For those who aren’t familiar, Kay Vess is the new heroine of the Star Wars expanded universe in Ubisoft’s upcoming game *Star Wars Outlaws*. The game is set to be released this month, on August 30. My biggest issue is really that Ubisoft is releasing a physical copy of the game that requires an internet connection to install it on PlayStation and Xbox. As it stands, the disc isn’t worth its €70–80 price tag (since the game isn’t actually on it—they might as well just include a piece of paper with a code at this point…) especially if you don’t have a good internet connection. But that’s another topic. Otherwise, and despite the (many) game design flaws, this would be my first Ubisoft game since Watch Dogs on the Xbox 360 (I’ll wait for a final version, okay, Ubisoft…)
I see a lot of people commenting, both positively and negatively, on the appearance of the character Kay—and exclusively on her appearance—against the backdrop of a cultural battle between “diversity advocates” who reject any criticism of their actions and those who criticize the character’s deliberately uglier appearance compared to the original actress (Humberly González, actress and model) who lent her likeness to the character—even though we know that actors lend virtually all of their physical features to the fictional characters they portray, and we can cite plenty of examples from Star Wars alone.
So while the last point holds true—as confirmed by several artists in the industry that, over the past 2–3 years, the appearance of female characters in Western games has been deliberately made “less sexy” to be more neutral—I, as a straight man, find the appearance acceptable and still pleasing to look at from certain angles (though from other angles… It doesn’t look like the same model…). She isn’t really ugly, but it’s clear that Kay isn’t showing off her “assets”… So, everything’s fine—it’s just a matter of taste, with overly vocal extremes that should be ignored?…
It’s more complicated than that because it’s not just a matter of taste; there’s a real ideological issue at stake in making female characters significantly less sexy. The real underlying problem with Kay’s character, in this culture war that’s forcing rapid diversity in our media, is that she was created to be a politically correct Han Solo for this new “modern audience”—an audience that’s highly critical (and rightly so) but not necessarily smart enough to see the bigger picture. Everything about Kay is actually inspired by Han Solo, from her adventurous appearance to her cheerful personality; Kay Vess isn’t a narrow-minded chauvinist but retains that fearless, daredevil edge. On top of that, she’s also accompanied by a “mascot character” (admittedly on four legs, so not quite the same dynamic, but still—it’s a duo, and the comparison in terms of their bond holds up just as well as Solo and Chewbacca). Why not create a completely different character? Why not just use Han Solo? Why make a mix of the two?…
Here’s the issue that should be obvious to you: Should we replace characters and their harmful stereotypes with characters who are flawless but visually unappealing to the general public, all in the name of “representation and positivity”? I wonder, did Ubisoft really think, “Making a game with Han Solo is risky—we’ll have feminists and the like breathing down our necks—so let’s go with an original character instead”?
To me, the answer is clear: No. He hasn’t been completely erased from the saga, of course, but replacing Han Solo with a character who resembles him in practically every way—except for his negative traits—all just to avoid offending a single person, is to forget why the original character is so beloved by fans. And above all, it overlooks the fairly simple concept that we don’t all have to like him to enjoy Star Wars, right? that’s kind of the problem with revisionism, which focuses only on the negative details to judge or even take action. We’re not all required to like the character of Mario to play Mario Kart, are we?
To sum up: I really like Kay Vess’s appearance, but it’s the context of that appearance that’s the problem. And few people are talking about that.
They modeled Harrison Ford just like in the early films and it’s very accurate.
We could have had a game featuring Han Solo, just as we’re going to have a game featuring Indiana Jones (from Bethesda), and I imagine that will raise questions of political correctness as well, if it follows the formula of the latest movie. That’s the real problem, and it’s exactly the same as with that other Ubisoft game, Assassin’s Creed Shadows.
