A Practical Apocalypse: Visual Gender Signifiers in State of Decay

With the release of the upgraded State of Decay Year One Survival Edition just around the corner, it seemed a good time to revisit the original game, which I explored at length over the months after release in terms of realism and representation (as well as gameplay and mechanics). At the time, I identified State of Decay as a game doing it “right” in terms of presenting capable female characters in the apocalypse; there are no high heels or tight dresses in Trumbull Valley, and while sex and relationships are not a focus in the game, it isn’t as though these themes are completely ignored. One character’s backstory involves sex work, for example, a backstory that plays into a mission. That is to say, there’s room here for sexualized characters within the realm of the story, though it’s not a move Undead Labs makes, and while many games set in post-apocalyptic scenarios do rely on highly, if not hyper, sexualized presentations of characters, in State of Decay, that never seemed to be an issue. Characters were practically dressed and presented without a major focus on gender.

But as I begin to revisit the game, it seemed important to explore more than just my own general impressions. In terms of numbers, how do the characters in State of Decay really fare? How large a role does gender presentation play in this game, across the variety of character models a player might encounter? Thanks to a member named “meatnbeans” on the HorizonMB forum, a community for Xbox modders, I was able to download pictures of character models in the game: 39 female skins and 91 male skins, numbers that include both main story characters as well as skins for characters encountered the main game mode. Note this includes Breakdown, as far as I can tell, but not Lifeline, as there are story characters in Lifeline who seemed to be missing from this set. There are a few models missing in general from the game, but this fileset seemed very close to complete.

In order to break down the treatment of gender presentation in State of Decay, I had to first make some observations as well as set some parameters. Gender in terms of the skin sets is presented as binary — character models are clearly labeled “male” or “female,” without any space between, so that creates a similarly binary breakdown (though Sam Hoffman, a female character, is wonderfully nonconformist in the game, and a badass with complex characterization to boot). I also wanted to focus first on solely the visual, which meant some common treatment of female characters in games, such as the presence of only one woman in a group, for example, or gender roles in terms of action, would be left out of the equation, as there’s no way to translate that to visual exploration of skins. I also avoided looking at names, since characters outside the main story are generated with different names. Since I was exploring only the visual, I also left off any identifiers on character cards regarding characteristics, though I may examine that in a later piece.

Here’s what I did look for:

Some of these signifiers, such as hats, can certainly be gender neutral, and all items are of course available to anyone regardless of gender identification, but in terms of character presentation in games and similar media, these are often used as visual cues. I went through the skins, tracking instances of signifiers. Some gray area exists with the female skins. Several apparent women are wearing colors that aren’t quite pink (a pinkish cast, or a burgundy), and while some have very feminized short hairstyles, others have long hair in buns that aren’t particularly feminized. In the end, I performed the counts several different ways, and came to the same breakdowns (with one exceptions, in which I counted things that felt like I was reaching, so I threw that one out). But I also went through and counted female characters with traditionally male signifiers on this list — which largely meant women wearing hats (though some of the female characters have very short hair). For all characters, I skipped stocking caps (as there was no variation in those, while there was variation between men and women wearing ballcaps), counting only cowboy hats, ballcaps, and similar items, but did not include the characters in military uniforms unless they had other signifiers, as the uniforms are essentially the same.

I compiled the results into two different kinds of graphics, just for ease of viewing.

As you can see, in both sets, the ratios are similar, leaning toward more neutral presentations. It must also be said that all the male characters tend to be presented as broad-shouldered as a rule, without a lot of variation in body type, and the women as well, though there are a few notable exceptions throughout the game — while thin, fit character models dominate, a few story characters fall outside of this line. Future explorations may look at those ratios, as well as breakdowns on apparent racial characteristics.

When I looked at female characters with some evidence of male signifiers, 9/39 fell into that category — again, short hair and hats dominated the categorization — but at least one of these was also wearing pink, a fact I noted with interest.

While some of the design decisions regarding character models seem to have been made by Undead Labs for the sake of economy — there is a great deal of similarity across different models — and I cannot say as to whether or not they considered gender presentation and representation as a factor when crafting the game, it’s hard for me to think this was an accident, when so many other games in similar settings do feature characters with extreme gender signifiers, such as bulging muscles in men and skirts and dresses for women. By and large, the characters in State of Decay simply look like people in a bad situation. Sometimes they’re a little scruffy, sometimes they have bad haircuts, but they all look ready to survive, and that’s something to appreciate, considering the hyper presentation of gender in many — not all — zombie-themed games.

In these examples from Dead Island, Dead Rising, and Resident Evil, we would be checking off a lot more boxes, and sometimes have less freedom in player choice in terms of avatar, another strength of State of Decay — after the initial story setup, so long as the player keeps a slate of survivors, players may step into any role they wish, based on looks or character strength or fighting style, as they choose. While this luxury isn’t possible in every game, it does seem to be part of the presentation of State of Decay, just as the game’s developers apparently worked toward creating a very practical take on survival in terms of the visual.

 If you’re interested in seeing “outtakes,” I’ll be uploading some of my early research on this line later today as a patron-only update, and you’ll also get a sneak peek at future research that may be presented here. Get on the Patreon train!