System Shock's manual goes out of its way to not mention the gender of the hacker, referring to them as "person" or "friend" instead. The only time a pronoun is used in such a way in the entire manual is to identify SHODAN. And even in the CD version, it's still "him".
@vampiress Yes, that's the 1994 one. The new one surprisingly also comes with a cool looking manual, but I haven't read it because, unlike the original, one can control it without reading the manual. 😅
@vampiress It's actually very interesting specifically in reference to SS remake. The unruly controls of the original definitely played into the whole survival horror aspect of the original. The remake absolutely trades that for accessibility, and... idk, maybe even loses something because of it.
@dosnostalgic Yeah I read someone's review of it - maybe LGR? Who mentioned that.
Which is interesting because many design conversations I've had on various projects have certainly discussed "the right amount of friction" being important.
And it's very subjective. Take Red Dead 2. I love the slight friction which makes things a bit slower than they could be. But some people despised that part of it.