Leon S. Kennedy. Former twink, current senior citizen, professional slayer of evil residents.
Victim of spiked cortisol, biohazards, and now, apparently, misgendering?
Not exactly.
If you know me, you know where I stand on the gendering debate.
To the dismay of many peers who couldn’t care less, I’ve always stressed the importance of using gender-neutral expression in all the projects I’ve led.
I wrote a whole article about staying neutral without gender tags on loclait’s blog (link below) and a massive tutorial about it for internal documentation.
Contrary to popular belief, it’s not all that much extra work. Getting peers to care about it and commit to it is. However, I never minded, because basic inclusivity shouldn’t be a luxury.
So when I heard complaints about Resident Evil 9’s Arabic loc misgendering Leon, it didn’t register as incompetence. More like… confusion? Inexperience?
The rationale probably went something like this: The campaign is split between Grace / Leon, let’s localize Grace’s instructions as female and Leon’s as male.
Thing is, that’s not how UI works. UI doesn’t talk to characters. It talks to players.
Unless a game is explicitly meta-textual or diegetic, UI Prompts, Menus, and Tutorials are never directed at the playable character. They’re directed at the player.
I think whoever worked on RE9 had their heart in the right place. However, the raging gender wars about this choice should paint a clear picture of how well it went.
The debate about neutral masculine vs. gendered forms misses the point entirely. The issue is that the UI is no longer talking to the target audience.
Breaking the mold and taking a step forward, especially in a language as conservative as Arabic, is something I’ll always support. With one caveat.
Keep it seamless. As soon as players notice, that step of progress is 10 steps of regress.
By Seif Chaib.
Originally posted on Linkedin.