Home Gaming Escape From Tarkov developer confirms playable female characters will not be added to the game

Escape From Tarkov developer confirms playable female characters will not be added to the game

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Battlestate Games have cited their reasoning behind the decision is due to the game’s lore and difficulties with the animations.

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Escape From Tarkov is one of those games that I always forget exists, reminded of its presence when opening Twitch and sorting by “simulation” and “fps” in that specific order. While it’s not my cup of tea, I understand why people have flocked to the experience. I’m not going to sit here and pretend I didn’t log plenty of hours in DayZ, so having that kind of military experience with an actual incentive at the end? Yeah, I get the appeal.

Unfortunately, it seems the game’s developers, Battlestate Games, have wound up in some hot water as they have officially confirmed that they will not be adding female characters to Escape From Tarkov due to issues regarding animations and the game’s lore, which I’m sure is very important to at least three players out there.

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In a thread on Twitter, Battlestate Games have stated that female characters will not be implemented as playable characters. The developers clarify that women are in the game…you just can’t play as one of them. Citing examples of female characters existing as a trader and some kind of main character in a future questline, Battlestate goes on to elaborate that women can’t be playable due to the game’s “lore” and “the huge amount of work needed with animations and gear fitting etc.”

The lore in question is never explained but out of all the Escape From Tarkov players I’ve spoken to, not a single one played the game for its story. As for the animations, I’m not a game developer so I can’t speak to the ease or difficulty of mapping animations, but this reminds me of when Ubisoft gave the same weak explanation why playable female characters weren’t possible in Assassin’s Creed Unity back in 2014.

Whatever the case may be, Escape from Tarkov is still seemingly holding its own on Twitch as it consistently pulls in thousands of views and is nearly always featured under the “Trending” category. Which I’m sure is because of how compelling the narrative is.

Last Updated: January 8, 2020

4 Comments

  1. Admiral Chief

    January 8, 2020 at 11:42

    I’d love to play EFT, but just PvE

    Reply

  2. PestControl

    January 8, 2020 at 12:34

    I think this is actually the first article about EFT you guys have ever done (at the very least – I’ve never seen any other from CH), which is a bit surprising…

    If you’ve seen the animations in-game you’ll know how complex each one is. For example – every weapon has a unique animation to check its chamber. This is further complicated by the attachments the weapon has which in turn affects how your character holds the weapon etc. I can see how it’s not worth the effort to redo each animation just so they can appease the SJW’s.

    Not saying that it isn’t a weak sauce excuse, however I do know that they’re a very small company doing some amazing work which dwarfs some of the well known AAA developers’ efforts – I would rather have them focus on completing the game than diverting resources just to add playable female characters… that way they can always surprise us with female characters later in one of the DLC’s.

    Reply

  3. SagatatiaRZA

    January 11, 2020 at 04:48

    Why does it matter? If people don’t care about the story then why would they worry about the gender of their avatar? Gender is just a social construct right, Brad? Isn’t that the consensus?

    Reply

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