When a new rabbit-eared race called Viera was revealed for Final Fantasy XIV’s upcoming Shadowbringers expansion during last month’s Paris Fanfest, only female versions were shown, but players were hopeful that the male version of the Viera would be announced at the Tokyo Fanfest this past weekend.

Instead, Square Enix added a whole new race, the exclusively male Hrothgar. So, now there are two gender-locked races instead of one. Great.

Genderwrecked, a 2017 visual novel about trying to find the meaning of gender - which the game styles as GENDER, like a hellish scream-question - promises the following on its itch.io page.

That's part of the premise behind 29, the first chapter in Humble Grove's No Longer Home series, a point and click game that delves into the ordinary by stripping away many of the elements that help us make sense of it.

In the "water is wet" category, researchers at Indiana University just published a study confirming that Twitch viewers on popular women's streams like to talk about boobs. It also asks why big-name female streamers hear a higher ratio of chat comments about their bodies than women who run less-trafficked Twitch channels.

Three game studios in North Carolina have come out against North Carolina's controversial "bathroom bill", a law seen by many as infringing on the rights of transgender individuals.

Have you ever wondered what the deal is with Toad and Toadette? You know what I mean. As in, where do little baby Toads come from? Or are you too caught up in how cute the two of them are? Hey, I can't blame you if that's the case.

When you're playing a game as infectiously compelling as Grand Theft Auto V, it can be difficult to take a step back and reflect on all the wanton acts of destruction in which you've participated.

Shortly after Ubisoft upset many Assassin's Creed fans by saying that it had abandoned its plan to have female characters in its new game's co-op multiplayer mode, the company returned with another controversial explanation about the absence of women in its games -- this one focused on Far Cry 4.

News that Ubisoft scuttled plans for including female playable characters in the upcoming Assassin's Creed Unity was met by scorn and derision by many video game commentators last night. Now, Kotaku has an official statement from Ubisoft on the controversy.

The next big Assassin's Creed game and the first to appear exclusively on next-generation consoles won't let people play as female assassins in a new cooperative multiplayer mode, Ubisoft said this week at E3. Speaking in an interview with Polygon, Unity creative director Alex Amancio said that while they originally planned to include female assassins, the "reality of production" made adding the additional characters too costly.

Ubisoft's latest open world game, Watch Dogs, lets players assume the role of a hacker named Aiden Pearce. Pearce uses a mobile phone app to learn more about the strangers roaming Watch Dogs' version of Chicago -- and some players are using this information to kill digital minorities.

It's tough enough getting women and dudes who aren't white into a starring role in a video game. So imagine how impossible it is to try and get a gay or lesbian character in the spotlight.

A lot of the most interesting applications of VR have less to do with gaming, and more to do with perceptions of self. What's it like to see outside of your own subjective experience of body and self?

Dead Century is something... different. Set in the 1930s, with Nazi Germany on the rise and interested in all things occult, you control "a small team of archaeologists as they try to stay one step ahead of Third Reich scientists in piecing together an ancient mystery from the dawn of human civilisation."

When you look at the success of stuff like The Hunger Games, Gravity and Orange Is The New Black, it's safe to say this was a pretty good year for the depiction of women in media. Just the same, though, it hasn't all been peachy this year.

Where does the myth that only boys play video games come from? Polygon investigates in a fascinating report about video game history and the way games are marketed. Definitely worth a read!

The game director for Blizzard Entertainment's upcoming Heroes of the Storm has apologized for his treatment of a question about how characters are designed -- specifically how multiplayer online battle arena games, of which Heroes is one, tend to hyper-sexualize female avatars.

Feminist Frequency continues its 'Tropes vs Women in Games' series, this time spending some time analysing female characters who are kind of copy and paste versions of the male lead -- only with added stereotypical stuff like the colour pink, bows, interest in shopping, amongst other things.

The unfortunate reality is that society has a certain impossible if not destructive ideal of masculinity that affects both men and women alike. PBS Game/Show here takes the time to talk about what some hurtful and problematic stereotypes video games present of men and it's stuff that is definitely worth keeping in mind when we talk about representation.