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The case for left-handed representation in gaming
Hi and hello all and fellow southpaws,
With the increasing option to pick from genders between characters (unless heavily tied into story and designed that way) it feels like the next option would be to have left-handedness become an option.
As a lefty I always felt a little "left" out (pardon the pun) in games as soon as I saw a gun or weapon being held in the "wrong" hand.
I know CS2 makes the option available if you dig a little, which is a great start.
So my question is, do you know of any other games that deserve a call out for already having this? Games that might need this (character fantasy) or just a shout out in support of the idea, feel free to discuss below.
Cheers!
The only game I can remember off the top of my head where handedness is a real option is No Man's Sky. Though, it was added something like 6 years after release, so it's always felt really awkward to me whenever I swapped to left handedness in it.
Then, I vaguely recall in the Pokémon Scarlet and Violet DLC, you can select different Pokéball throws. One of which is a left handed throw.
Next, it's not really the ability to pick and choose, but I think a notable mention would be the Legend of Zelda series. Link appears to be left handed in most games. Well... I'm not really at all versed in proper sword techniques to know for sure, but I presume holding you hold your sword in your dominant hand, and not your shield.
In all games† right up until Twilight Princess Link wield his sword in his left hand. I think it's a fair guess as to him changing here as they gave players the option to swing the Wii Remote, which was commonly held in the right hand, to swing the sword. If they had left it as I would imagine it would have seemed awkward to most righties, and even lefties like myself who held the Wii Remote in my right hand. Since then, the mainline console games, Skyward Sword, Breath of the Wild, and Tears of the Kingdom have also had Link wield the sword in his right hand. Though, only Skyward Sword kept the option of moving the controller to swing the sword, so I have no idea why they didn't switch him back.
† I didn't check spinoffs, remakes (why would a remake be different anyways?), or games that are virtually identical to the predecessor in gameplay/a sequel (like Ocarina of Time to Majora's Mask).
Though the mainline console games since Twilight Princess have had Link wield his sword in his right, the others have remained with Link wielding it in his left, including Phantom Hourglass, Spirit Tracks, A Link to the Past, and Tri Force Heroes. So I suppose it's not like they completely removed that aspect of him.
I guess it can be noted that Link does however wield his sword in his right hand in that animated show from 1989 however...
The last that I can think of, though this barely qualifies I think, is Warframe. There is a Warframe (character) called Yareli that when riding Merulina (her space-squid-skateboard-thing), she holds her pistol in her left hand. Unfortunately, as all Warframes use the same general animations, her right hand is dominant when not riding Merulina. This also means that all other Warframes hold their weapon in their left hand when riding the almost functionally identical K-Drives (space-skateboard-hoverboard-things) that are available in only select areas and which you'll never have a reason to use your weapon on.
Then there is an option to swap your viewpoint. As it's a third person shooter, you look over your character's right shoulder, but with a key press, it swaps to your left. There's little reason to swap back and forth since the game is to fast paced for a slightly different viewpoint to ever be useful, so you'll generally stick to one side. Unfortunately, it does not reverse your character's stance.
Link was actually only right handed in the Wii version of Twilight Princess, for the reasons you said. But he was still left handed in the GC version. A fun fact is that rather than simply mirror the model, the entire game is actually reversed horizontally between the two versions. That is to say, if a path went to the left in the GC version, it would go to the right in the Wii versions.
Yep! And it's not a guess, it was explicitly stated by the Zelda team that motion control awkwardness was the reason for the switch.
Minecraft has had this option ever since they added offhand items.
I haven't played it myself, but a small bit of digging reveals that Half-Life: Alyx has options for left-, right-, or single-handedness (though left wasn't as robust until a patch). It looks like the left-handed mode wasn't perfect but was still quite playable. Of course you need VR for this game.
I thought of Alyx because of the groundbreaking physicality of it (according to two friends of mine who played it), as well as the thoughtfulness that Valve usually puts into the design of their games. But it's a damn shame that's how far one has to go to find representation in this area. I grew up with two left-handed siblings and I could see that the struggle was real. (Although when one of them took up fencing, they quickly found they had an automatic advantage, as most righties weren't used to facing lefties, but of course lefty fencers faced righties all the time.)
Off the top of my head, the only other game example that is slightly relevant is Final Fantasy IV. (I don't recall if this feature was in the other SNES Final Fantasies, but I don't think so.) You could equip the party characters with weapons and shields in either hand, but characters had assigned handedness; that is, you could see that their attack power varied dramatically whether the weapon was in the right or left hand (and when they joined the party, their starting equipment was in the appropriate hands). One character was left-handed that I remember.
It's not what you were asking, I know. Customizability really ought to be a thing.
Having a lefthanded viewmodel is nice, but it's not worth it if it's inconsistent - every second FPS will fail to support it, which is more jarring than just permanently having a righthanded viewmodel.
It seems like every generation we have the same discussion of whether we need an options menu for various stuff, without ever making progress. I remember Cynical Brit making a video outlining the settings menu options that every game should make, and a decade later that's still basically fiction. The reality is that settings menus can't be taken for granted, and especially not niche/obscure options like lefthanded viewmodels. I'd love to be proven wrong.
The first thing Total Biscuit used to do in any of his videos was going through the settings and invariably complaining about a lack of options. It's ubiquitous and persistent. Unfortunately.
Pathfinder: Kingmaker offers this. It's not really mechanically relevant, but it's right there when you make your character.
Interestingly, the following games from that same studio don't include handedness for characters.
I know this maybe doesn't really count, but sports games have had this for a long time, because it matters in real life sports, too. In particular, I'm thinking about baseball, hockey, and basketball. Boxing, too.
I understand your main point, but, I'm just grateful to be able to be able to customize keyboard layout so I can mouse with my left, and WASD with my right (on the arrow keys), and map other WASD-adjacent functions to Ins, Del, Page Up, etc. Most games allow remapping, and it's pretty annoying when you play a game that doesn't.