Celebrate International Women's Day with This Free PS4 Theme

This is pretty cool. PlayStation has a pretty good number of strong female leads. I like the shoutout for Kat. I would add 2B as well.

I was wondering why Francis from Dreams was on there, seeing as we know little about her, but then I realized the artist of the piece was from Media Molecule, so that makes sense.

Lets not forget the lovely ladies from Dead or Alive too!

@Futureshark I don't think 'mostly bouncing tits' is the theme they're after.

Not in NA... yet hopefully.

I wouldn't call Nadine beloved. Kat should definitely be on there.

''Celebrate International Angry Women's Day And A Creepy Bear With This Free PS4 Theme''

This is awesome. No word on the artist, though? I'm guessing they didn't include Lara Croft or Hellblade girl because they're not exclusives, but Kat would've been cool too!

Really loving the look of this theme. I wish they'd included Kat though, it kinda seems like a bit of a slight to Gravity Rush.

@Quintumply haha it's been a long Thursday 😂🔫

Very nice. For a second there, I thought Kara was Ves from The Witcher.

This reminds me I need to get around to The Lost Legacy. Also that bear is slightly terrifying.

@Futureshark my girl Mila

R3sp3ct whamen!
Cool theme

Should have added Kat and 2B.

@Kai_ Yeah and she's in front of Chloe too, lol.

No thanks. Maybe one day humanity can get over signaling out gender and race.

I don't care for the day, but I won't say no to a cool free theme.

Oh it is the ND and friends theme. Just missing Elena there.

Cool theme.

It's a neat theme, but definitely needed more characters from other games, like you guys said, Kat, 2B, Lara, Senua.

Ah well, it's just a free theme.

Samus.

@RogerRoger Really? I liked the pride theme. I'm still using it actually.

Here's the theme preview. Unfortunately it has default music, but the custom icons makes it decent.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-xSVTNL26d8

More like American Women in Naughty Dog Games theme.

Get me a version of this with Kat, 2B, and maybe some of the Persona 5 women, and I'll absolutely download it.

And I don't know what that weird bear thing is, but get it out of there.

why is Nadine there? Where's KAT?!

This is nice, I like the art style

@Ralizah Always complaining i see... Also show more respect to the upcoming game Dreams, it looks amazing. Many people like me can't wait for it and it's also amazing the fact that Sony included the character of the game on this theme.

Pretty cool theme, and congratulations for all the women who access Push Square.

Not a fan, but I'm wondering if this was a Sony sponsored thing or if some random woman at mM just sort of drew it on her own and somebody liked it and suggested it to Sony. That would explain the character selection, personal preference. Doesn't seem like it was overly thought out or meant to be representative.

I've always been fond of female Kratos goddess of war Nariko myself, she's the original Aloy, too soon forgotten. And of course Elena. And the cop in Sly Cooper, Carmelita? Rosilita? Something like that.

@PS_Nation Nah, I'm just not a Sony fanboy, so I don't feel compelled to praise everything put out by the company.

Dreams isn't for me. Sony has some good first party games, but the ones that appeal to me are almost all from Japan Studio.

Although once the price drops low enough for the GOTY edition, I'll probably try Horizon: Zero Dawn.

Even though observer was boring it has a pretty awesome dynamic theme free in the store.

@DLB3: How long are we going to have this specific "women's day" for?

I don't need no goofy theme or special day to celebrate woman. I celebrate woman everyday. My wife, who is also the mother to my two amazing boys, is the most incredible person I know and I celebrate her all the time.

A good cause and some great artwork, awesome.

@Ralizah Just because you don't like it, doesn't mean that they should take the character away. Sony included their own characters on this theme, including the upcoming games.

I really like games created by Sony, people can call me a fanboy, I just don't care.

@BowTiesAreCool It seems that Senua could be on Xbox in the 'near' future (if the rumours turn out true). It has been listed in Taiwan for Xbox and with Dolby Atmos and the importance of Audio in the game it would be a good match. Obviously Lara Croft is a multi-platform icon and we know Rise of the Tomb Raider launched first on Xbox too.

Of course both of these 'could' of been used by Sony too but it seems they are focusing more on their First Party female icons. As for Kat, I know that she may well of made a case to be included but seems too 'niche'. The fact this was made by the Artist at Media Molecule is why 'Francis' from Dreams is included...

Is it man's day tomorrow?

@rjejr Ah, yes. Bring back Nariko.

@rjejr
Great shout. I'm a huge fan of Nariko also. Loved that game, loved that character, wish it had been more popular but sadly key factors worked against it. For one it was short (I beat it in 7 hours and that was taking my time, I imagine some completed it sooner than that), then you have the $60 price tag for a short game and most importantly PS3 was not in a good place at that time, still lots of negative stigma from E3 2006. It's too bad though, Nariko had lots of potential as a mascot and I thought Kai was a cool character too. Both infinitely more interesting than Kratos. He's one of my favorite characters but all he's ever really done is get angry about something, yell, then kick some a$$. Not much characterization there.

@Futureshark And all the other 363 days too.

@KingdomHeartsFan Possibly, but that's not to say it is in invalid trope.

I'd personally like the sexualisation of female characters given more thought. Not that I find sex, the female (and/or male) form and the sexualisation of it offensive - I'd just like some options to mitigate it if I choose.

Recently I'd been playing a bit of Street Fighter 2 Turbo with my daughter (who is 10) at her request; 'cool', I thought, and we played.
She chose Chun Li without even blinking and we played a little bit while I tried to teach her a few SF fundamentals.
After a while she asked if we could play SFV; 'wow, even cooler' I thought - then very soon after thought about her character choice on Turbo, Chun LI, straight away, no hesitation.
Now, there's nothing particularly sexualised about Chun's default character model in SFV (other than the universally ridiculous proportions of the game's characters) beyond the obligatory mammary bounce, but then you have the Lauras, the Cammys, the Mikas and of course the DLC costume options.
I didn't put Street Fighter V on. My girl is by no means sheltered - but I try to stick to appropriate content, and SFV being a 12 rating - I think that is fine. However fictitious, the characters in SFV are capable of displaying incredible power - the males often with a certain amount of muscle and bare-chested macho, yet the majority of female characters seem to have to do so through the lens of bouncing boobs and impossible waistlines. I felt immediately uncomfortable with my daughter playing the game, she (and all kids really) is a sponge for not only knowledge, but also influence. I'm not saying take it all out, but let me turn it off if I choose without having to buy a DLC outfit for Cammy.

Women are many things, sexy is one of them. While I've no doubt my daughter will develop her own sexual identity - I'd rather not inform it through the traditionally adolescent depiction of women in games.

The strong (not sexualised) female characters are still largely absent from age appropriate games for children. Even her beloved Pokemon games leave the female characters, trainers or not, to compete in what essentially amount to beauty pageants.

@KingdomHeartsFan I expect Japanese culture will shift dramatically to accommodate soon enough. Given their birthrates crisis - lower proliferation of unrealistic, heavily sexualised female characters could well end up being mandated before Japanese males are all cucked by willing gaijin!

I’m sticking with the Pride theme for now 🏳️‍🌈

@KingdomHeartsFan I can't say I've noticed that myself (in the UK), but it's easy to see how it could happen.

Rather than any particular cultural emulation of the Japanese - I'd say that there are more factors to it here. There's the difficult financial climate, making it harder for people to leave their family home, tied to that is the late 90's 'degrees for all' political direction that went on to send scores of people my age to university to get Mickey Mouse degrees that are near worthless, there's app based/internet dating, where people literally swipe away a person for the sake of looking at one image - desperately seeking that 'perfect' match - and from that comes a general Millennial self-indulgence. That's not limited to Millennials of course, but the past few years really have seen a huge increase in people being self-absorbed, self promoting and self-serving.
When you're surrounded by that, or at least it is what is directed at you, why would you want to take part?
That, and social media. Those relationships that do happen and play out on social media are often contrived to appear perfect - something aspirational perhaps, but difficult/impossible to actually achieve.

With so much of modern life projected through filters, real things perhaps aren't given much priority.

@Gamer83 "(I beat it in 7 hours and that was taking my time, I imagine some completed it sooner than that), then you have the $60 price tag for a short game and most importantly PS3 was not in a good place at that time,"

Are you talking about Heavenly Sword or GoW 3?

I thought the game deserved a sequel. It was an original IP while everyone was waiting for GoW 3, and it had a female lead who wasn't Lara Croft. I recall it having some issues, but it was so much better than "Lair", I think those were around the same time, at least they were the first games I played when I bought a PS3 two years after launch. And screwed up sister Kai. I can't recall exactly what was wrong with her but I remember something likable about her.

I don't know why it bombed and why it's seemingly treated like Wonderbook, Move and PSPgo. Beyond Good and Evil was just as short but it and Jade are treated with respect.

Maybe I need to replay it and remind myself of the downsides. I remember liking it, but I also really liked Enslaved: Odyssey to the West and that bombed just as hard, if not harder. I'm also a big Starfox Adventure fan, and Sonic Adventure, so it must be me.

So, Nariko for Smash? The new/port game.

@Th3solution Nariko for Smash!!

@KingdomHeartsFan "Even Nintendo is ALMOST there"

Samus Aran, from 1986's Metroid, says hi.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Metroid

FYI - to put it in context that's a full 10 years before 1996's Tomb Raider with Lara Croft.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Tomb_Raider

@KingdomHeartsFan "Oh wait. I forgot. You did speak in Other M. ...Oh... oh dear."

I think we're supposed to forget that game ever happened.

"Link doesn't always HAVE to be male. Each Link is a descendent of the original hero. Why not a female hero."

B/c fanbois

http://www.nintendolife.com/news/2018/03/this_zelda_breath_of_the_wild_linkle_mod_isnt_official_but_it_really_should_be

I know what you mean about Ntineod overall, they love their stereotypes, blue is for boys, pink is for girls, and they don' have anything like Aloy, but then again they dont' really make games like Uncharted or Horizon either. They make Mario Party. A girl can only do so much in Mario Party. Girls seem equal in Mario Tennis. Nintneod isn't going to make any female characters like Elle in the Last of Us b/c they arne't going to make the Last of Us.

Girl inkling was promoted just as much as the boy in Splatoon. I think Nintnedo is more about parity in games if anything. I think the girl character in ARMS is one of the big ones. She is punchign the big guy int he face on the cover, they seem about equal.

But Samas was a woman. They showed that at the end of the game in 1986. And she was Kickbutt looooong before anybody started talking about any other women in gaming. And she was a woman in every game. They never harped on it, she wasn't burning her bra or anything, she just was a woman, a bounty hunting woman. Since 1986. So Nintnedo had gone there long before the rest. And now I think they are all about gender neutrality, not rah rah woman, in part b/c they dont' do politically charged games. They do fun kid games. And Metroid. And Zelda. Zelda had some kick butt woman in it a lot, and Zelda herself held off Ganon for 100 years while Link took a nap. Equality of the sexes, not battle of the sexes. I think that's how they would explain it anyway. But ti's Nintendo, so who knows?

@KingdomHeartsFan "to have really grown up a lot"

Grown up? Their next big game is cardboard for kids.

I think if anything Nintendo is growing down, to kids level. While everybody else is waiting on CoD and RDR2 and God of War Ntinedo is making cardboard toys. Sure, Switch is getting Doom and supposedly Wolfenstien, but Nintneod is still making games for kids, now moreso than ever maybe, even Wii U didn't really have anything dark made by them.

Sorry, kind of went off on a tangent there, I understand what you mean, they are balancing the male and female roles, but their company is definitely aiming for kids, not growing up like the rest of the industry making M rated games for adults. Though maybe E3. Not that they would make an M game, but we still need to see Metroid 4. It could be dark and violent.

@KingdomHeartsFan Sounds good, I don't even need to see the proof.

And don't forget the handshake where Sony said "no more portables" and Nintendo said "no more home consoles".

If MS didn't have a monopoly on PC's Xbox would be dead already.