Abstract
The over-sexualisation of female characters in video games peaked in the 1990s and 2000s and fighting games have been slow to move away from it. Their reliance on visual exaggeration to convey identity and fighting style makes this harder to change. With 48% of players today being women, this raises questions about how these portrayals persist. This paper examines how participatory approaches can be used to explore how women players respond to these designs through a survey, a within-subject evaluation task, and a co-design workshop. Participants recognised exaggeration as part of the genre’s identity but criticised its association with sexualisation. They did not reject femininity but favoured forms tied to personality, agency, role, and backstory rather than objectification. The workshop showed that “cool” and “relatable” characters draw on similar features, but that relatability depends on how these are grounded in function and context.
Keywords
gender, fighting games, character design, representation
DOI
https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1591
Citation
Taiwo, S., and Pruszko, L. (2026) Default bodies: challenging gendered norms in fighting games through participatory design, in Simeone, L., Gray, C. M., Verhoeven, A., de Götzen, A., Bakırlıoğlu, Y., Zohar, H., Stead, M., and Buwert, P. (eds.), DRS2026: Edinburgh, 8–12 June, Edinburgh, United Kingdom. https://doi.org/10.21606/drs.2026.1591
Creative Commons License
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Included in
Default bodies: challenging gendered norms in fighting games through participatory design
The over-sexualisation of female characters in video games peaked in the 1990s and 2000s and fighting games have been slow to move away from it. Their reliance on visual exaggeration to convey identity and fighting style makes this harder to change. With 48% of players today being women, this raises questions about how these portrayals persist. This paper examines how participatory approaches can be used to explore how women players respond to these designs through a survey, a within-subject evaluation task, and a co-design workshop. Participants recognised exaggeration as part of the genre’s identity but criticised its association with sexualisation. They did not reject femininity but favoured forms tied to personality, agency, role, and backstory rather than objectification. The workshop showed that “cool” and “relatable” characters draw on similar features, but that relatability depends on how these are grounded in function and context.