The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild (Wii-U, Switch) 2017

[Salamander]

10 minutes ago, Wraith said:

Nothing about Link actually has to change if you change his gender. The game will still play the same and Link will, for the most part look very similar to how he did before too. I don't see how having the option there is anything but a good thing unless you're close-minded.

I think the issue here - or at least, it is for me - is not "female Link," but rather "you have to choose between a male Link and a female Link."  I'd be more than happy for there to be a female Link any time and in any game - I just think that giving the player an explicit choice between playing a male Link and playing a female Link is not what I'm looking for.  I just want to be given a Link and that's it.

[Nepenthe]

I feel like the quibble over Link being female for a game is severely undermined by the fact that his name is far more relevant to his identity than his gender has ever been (seriously, what about Link as a character breaks apart the moment you make him female), and yet Nintendo happily allows you to change that before you start the games. I went through all of Twilight Princess with his name being 2 Chainz. If that kind of fuckery on my end is okay by Nintendo, I don't understand why basically bringing in a female intern to voice act some generic anime grunts you'd be given the option to hear at the start as well is particularly controversial.

[Conando]

Voice acting can screw off. As for the other 2 things, these are topics people have been arguing about for over a year so I'm more than a bit skeptical.Though I figure they'll eventually let people choose the gender of Link, so why not now?

[Jovahexeon Jax Joranvexeon]

3 hours ago, Mando-Whirl-Wind said:

That, or you simply give Zelda equal standing in the plot or bring in someone like Midna.

Now something akin to this, I feel would be a nice superior option. Or imagine if plot twist, the Link of this particular era in time (remember in Hyrule, humans (yes they are homo sapeins still despite the ears) can apparently now live for hundreds of years) is also Zelda!

[Conando]

That would be an interesting idea, have a sort of Tetra situation with the girl option for Link.

[Radiant Hero Ike]

Voice acting would be cool. laura bailey as zelda lel

Female option for Link would be cool, just write the dialogue to be non-gender specific, putting "they" in place of "he" or "she", or give them a nickname like in Xenoblade Chronicles X (they generally call my character Rook or Rookie). You don't have to change much more than that. It's really weird to me how people don't like the idea (he looks more like a girl in this game anyways).

NX and Wii U... Well, I guess it depends on when the NX releases. If it doesn't release until November of next year, then that's fine.

[Patticus]

The best option would probably be to keep Link mute, bar the normal grunts and war cries, adding voice acting in for pretty well everyone else. It works for a lot of other adventure/RPG games, does it not?

[Toa Axis]

There exists no meaningful aspect of any of the various Link's characters that have been dependent on their sex. The main consistency that exists between them is that the spirit of the Hero of Hyrule has chosen that individual as an avatar to avert crisis. If there was ever a narrative framework that would catalyze potential differences in a main character's gender, this is it. Hell, we even have a perfect example of such a concept in another popular series: 

[Junko]

27 minutes ago, Patticus said:

The best option would probably be to keep Link mute, bar the normal grunts and war cries, adding voice acting in for pretty well everyone else. It works for a lot of other adventure/RPG games, does it not?

 I mean, that is what the leak claims.

 

[Patticus]

Just now, Junko Enoshima said:

 I mean, that is what the leak claims.

 

If she's right, and she has a pretty checkered history on her various predictions (I'm still waiting on that 2013 Retro Studios E3 game reveal), then Nintendo's only doing what many other developers have already done, and nobody who enjoyed those other games should have any cause to explode in anger at Nintendo for finally following a long standing industry storytelling(?) practice.

[Candescence]

16 hours ago, Nepenthe said:

I went through all of Twilight Princess with his name being 2 Chainz.

If you think that's crazy, go through any Zelda game with the name "I Say". It's funny as shit and strangely fitting in some scenes. Yahtzee's idea, not mine.

[Regulus]

It makes sense for Link to be female to me. Link is just the 'link' to the player, I don't see how its any different to choosing you gender in games such as Elder Scrolls and Fable.

[JezMM]

I will admit the only downside to voice acting is the fact that I always liked that characters addressed you by your chosen name in the Zelda games.  There is just simply no way to elegantly replicate that with voice acting until synthesised voice software radically improves.

[Marcello]

You could have titles. Like Cucco Chaser =P

[JezMM]

Of course, that's how most games with voice acting handle it, but it's not at all the same thing.

[Radiant Hero Ike]

No they'd get every voice actor to say every single word in every language to make it work

easy

That's a good point though. What did they do with FFX? You could name Tidus but they never actually said his name. I haven't played the game myself so I can't bring in any examples. ^^;

Maybe the game would only have voice acting in cutscenes? XCX NPCs will say your character's name in unspoken dialogue boxes.

[KHCast]

Regarding the idea that Link could be female in any of the games without anything changing. Wasn't there, at least in Twilight Princess and SS as far as I can recall, pretty clear relationships/love interests between Link and a female? Just saying, I don't think you could just make link female in any of the past games and nothing would change. Not unless the love interest was gender swapped as well. (I mean unless Nintendo wanted to go down the LGBT route as well lol.)

[Diogenes]

There's a third option, too. What romance there is in Zelda is usually minor enough that they could just write two sets of dialogue for the few times it comes up; have the girls only swoon if you're male Link, have the guys only hit on you if you're female Link.

I guess it's technically true that some things would have to be changed, but there are enough ways to handle it that it shouldn't be a serious issue.

[Radiant Hero Ike]

Romance is generally very subtle in Zelda games. I never noticed it much at all until SS.

Doubt they'd need to do much, honestly.

[Dejimon11]

So Linkle is actually going to be playable? Sweet I actually like her design a lot.

[Marcello]

I doubt it'll be Linkle or even look close to Linkle's design. It'll probably just be male Link's design with a woman's body and face. Maybe slightly longer hair.

[JezMM]

2 hours ago, KHCast said:

Regarding the idea that Link could be female in any of the games without anything changing. Wasn't there, at least in Twilight Princess and SS as far as I can recall, pretty clear relationships/love interests between Link and a female? Just saying, I don't think you could just make link female in any of the past games and nothing would change. Not unless the love interest was gender swapped as well. (I mean unless Nintendo wanted to go down the LGBT route as well lol.)

Basically, no, nothing like this would have to be modified.  Non-straight people are a thing that exist.  If there are any romantic undertones they can just make them player driven through dialogue choices.

Of course, not everyone would want to have the potential for non-straight romance in a Zelda game, but it's no issue, as every Zelda game to date has had an option that would cater to such players.

That option being of course to turn off the game and go play in a ball pit with all the other babies.

[KHCast]

57 minutes ago, JezMM said:

Basically, no, nothing like this would have to be modified.  Non-straight people are a thing that exist.  If there are any romantic undertones they can just make them player driven through dialogue choices.

Of course, not everyone would want to have the potential for non-straight romance in a Zelda game, but it's no issue, as every Zelda game to date has had an option that would cater to such players.

That option being of course to turn off the game and go play in a ball pit with all the other babies.

Non straight people exist yeah, I'm one of them, but Nintendo's likelihood of doing something that game changing imo is on the same level of Disney making a animated movie with two guys that fall in love with eachother. At best, small implications of LGBT people's existence would be the best they'd do there and even then. They'd likely just do one of dio's options if anything.

[JezMM]

14 minutes ago, KHCast said:

Non straight people exist yeah, I'm one of them, but Nintendo's likelihood of doing something that game changing imo is on the same level of Disney making a animated movie with two guys that fall in love with eachother. At best, small implications of LGBT people's existence would be the best they'd do there and even then. They'd likely just do one of dio's options if anything.

That's all we need really.  Honestly something as subtle as Link and Zelda's relationship in Skyward Sword would not be groundbreaking stuff.  You'd prolly get the usual gaggle of people trying to insist they're just really good friends with that sort of thing lol.  The ideal situation would be you can respond to dialogue choices with either romantic or platonic sounding responses, and various bits of affectionate dialogue from that character would be motivated by which end of the scale your answers have pushed the romantic vs platonic spectrum with the character.  Nothing story-changing, just flavour text.

[Nepenthe]

I hope this doesn't come off as crass, but how would an LGBT relationship in a Zelda be game-changing when we live in a world where LGBT media is more commonplace than ever before? The franchise literally would not be changing anything about the medium or representation aside from adding one more example to the pile. If anything it would be late to the party. But if a gay relationship would be that damn scary to the ever-progressive gaming community, just change Zelda to a prince if you chose female Link and be done with it. Or just do like most of the Zelda games and don't court a romance angle. Seriously, I don't see any reasons why Nintendo has to tread lightly, at least from a western point of view.