Nikke: Goddess of Victory

No Room in the Infinite for the Masculine and Queer: How Do Dress-Up Pleasures in Infinity Nikki Collide with Player Desire and Queer/Masculine Fashion?

Infinity Nikki, a Chinese-developed open-world action game with extensive dress-up customisation and gacha monetisation, is examined here as a case study in how its fashion systems shape player pleasure and gender representation.

• The paper's central finding is that Infinity Nikki's fashion pleasures are aesthetically limited, skewing overwhelmingly toward cute, comfort-focused, and ballgown-style feminine outfits, while masculine and queer styles are largely absent.
• The authors describe the absence of butch, tomboy, androgynous, ouji, drag king, Takarazuka, and British pantomime styles as a "misappearance" of masculine and queer expression, with the developer providing little explicit support for them.
• Players improvise masculine and boyish looks with available tools and read queer themes into the narrative, but the game itself offers limited structural support for these identities.