there, SE was using characterization to play with but also work against tropes, against archetypes (some of which they had created in the first place), in some very interesting ways, and it feels like that's all been lost now. The tension, that beautiful sexy tension, that flowed through the games during those glory years seems all but lost.

So yeah, what were we talking about? Oh, yeah, woo-hoo, road trip.

[Pumpkin]

I'm not looking at it as sexist, I'm just looking at it from my own enjoyment, because I've found I become much more immersed in a story and world when I have a female character that I like to latch on to like kind of a personal avatar. That's just a personal thing. I've found over the years that when I play a game without this female avatar type role, I feel like its just a game and although it can still be enjoyable, its noticeable less so. When I do have that character, however, I feel like I'm in the story, which makes me much more invested in everything (world, stories, characters, etc etc) so for me personally, not having a playable female character is probably going to mean I won't enjoy the game as much as I could have. Doesn't mean I won't give it a try or that this won't be one of the few all-male games that does the same thing for me, but yeah it does make me less excited.

But again, I'm not trying to say look how sexist, I'm just commenting on my own play style and why this has me concerned.