By Jason Venter | 07-07-2012 | 1:30PM
When you play through the Aliens: Colonial Marines single-player campaign next year, you’ll be able to control a female character. That’s as it should be. However, the game also features a multiplayer component and right now there are no plans to include the option to go into battle with female characters, despite the prominent role that female marines have traditionally played in the beloved sci-fi saga.
Producer Brian Burleson participated in a live chat that is archived here. During that chat, he talked about the lack of female characters. His comments on the subject inspired the creation of this petition, which has since received more than 2000 signatures (and counting).
“The ALIENS franchise is dominated by strong females such as Ripley, Vasquez, Ferro, Dietrich and most important, The Queen,” writes Melissa K., the petition’s creator. “There is roughly 5-6 months before the game goes Gold and releases February 12th, 2013. We believe ALIENS is the perfect starting point for developers to start including playable females in more multiplayer shooters.”
The lack of female characters in FPS multiplayer modes is not a new ailment, with limited development resources typically cited as the culprit, but the petition shows that it is at least an issue that a growing number of gamers would like to see resolved. Since the petition was not started by Gearbox Software and has not yet received any official response, there’s no telling what impact (if any) it might have, but the petition offers the chance to have your voice heard if it’s a topic that interests you.
“There are many females that enjoy playing video games and are fans of the films who are tired of playing as a male all the time,” Melissa K. notes in the petition. “Let’s let Gearbox Software see how important this is to the Aliens franchise!”
Interested gamers can sign up to the petition site to leave their signature and comments, or they can sign using a Facebook account. Who knows? If the community shows enough interest, we may even see a change.
