Is it possible to change gender in MMORPG Lost Ark?

The new action MMORPG Lost Ark offers many classes, but no freely selectable genders. Instead, the classes are gender-locked. But why is that? And is there a way to change all this? Find out here on Nintendosmash!

What is a gender lock? The term gender lock refers to a game design philosophy that ascribes a fixed gender to each class in a game. This approach is most common in Asia, but Western games like Diablo 2 also had only male barbarians or all-female sorceresses.

TERA was particularly rough, where all-female classes came out 5 times in a row.

Which classes are of which gender? In Lost Ark, there is also strict gender segregation in the classes. In the table, you can see how the classes are currently divided into genders.

Why is there gender lock and can it be removed?

Is there a way to bypass gender lock? Unfortunately, no. You are firmly gender-locked and there are simply no female or male models for a class that is gender-locked the opposite sex.

The only thing you can do is let off steam in the character editor and try to create a character that is as androgynous as possible that cannot be clearly assigned to a specific gender. However, you have no control over animations or other gender-locked aspects of your character.

How do the developers intend to solve the problem? The developers do not plan to remove the gender lock. However, there is still good news for those who would like to have a female artilleryman or a male bard.

According to a blog post, Smilegate plans to simply release new classes in the future, which are basically mirrored versions of an existing class with the opposite gender.

Then there may soon be a female version of the artilleryman under a different name and with its own animations and pieces of equipment, or a male bard variant that is cosmetically different from the female version.

Specifically, this “loosening of the gender lock” has already been implemented. And implemented in the Striker (male version of the Wardancer) and the Gunslinger (female version of Deadeye).

Examples of such an approach abounded in other games. So TERA brought a mirrored version in the opposite sex for some classes. This has happened particularly often in Black Desert, where the opposite-sex version sometimes had slightly different skills.

Why is there a gender lock at all? Gender locks are particularly common in Asian games. The reasons are varied. Here are the two most important:

• Many Asian games don’t see the hero classes as generic avatars, but as characters.
• It’s much cheaper for developers to limit a character to one gender, as it saves a full animation set and clothing for the opposite gender.

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