Described by a fan as “sort of Counter-Strike meets Knights of the Round Table“, Chivalry: Medieval Warfare is a new, fast-paced medieval FPS that invites gamers to “Get medieval” – as long as you don’t want to play as, or interact with, a female character.

Despite the promising title, no women feature in Chivalry, either as playable characters, or as NPCs – and the developer thinks it should stay that way.

Livipedia, a gamer, posted on the game’s forums, suggesting that maybe a few female inclusions could be good for the game. In her post, she acknowledges that women were forbidden from entering combat during the era the game is set in, but points out that – as a fictional creation, anything is possible.

My question is, what would the developers have to lose if they added a female option for each class? Right now, as far as I can tell, you don’t even have female NPCs (even the peasants standing in the crowd and running around in the villages are all male, from what I can see.) And, yes, I am okay with seeing women as well as men get their heads chopped off, this is a mature game.

The response from developer Tibberius is somewhat startling in its bluntness:

This is a tough one, I actually think that adding female characters to a game like this would make it appeal less to females. Which at first sounds strange, but from my experience of the general maturity level of the internet and the unfortunately male dominated FPS market… I don’t think that it would add to the experience for women or men given the actions that would likely occur.

Female gamers – and those who like to play as (or with) female characters – are a little taken aback by this response, but it doesn’t stop there. Fans of the game start chiming in, labelling Livipedia a “f**king retard” for bringing up such a “total unhistoric” idea which “kills the historical charakter of the game”. Others point out that “A country that is fielding women to fight is making a mistake, as they are the ones that give you new soldiers for next generations war.”

As Livipedia observes, “This argument makes no sense,” when you’re talking about digital people in a digital game, who have less than no responsibility to create soldiers for the next generation’s war.

On the About Chivalry page, Torn Banner claims:

We believe that a wide variety of gamers would enjoy Chivalry, especially fans of the Medieval and pre-Medieval Era, or First-person shooter gamers who are looking for something new but with a familiar control scheme and competitive environment.

…however, it seems that their idea of a “wide variety” does not include those who’d like to play as, or interact with, the occasional medieval lady. The saga continues.

UPDATE: War of the Roses is another game set in a similar timeframe which is playing the “historical accuracy” card when explaining why there are no ladies on the battlefield.