I was thinking, should this page really include characters like Kratos and Hilde?

When I think of dual wielding as a concept, I think of FPSes where you can choose to pick up a second small gun at the cost of grenades or accuracy or something, or RPGs where you can use another one-handed melee weapon instead of a shield. These are active choices the player gets to make by themselves.

On the other hand, Kratos and Hilde don't even have an option to not dual wield. Hilde's moves are very specifically set up for a short sword/spear combo, and while Kratos has other weapons, at no point is it ever possible to use just one Blade of Chaos against your enemies. Personally, I think the concept only applies to games where it's an option, not a necessity. Thoughts?

cool story bro

interesting.

They dual wield blades.  That's considered dual wielding.  If you only think of FPS games when you hear "dual wielding", then I would suggest to stop pigeonholing the idea of dual wielding.

It's not a matter of choice, really.
If they hold two weapons, it's dual wielding.
I mean, it's like claiming a character only counts as a silent protagonist if he chooses to not talk to anyone.

Well said, OP. I would consider 'wielding' to be referring to a single weapon entity, so if the weapon comes in a pair, you're 'wielding' that pair.

Edit: On second thought, it probably can be solved with whether a character can dual wield or if a character has dual wielding. Kratos works in the former. "Has dual wielding" is something I'd take to mean that a character can decidedly carry any combination of conceivable weapons, which Kratos cannot.

I suppose we could maybe have other pages about dual weilding, looking into more detailed types of dual wielding. For example there could be a "Dual Wielding Guns" page for games where you dual wield guns, and "Dual Wield Melee Weapons" for where you dual wield swords and axes and other melee weapons. And even something like "Dynamic Dual Wielding" for games where you can dual wield any possible combination of single handed weapons. Since a page simply named "Dual Wielding" could have multiple interpretations, we should probably go by its literal interpretation, being a character using two weapons at once, and use more specific terms for other interpretations of the it. That's the way I look at it at least.