Remember Me rejected due to female lead

In an interview with Penny Arcade, Remember Me's creative director, Jean-Max Morris has revealed that the game was offered to many different publishers, and that a few turned it down because of the female lead before Capcom snapped it up.

Despite the game's heroine being central to the whole story, and fitting in with the feel of the game, some simply refused to believe that a female character could sell games. When asked by Penny Arcade why the game's central star was a woman, he replied, “It was not a decision. It was something that just felt right from the beginning. It's one of those things that we never looked at from a pure, cold marketing perspective because that would have endangered the consistency of the whole game.”

But, when some publishers were approached with the title, they didn't share the same vision.

“We had some that said, 'Well, we don't want to publish it because that's not going to succeed. You can't have a female character in games. It has to be a male character, simple as that.”

Issues involving same sex relationships also cropped up, with publishers claiming that such things would make players feel uncomfortable.

Well, correct me if I'm wrong here, but when it comes to female leads in games, I think some past releases would beg to differ on commercial viability. A tiny little series call Tomb Raider may have something to say, not to mention Metroid, Final Fantasy, Portal, and Beyonetta. Sure, ratio-wise there are more successful games with male leads, but to turn down a series due to the gender of the main character is a little blind.

It's a risk, and many studies have shown that the majority of gamers usually prefer male leads, but this shouldn't stop publishers taking a risk or two, something Capcom obviously agrees with. And, I'm sure Eidos and Square Enix wouldn't disagree either.

Same sex relationships hasn't hurt other games either, with Mass Effect being a prime example. As suggested by Morris in the interview, this kind of thinking simply means that the medium will struggle to mature, and unless more publishers start to show open minds to such things, some potentially creative ideas will never see the light of day.

Remember Me will bre released on Xbox 360, PlayStation 3 and PC in May.

Penny Arcade

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