I want to start by saying how impressed I am with the quality of this thread from what I've read of the responses. OP is good too. I understand your point. As everyone else has already noted, Bungie hasn't normally had problems with portraying women in a realistic way. I don't, however, agree with the contention that female armor should look just like male armor. You are indeed correct that under a regime of strict realism this would essentially be the case. However, under a regime of strict realism, there are a lot of other things that wouldn't be happening in video games. Video games [i]aren't[/i] strictly realistic. Therefore what I propose is modified realism of the sort many games have already offered: there are differences between men and women and we shouldn't shun them or stick our heads in the sand and insist they don't exist. But in the fantasy world of entertainment, we accept things like little 10 year old Hit Girl punching 200 pound men through doors in Kick Ass. We accept it because it's fun and amusing. We also accept that the feminine form shines through armor restrictions to a moderately greater extent than it realistically "should" in sci-fi games because it's fun and pleasurable to most gamers. I have no data to back this up, but most female gamers, from my interaction with them on a personal level, would be comfortable with the example of male-female armor difference you showed in Mass Effect. There's a lot of mileage between that example and having every female character in your game built and dressed like Isabella from Dragon Age II. Also, this is the best topic title I've ever seen on B.net.