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Reading this now, the use of the male pronoun here felt extremely surprising to me. And indeed Diablo 1 was ultimately released with the female rogue character class. I wonder if that was just a mistake, or whether something significant changed throughout the game's development process.
It's standard in English to use the male pronoun in cases where you would refer to both or either gender.
The Wikipedia article for "singular they" [0] notes that, politics aside, it was a common recommendation. However, there was never a consensus that this was correct, and accordingly it was never standard. It has examples from the 1800s of famous authors using singular they. Plus bonus quotations of Chaucer and Shakespeare!
There are also some good counterexamples of this making any amount of sense. My favorite is a reader letter to the New York Times from 1985:
"""The average American needs the small routines of getting ready for work. As he shaves or blow-dries his hair or pulls on his panty-hose, he is easing himself by small stages into the demands of the day."
— C. Badendyck [sic], New York Times (1985)"""
All that being said, it was definitely still taught in the 90s, because I learned that it was correct when I was in grade school, and unlearned it later. I would believe that the authors of this document were using the gender neutral pronoun. I would also easily believe that they were making a game for men, where the protagonists were all men.
> The Wikipedia article for "singular they" [0] notes that, politics aside, it was a common recommendation.
I think you meant to say it 'has' become a common recommendation, historically the singular masculine pronoun for the gender neutral was much more prevalent.
Even here on HN we see mixed gender pronouns all the time. In fact I see it more than just seeing 'he did' etc. This world view fits the facts just fine thanks.
But wait - it's only a game. If you think this is important, you are free to start a competing company, create gender balanced games, and eat their lunch.
Well,there's no longer such a need, since Diablo 3 is completely gender balanced (at least concerning the hero classes).
I don't know what influenced this, but apparently change can also be made from within a company.
It's standard in English to use the male pronoun in cases where you would refer to both or either gender.