This week, we discussed the normalities that have been brought about by the first person shooter, and the roles that female characters have played in video games in the modern era. To begin, the First Person Shooter genre has become somewhat bloated in the past decade as the genre finds new popularity due in part to new releases, such as “Valorant”, and with the battle royale genre creating buzz as well. This genre can be quite diverse in its content and create fun, new worlds to explore, such as with “Overwatch”, “Team Fortress 2”, and the “Borderlands” series, but the most popular of the genre are the gritty and realistic takes, such as “Call of Duty” and “Battlefield”, with developers and advertisements claiming that the games are as close as you can get to real armed combat. However, this rhetoric is somewhat harmful to its own audience, as it paints an unrealistic picture of warfare and somewhat glorifies the armed combat of the military. While the army or navy have never officially endorsed any of these games, they do like to use the idea of  “You like the games so much, why don’t you come live the dream?” in their marketing quite a lot. I know from experience that recruiters will try to use any kind of persuasion that they can to try and get you to sign up, and this massive outlet does nothing but benefit their cause. The popularity of gritty, realistic shooters also reinforces the false and testosterone fueled idea that “women do not belong in combat”. These games have very few female characters, if any, and usually put their female characters into side roles or more passive roles, such as healer. This idea once again reinforces the idea that “women do not belong in gaming environments” and can make the female audience feel isolated in the community. Games such as “Overwatch” break these “realistic” norms by putting female characters in every role, from healer to tank. Another topic that was touched in the discussion of female representation in video games was the topic of oversexualizing characters. During the 80’s and 90’s, women in games were treated more like prizes or goals rather than characters. However, as time progressed, we began to see more female leading roles, such as with the “Metroid” and “Tomb Raider” series of games. Specifically, when we discussed “Super Smash Bros.” we talked about how the members of the community usually stray away from talking about the female characters in a sexual way, but rather simply talk about how they play and how to play the game to the best of their ability. The Smash community is very competitive yet friendly in nature, so it makes since that this banter of females is kept to a minimum. However, if all communities treated their games like this, wouldn’t that be nice?