Anybody else thinks this is just weird. Considering there's alot of games where your force to kill female characters. I don't understand why these guys are having an issue with it, its been done plenty of times before.

That is just silly. We should look at this as a positive step, not thinking it is weird and uncomfortable.

Klassic IGN With a K because how dumb this is

Killing dudes is totally alright but when it comes to women, then the guy start talking about morals? Give me a break.

Also, the video is garbage.

So its not cool for female game characters to have big boobs and its not cool to stab them in the face, GAMES SUCK.

I don't feel bad at all, technically they can handle trauma and bloodloss better then the male populace. Save a life, shoot a female!

But this related to females and gaming against and sexism in gaming is hot right now so it will get them views.

C'mon where's the equality? You shoot the female soldiers in the face just the same.

No women, no kids...

I've done much worse things to female fighters in Mortal Kombat, so no I don't feel weird about it.

No men, no kids...

I just saw a few minutes of this and the girl on the panel basically said "What are you guys kicking up a fuss about this for?" I agree with her and killed the video and continued with my life.

So you could beat up women in fighting games for years, have female Spartans in Halo Reach , assassinate them in Assassin's Creed multiplayer and chainsaw them in half in Gears of War 3 which was all fine and dandy, but put them in COD and it's an instant no no. And no, COD is even more cartoony than those games in it's depiction of warfare.

It's amusing to me that the only woman on the panel likes this addition and it's only the men who seem to have a weird problem with it.

Way to make an issue out of nothing IGN, as per usual. This a is a step forward in gender equality, not a step back.

My only concern with it is the COD community and how the in game banter will be if they see a female model, as it usually pretty obnoxious and offensive already. That being said, I played a lot Halo Reach and nobody really ever brought it up, so it's probably not a problem either.

That's pathetic.

Yeah, how the fuck can you hold a door or pull out a chair for a lady if you shot her in the face?! I AM OFFENDED!

Woo finally a game where I get to kill women!

I mean, uh. What?

@alexandersheen: To be fair normally it says never hit a woman as well. So why this exception then?

But yeah don't understand this. Its not real so fuck it. Let me kill men,woman, old people, children and even babies I don't care^^

Jesus Christ.

I dislike this alot.

I'm all about equal opportunity death if you give me a reason to execute it.

I've totally shanked and shot the heads off of humans/creatures of all genders, sizes, colors, and creed across even more morally ambiguous games such as the Fallout franchise. (And I don't even have as big of a kill count across that spectrum as Vinny and Jeff do in Law of the West, they totally shot women and a child indiscriminately!) It'd be a double standard if I was suddenly uncomfortable doing this in a game like Call of Duty: Ghosts.

I feel uncomfortable killing people in general in a COD game. Just feels so horribly wrong a lot of the time.

The only thing more pathetic than the fact that it has taken Call of Duty like 10 games to include female characters is that this conversation even exists.

@ll_exile_ll: It is as pathetic as the previous Bros before hoes article a while back.

Just wait until someone makes a game about the Somalian civil war where you get to stab kids in the face.

Complaints when DICE confirm no women in BF4 mutliplayer, complaints when IW confirm women in Ghosts. So much complaining.

I just want squads to be squaded up with other squads and squad squad ya know?

I've no problem to kill womens if there are ennemis xD

It's always something.

That's very dumb and sexists. I wonder how people who think would react to the fact that there are women who play COD and somehow find it within themselves the strength and courage to 'shoot that guy'.

a new level of dumbness

It's funny, I was playing Payday 2 last night and was thinking how cool it was that it seemed like they made some of the cops women (or, at least, they had girl voices when I seemed to kill them; for all I know I'm talking out my ass and it was just some civilians making noise) and how cool it is that Overkill thought to put that meaningless but nice little detail in.

Basically the guy in this video is probably one of those idiots who grew up thinking that the reason you shouldn't hit a girl is because girls are dainty and can't fight back and seriously needs to stop.

I find it difficult to blame them considering every male in Western culture is raised to take women's safety into consideration at all times. Every thing these guys have been told from birth is to not hurt women, and even put yourself in danger in order to make sure women aren't being hurt. Stop Violence Against Women, the Violence Against Women Act, women and children first, etc. This is why during the shooting at the Dark Knight, three men were killed because they (bravely) used themselves as human shields to protect their significant others. And this is why when presented with "shoot this brosef" most men go "see ya in hell, fucker!" and when presented with "shoot this lady" most men go "wait, that's wrong".

I actually made a thread about female no-name enemies in games. I think I gave Mass Effect, BioShock and Fallout full marks. Maybe due to the differences between modern day and their setting. I think the only modern setting where you can show women as being as involved as men in military or war affairs is Israel, largely out of necessity. I guess it makes sense in Ghosts, since America is on the defensive and anyone who wants to pick up a gun is given one.

le sigh IGN le sigh

Pretty much. Weird logic.

This is a non story. Its a fucking video game that is about as realistic as paintball. Rainbow Six games were allowing female skins in multiplayer for years. I doubt this will bring in any more women into the game than before. The one's that play it already will be allowed to make a player avatar that suits them. Who fucking cares?

It doesn't change the fact COD is still the most stale franchise in gaming today. Adding women and dogs doesn't change that...

This. I was stoked when I heard about the ability to make your character a lady in the upcoming COD release considering I've been doing it in Halo for like 2-3 games. Please dudes, don't feel bad about shooting my female avatar in her head. I made her that way and I expect to be shot just like everyone else gosh darn-it!

@jadegl: But what if they teabag you XD

Finally this has become a reality.

Anybody else notice that in this commercial they all suck at this game? Not one kill at all, funny I just noticed this.

@darji: That would be fine with me. I tend to stick to co-op games online, for the most part, but I expect some amount if this type of stuff when I venture into these types of multiplayer games. I would just hope all players that get shot would get teabagged equally, whether they rock a male or female avatar. :)

@jadegl: lol. Actually someone should do a research study for that. Maybe we can finance it through Kickstarter^^

You chainsawed women in half in Gears 3 where was the outrage there? Good lord man.

@demoskinos: Games media has to be some of the laziest journalism ever. But hey Kotaku and IGN need something to write about right?

Justine's totally right when she asks "Why is this a thing?". Personally I always play as a lady when I can, namely as I'm just bored of playing as short-haired white dudes. And I'm a short-haired white dude!

I remember thinking how it was pretty uncommon shooting women in FPS games, and how Bioshock Infinite was one of the most recent games to do it.

People all around the world have issues with literally everything, why must you understand it, let alone discuss it?

The issue here is that we don't let other people's issues with shit go by, we must initiate controversy!

Am I the only one somewhat surprised that this is an issue?

I believe the only reason CoD is getting female soldiers is because BF4 is getting them too, and they don't want to be left behind. Either way, I don't see what all the fuss is about. Plenty of multiplayer shooters have had women in them, so I don't see what the big deal is now. I'm just glad I can play as my own gender for once.

Yep it sparks so much outrage and debate.

I think Beyond: Two Souls might be on to that judging by the looks of that last trailer they put out lol

I've spent like five minutes trying to find a way to say "I don't want to hurt women" without sounding sexist, but I've failed, because it's a pretty sexist thing to say. I have no trouble killing dudes in games, I'm pretty desensitized to that at this point, but when games ask me to be violent against women it usually makes me a little uncomfortable (unless they're clearly super strong for some reason.) I kind of don't want to be desensitized to hurting girls either. As Brodehouse said, it's probably just because I've been taught to think that way since I was a kid. Really I'm not sure this belief is inherently wrong though. Women are equal to men in most ways, and superior to them in some, but physically speaking they're worse off than men, and that's just a biological fact. Hurting people who are weaker than you is something that should be considered disgusting, and I do. Perhaps that makes me a little sexist, I'm not sure.

For what it's worth though, I'm happy they included the option, I often like to play as girls and it's dumb that they haven't given the people the option up until now. Even though it barely matters in a first person game.