Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation for Vita to Star a Woman of Color
A scan from Game Informer. Aveline, the new protagonist, is on the right.
Click image to enlarge and read article.
Because we really need some good news this week: via Joystiq and Nyleveia, a NeoGAF user has posted scans from the most recent issue of Game Informer that has the first details of a companion game to Assassin’s Creed III on the Playstation Vita. What’s interesting and exciting is that the protagonist of the game will be a woman of color named Aveline. It will, apparently, take place in and around New Orleans.
Assassin’s Creed fans have been asking about a female protagonist in the series for a long time now. The series is no slouch in the character design department, and Aveline looks to be no exception. It will be exciting to find out more about her, what her story is, and how she’s connected to Connor, the protagonist of Assassin’s Creed III. Hopefully we will find out more this week during E3.
Source
Personally, I'm pretty ambivalent about this. To quote a commenter from the source:
I am still peeved over that horrible bit of bs and the lack of a female protagonist after so many games (creative director Alex Hutchinson said having a female protagonist "wouldn't be believable"). Now they decide to put one on the Vita? Why the Vita? Is it that popular, even? Why not have this on the consoles and PC as a game/expansion/sequel or prequel?
The cynical part of me is thinking they’ll just use this as a talking point to say, “Look, we made a woman protagonist for our franchise! Why are you whining for more?” And then, if this game doesn’t sell that well on the Vita, they’ll solely point out the poor sales being attributed to the protagonist being a woman of color and no one obviously wants to play that in an action game.
I agree wholeheartedly with the commenter. However, I will concede that this is progress and if there's anything I learned about progress, it's that it fluctuates and spirals. I'm glad Aveline even exists so they get a silver sticker for effort. I hate settling but I'll take whatever I can get in the gaming community even though I'll never be able to play it because I can't afford a PS Vita with what I'm making. Definitely debating whether or not to scrap together enough money to buy a discounted one later to support the game; I have a lot of patience and can wait a few years. I just wish they'd make it an addition to the console/computer games; having it on a handheld device that isn't as popular, set to release on the same day as ACIII is disappointing. It feels sort of like a backhanded compliment, saying women of color aren't important enough to be protagonists in console/computer games...I don't know. Lots of feels.
Thoughts?
ETA: For those interested, there was a trailer released for the game at E3 that you can view here.