Don't really get this: Far Cry 4 Nearly Let You Play as a Woman In Co-Op

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Ubisoft Montreal was "inches away" from offering a playable female character in Far Cry 4's co-op multiplayer mode before the idea was shelved for this year's shooter.

"It's really depressing because we almost... we were inches away from having you be able to select a girl or a guy as your co-op buddy when you invite someone in," director Alex Hutchinson said in an interview with Polygon. "And it was purely a workload issue because we don't have a female reading for the character, we don't have all the animations," he continued. "And so it was this weird issue where you could have a female model that walked and talked and jumped like a dude."

Hutchinson said he expects this to become less of an issue in the future as technology improves and things are planned out in advance. "We had very strong voices on the team pushing for that and I really wanted to do it, we just couldn't squeeze it in in time," he said. "But on the other hand we managed to get more of the other story characters to be women."

"We did our best. It's frustrating for us as it is for everybody else, so it's not a big switch that you can just pull and get it done."

This is particularly notable because of the controversy that has emerged around Assassin's Creed Unity. That game, too, will not offer a playable female character option. Ubisoft technical director James Therien claimed in an interview that including a female would cause the developer's work to be "doubled," a point which has since been refuted by a former Assassin's Creed animator. Ubisoft issued an official statement today saying it will "continue to look at showcasing diverse characters. We look forward to introducing you to some of the strong female characters in Assassin's Creed Unity."

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So I'm not on the feminist train as far as woman in video games, but this seems dumb to me. Someone can correct me if I'm off, but it seems like these studios made conscious decisions to NOT hire female voice actors, NOT decide to design any female lead and co-op characters, and are now going "oh man, it just isn't lining up for us to include that in our game". Well of course it isn't. It's how you set it up in the first place. If you really wanted it, you should have planned for it in the first place.

Seems like a really dumb and transparent cop out. Maybe someone who would know more about game development could explain to me how I'm off base.