Third-Person Seductress

I'm sure there's a good reason why the City of Heroes character generator included string bikinis among its options.
Francis: Yeah, of course I'm a chick. If I'm gonna be staring at an ass in tights all day, it might as well be a nice ass!
—PvP, June 1st, 2004.

A standard player character for a Third-Person Shooter or modern 3D Platformer. An implausibly curvy, twenty-something woman in a Stripperiffic outfit, who obeys the commands of the fellow behind the controller.

A quick look at the demographics of the game industry sheds some light on this. Since Most Gamers Are Male, Toby Gard (the creator of Lara Croft during the development of Tomb Raider) decided that if the game was going to show the back end of a character for hour upon hour, then it may as well be the back end of a pretty girl. Some women also enjoy these characters, as they have a very attractive avatar to identify with while kicking ass.

Games with main characters of this type will often incorporate jumping and flipping acrobatics, Le Parkour, and possibly Jiggle Physics. This can be somewhat pointless, as the parts that jiggle are usually not visible in the default camera view.

Note that not every female main character in a third-person game meets the criteria. Blatant exploitation in clothing, animation, and marketing is key.

As the page quote shows, it's a common excuse for males playing online with a female avatar.

Note also that a Third-Person Seductress does not guarantee the success of a game; many of the examples below sold poorly and are the butt of much snark concerning their protagonists when it's perceived that the developers were banking on sex appeal to sell their product.

Examples of Third-Person Seductress include:

Action Adventure

  • Lara Croft of Tomb Raider, and all its sequels, is the Trope Codifier with her infamous bustline. This was played up more and more with each sequel until the recent Continuity Reboot, in which her proportions took a downgrade to "normal but athletic."
    • And while the reboot makes her proportions more sane, her clothes are still oftentimes overly skimpy.
    • However, she only kept those proportions for two games in the new series. As soon as Tomb Raider Underworld came out, whilst she was still fairly realistic, her boobs had definitely gone up a few inches. Which seems odd considering it's supposed to take place immediately after Tomb Raider Legend, which first introduced her more modest figure.
    • The second reboot which turns the series into survival-adventure, once again puts her back to a more realistic set. Plus, she's a teenager so it's at least justified.
  • To a lesser extent, Niobe in Enter The Matrix.
  • Fear Effect and its prequel. Also one of the first examples of lesbians in video games.
  • Rynn from Drakan and Drakan: Gate of the Ancients, but only in certain outfits. Likewise for many other third-person adventure games in this vein.
  • Averted with Jade of Beyond Good and Evil. She's athletic and knows a bit of She Fu, but she dresses practically, her breasts are entirely proportional to the rest of her body, and the most seductive thing she does over the course of the game is stretch in an Idle Animation.
  • Ayumi in X-Blades.
  • The titular character of Kameo: Elements of Power. The "Hover" ability serves two functions: 1) traveling quickly over small obstacles, and 2) upskirt shots galore.
  • Like many MMORPG, many guys like to choose a female as their hunter in Monster Hunter. It helps that there are so many armor outfits in this game and that females hunters just look so much more sexy in many of them.

Action Game

  • Kurenai (Red Ninja in EU/US releases) has the eponymous character walking around in a red kimono with nothing else underneath but a black thong. Justified in that she can deliberately use this to charm the guards, but with only a 50% chance of success.
  • Although Mirror's Edge had every element needed for this trope, its creators choose to avert it by making it 1st person. Also, while the heroine is quite attractive, she's dressed in very practical parkour wear with little fanservice element. Her spare, athletic figure is also a departure from the usual exaggerated hourglass, and her tattoo can be off-putting
  • Rachel from Ninja Gaiden Sigma. You can even change her hairstyle to your liking, because we all know such things are important when slaughtering enemies with a giant axe.

Beat'Em Up

  • Bayonetta takes this to its logical conclusion; her magical hair forms her costume, and is used for her attacks. This means that parts of her clothing disappear during attacks, and her finishing moves render her entirely naked aside from just enough coverage to keep it from getting an AO rating. The pure absurdity of the sex appeal on display in the trailers alone - never mind the final product - was almost certainly intentional on the part of the development team, many of whom are Clover refugees. Knowing their previous work, they seem quite happy taking Refuge in Audacity and keeping a self-mocking sense of humor throughout.
  • April O'Neil in the Teenage Mutant Ninja Turtles arcade game, in which winks to the player during the attract sequence. Likewise, she also winks to the player at the end of Turtles in Time.

Fighting Game

  • Many fighting games feature some variant on the trope, with the added bonus of being able to place certain characters in compromising positions, or listen in delight as they shriek and gasp upon being struck.
  • Dead or Alive takes this to extremes. All the female characters are busty and Jiggle Physics is very much in play. Most of their costumes are Stripperific to boot.
  • Well-endowed Page Three Stunna Maria Whittaker in a spangled bikini, in the old 8-bit game Barbarian 2.
  • The more recent Mortal Kombat games tend to make female characters this, by the Stripperiffic nature of their costumes. But if you prefer the gents, the Walking Shirtless Scene is fairly common as well.
  • Dissidia Final Fantasy brings FF's more... inventive female character designs into a more clear 3D perspective. Then there are the the DLC outfits, Yuna's deserving special mention.

First-Person Shooter

  • The game Trespasser, while technically an FPS, places the player as a female; when mouselooking downwards, one's view of the ground was substantially and startlingly blocked by a pair of breasts in a scoop-neck top. That's where your health meter tattoo is. Viewing from just the right angle reveals that besides the "health meter" and her right arm she doesn't have anything in the way of a body. A half-finished third person camera mode was left in the game after it shipped, and using it reveals pretty interesting results: Your player character is literally nothing but a floating pair of breasts, a right arm and a gun.
    • Note however this should be taken in context of the game as a whole. One major design point of the game was to create a completely HUD less game. The health tattoo was mention to be a part of it along side elements such as no reticle, you shot along your gun sight (and you controlled your arm) as opposed to the center of the screen and controlling your view, you had no ammo counter, and so forth.

Hack and Slash

  • Dynasty Warriors Zhen Ji, Samurai Warriors Lady Noh. Diao Chan is somewhat a seductress but only when the pseudo-historical storyline calls for it.
  • Nariko of Heavenly Sword for the Play Station 3, with the usual perfect figure, long flowing red hair, armour that amounts to a two-piece, and acrobatic attacks that are shown in slow motion for good measure.

MMORPGs

  • There's a reason people assume any female night elf, blood elf, or draenei in World of Warcraft is being played by a guy. ("Cutefase" trolls aren't exempt, either.)
  • Same for Mithra in Final Fantasy XI.
  • Similarly a rule of thumb in the City of Heroes franchise was that the odds of a female character really being a male is directly proportional to the character's breast size and amount of skin the costume reveals.
  • Guild Wars. Every female character is well endowed. Mesmers in their Gorgeous Period Dress tend to skirt the safe side of this trope's boundary, and the Monk, Warrior, and Ritualist all have their particular Stripperific sets, but the Paragon and Elementalist indulge in such attire as a matter of course-the Elementalist in particular begins play wearing a miniskirt, knee-high boots, and what can only be described as a long-sleeved bra. The vast majority of the Elementalist's later armor isn't much better, if at all.
  • The Witch Elves in Warhammer Online. They start off in a bikini and work their way up to a Chainmail Bikini, but wearing more than a square foot of clothing is apparently an abomination unto Khaine. Just staying true to the Warhammer Fantasy Battle universe, of course.
  • Action-MMORPG Vindictus plays this completely straight and self-aware. Of the three characters types available at launch, two are female (two more male characters are released later) -- tank Fiona, and Cute Witch Evie. Along with this, there are a few other indications that the devs deliberately ratched up the Fan Service levels:
    • Character creation only allows two adjustments to physical appearance (aside from the usual hairstyle and eye colour) -- height and breast size. While breast size is kept within realistic bounds, the developers are very fond of their Jiggle Physics; and exaggerated bouncing acompanies nearly every movement, regardless of how small the character's bust.
    • Certain outfits emphasize or highlight female characters' breasts. Most notorious is the Homebound clothing set, which is designed to add at least 2 cups sizes to the characters' bust. On top of that, "underarmour" sets are available in the cash shop to replace the boring basic default set. These range from full-body outfits that resemble armoured motorcycle suits, to barely anything at all.
    • Turned up another notch with mage character Evie. Her primary armour is magical and passive; with her clothing functioning primarily as Stat Sticks. Result: many cute female characters running around in their underwear.
    • Further emphasized with certain higher-level missions, which offer bonuses for completing the mission in your underwear.

Platform Game

  • If you beat Metroid quickly enough, or knew the right password, you could play as Samus in just a leotard. Though... considering Metroid was 8-bit, this wasn't all that arousing anyway.
    • In Metroid: Zero Mission, after escaping Mother Brain's explosion and getting shot down by space pirates, Samus spends a rather short time in her skintight Zero Suit, doing a lot of crawling around. The Zero Suit shows up again in Super Smash Bros.. Brawl as an alternate form for Samus. In this form, she uses a lot of She Fu, as well as a laser whip. The recently announced Metroid: The Other M looks like it should provide plenty more Zero Suit action.
    • Note while these situations are explains of such and more recent series have started to emphasize it, Samus herself was never designed for this purpose originally. Her gender was even intentionally obscured in the original game in order.
  • The Stripperiffic heroine of the PC 98 Castlevania clone Rusty.
  • Alice: Madness Returns features a much more viscerally-titillating Elegant Gothic Lolita that is Alice. Eye-liner, crimson lips, petite waist... Some DLC dresses accentuate certain features of Alice more so than the default dress.
    • Her London outfit? It does help that all other human NPCs in the real world possess more grotesque physiques to contrast.

Real Time Strategy

  • Tanya, the female Commando from Command & Conquer: Red Alert, isn't third-person, but she qualifies, especially in her Kari Wuhrer incarnation in Red Alert 2. During the many cutscenes, Wuhrer's Tanya leans into the camera, taking great advantage of her scoop-neck tank top. In one scene she even presses her breasts up against Einstein's shoulder in a way that was too obvious to be unintentional. Eva Lee, played by Athena Massey, finally lets down her hair in the final cutscene of the expansion Yuri's Revenge, dressed in a very tight, low-cut white gown. On the Soviet side is the latex-clad Zofia, her husky Russian accent keeping the player company throughout the campaign.
    • Sadly, in Red Alert 3, Tanya is played by Jenny McCarthy. Wuhrer plays the Action Girl well—she also pulled it off in Eight-Legged Freaks. McCarthy? Not so much. On the brighter side, the Soviets now have Natasha, the Red version of Tanya, played by MMA badass Gina Carano. And even better, Athena Massey has been succeeded by the gorgeous and well endowed Gemma Atkinson.
  • The female cast of Command & Conquer 3, especially the Nod characters with their black leather and Femme Fatale personalities.

Role-Playing Game

  • The Final Fantasy series, while not a 3PS, has had plenty of examples since VII: Tifa Lockhart, Rikku, Lulu, Yuna, Rikku (again, in X-2, this time with more Stripperiffic outfits), Yuffie Kisaragi (Advent Children only), Fran.
  • Aqua, from Kingdom Hearts fits this trope to a T. It got to the point that Square Enix censored her outfit, before they gave Disney a chance to.
  • Vampire: The Masquerade Bloodlines. Female Malkavian character wears stripper outfits as higher level armor.
    • And cheerleader outfits as lower level armor. And both cowgirl and dominatrix cop outfits for medium level armor. It should also be noted that there is a cheatcode in the game specifically for increasing the size of all female Malkavian breasts.
  • Both played straight and subverted in Fable 2. The female Sparrow is initially very pretty, and there are some Stripperiffic outfits you can put her in, but because the game morphs her based on your stat and story choices, a lot of players found the effect ruined when their melee character became too muscular, or their will-user was covered in glowing blue veins lines, etc. On the other hand, if you know what to expect and are in the mood for a Self-Imposed Challenge, you can keep certain stats low to tailor your character to what you like.
    • Played straighter in Fable3 where the Princess/Queen is prettymuch ALWAYS hot to some degree, even if you make her fat, she just gets kinda chubby. Outfits can apply a variety of different effects, from skintight to short shorts with stockings, You can of course forgo pants altogether and fight evil monsters in your underwear.
  • While by no means the default, the female Lone Wanderer in Fallout 3 can be played this way if you put her in a skimpy enough outfit (such as the Raider outfits... or actual lingerie) and use the third-person camera, since the walking animation for females is this sauntering type of thing with a fair amount of hip-swaying.
  • Arguably the entire point of Mira in Knights of the Old Republic 2.
    • Brainstorming for the Handmaiden apparently went "take plot relevance, add white hair and good looks, mix in some underwear-clad wrestling matches..."
  • All of the Player Characters in Jade Empire count, but Wu the Lotus Blossom has to take the cake.
  • The second and third Mass Effect games began applying this trope. While in the first it was pretty subtle, the second game throws subtlely right out the window, with love interests getting quite a bit of interesting camera time, and the absence of the heavy armor from the first game in favor of tight outfits that resemble Spy Catsuits and kinky gear. Even Shepard got in on the act. His\her face can be customized, but the body and default looks are nothing to be sneezed at, at all. Throw in how nice s\he looks in the armor, several optional outfits and some of the camera angles and Shepard qualifies.
    • The third game recognizes this, with promo images and videos portraying a little redesign for female Shepard, showing her as fearsome, awesome and viciously hot.

Stealth Based Game

  • Tenchu gave us Rinshi and a wonderful three second frame filling shot of her chest. The only thing that Rikimaru pays attention to is her Clan-tattoo. Way to go, man.
  • Violette Summer of Velvet Assassin, putting gamers in the weird situation of ogling her rear right before she jams a knife into a Nazi's head.

Survival Horror

  • Through half of Resident Evil 4, the main character is followed around by Ashley, a 20-year old woman in a tight sweater, who is also a playable character for one chapter. Players who beat the game, start anew, and select the "special" cop outfit for Leon will discover Ashley in a special outfit of her own, featuring substantial cleavage and very tight pants.
    • Averted in the PlayStation 2/Wii ports, where Ashley gets another alternate costume that's a suit of armor. Not some sexy Breast Plate costume, either, but a full suit of medieval plate armor. Not very sexy, but on the plus side, it makes her invulnerable.
    • Played Straight with Ada in a oipao, who can also be controlled in her own side-story. When she was introduced in Resident Evil 2 she was wearing this as the attack started while she was at a dinner party. In Resident Evil 4 she's dressed like this... because that's how all spies dress.
    • Jill Valentine's tube top and miniskirt from Nemesis. Or her Spy Catsuit in 5.
      • In the Resident Evil 1 remake, you can unlock Jill's miniskirt outfit from RE 3, allowing upskirt shots in several cutscenes.
    • Claire Redfield's midriff-baring vest in Code: Veronica. Or the bikini that she wore in one of the challenge modes.
    • Sheva Alomar. Her normal outfit was fairly sexy, but also fairly practical for working in the middle of Africa, and you couldn't see her cleavage from the game's over-the-shoulder camera angle. Her bonus outfits, however, included a Fur Bikini and a club outfit that looked more suited to Studio 54 than a warzone.
      • Not to mention that Sheva's introduction is being shown her bum and then her chest.
  • Astral in Ghost Hunter. Pretty hot for a floating spirit girl.
  • Operator's Side / Lifeline took this to the extreme with main character Rio, whom the player didn't control - instead, she followed vocal commands. Ads played up the idea that "She'll do anything you ask her to," ignoring how limited the vocal recognition technology actually was. They did, however, include a few hidden commands that literally served no purpose other than making her strike poses.

Third-Person Shooter

  • BloodRayne has the half-vampire Rayne, in the 1940s, wearing an outfit that resembles latex fetish wear. She recovers health by latching on to enemies and sucking their necks. She has a tendency to pole-dance through jumping puzzles.
  • Vanessa Z Schneider of P.N.03 is, more or less, a heavily sexualised female version of the Storm Troopers from Star Wars. Her shapely rear is heavily emphasised by the tight-fitting outfits, her hips wiggle more emphatically with each level of autofire the player gains, and she curls her limbs every which way when doing her "smart bomb" attacks. Oh, and the "expert" costume (maximum abilities, zero defense) consists of a high-tech sports bra, thong, and kinky boots.
  • Mona in Max Payne 2.
  • Bullet Witch is this.
  • Can be played straight or averted in Jedi Academy depending on the player's choices in customizing his/her avatar:
    • Human female avatars are a surprising aversion, as all clothing options for them are sensible and modest.
    • Played straight with the alien female skins, particularly the Twi'leks - the default species for any Green-Skinned Space Babe in Star Wars.
    • Averted for everyone during the Hoth levels, as the player character wears cold weather gear regardless of species or gender.
  • Rubi from Wet somehow manages to be both a tough, no-nonsense Action Girl, without any excesses above and below and dressed appropriately for the kind of work she is in, and simultaneously a sleek and sexy example this trope.
  • The female player characters in H.A.V.E. Online/Microvolts. Bonus points in that they are highly customizable (hairstyle, clothes, accessories, and weapons) as well as being Animesque.

Wide Open Sandbox

  • Averted in Mercenaries: Playground of Destruction. Jennifer Mui wears a bulky jacket and stirrup pants in the first zone and instanced dungeons, and a jean jacket and jeans in the northern province. Her midriff below the jacket is covered in a shirt, and while there is hip movement while she walks, it is neither exaggerated, nor is she especially well endowed.
    • In the sequel, it is played straight and Lampshaded by Mui herself. One of her costume is a Spy Catsuit and even her basic outfit involves very tight pants. When putting on the catsuit, she will sometimes indignantly claim it's something a video game character would wear. And, if you're into that sort of thing, you can have her wear a chicken costume.
  • Destroy All Humans! 2 has the character of Natalya, met in the city of Albion (London). Not playable, but a very major character for the rest of the game.
  • Batman: Arkham City has several sections playable as Catwoman, who works the Sexy Walk to full effect.
  • Saints Row the Third not only has a "sex appeal" slider for both genders and entire clothing option slots for underwear, but access to a fetishwear store, cosplay shop, and the option to just run around naked (with pixelation). The entire game intentionally takes great Refuge in Audacity as a fundamental premise, but female characters are still sexualized to a much greater degree while for male characters it tends more to be played for laughs.

Non-video game examples

Web Comics

  • Lampshaded in the webcomic PvP by Francis Ottoman: "If I've got to be staring at an ass all day, it might as well be one I like looking at."
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