So are you looking to change it up a bit though? Want to experience a game in which the central protagonist - not a side character or AI-controlled squad mate - is a great female character? Here are seven games for you!
Here are the rules to the list. First rule is that the default character must be a woman. This means that games like Mass Effect are out, even though we prefer Jane to John Shepard a little bit. Similarly, it can't be a choice, so games like Borderlands are out, even though that series offers among the most diversity in protagonists. The idea is to suggest games that are entirely built around a female protagonist. Not optional. This also cancels out a game like Final Fantasy VI which starts with a female protagonist, but shifts around a bunch. I'm also ignoring a game like Final Fantasy X-2 since generally, I want to keep it at decent games. And yes, I know Metroid games are absent, which is perhaps the biggest female-led franchise in the industry. Just find it to be kind of hit or miss, and while I plan to get back to some of them to finish, I still have never made it through an entire game. (Blasphemy, I know. It's on the list of things to do!)
Certainly, there are more than seven. But these are the ones worth mentioning.
7. NEVER ALONE (2014) - PS4
Never Alone is not exactly the cleanest, smoothest little game on the market, but it's also pretty cute and informative. The game was built primarily as means to share the culture of the Inupiaq, natives of Alaska. At its core, it's an educational game. A basic puzzle-platformer, you unlock videos covering different aspects of Inupiaq culture. The game itself focuses on Nuna, a little girl who must flee her home after it's attacked by a crazed man. She is assisted by a fox as she traverses the cold, fights against wind storms and spirits, and must avoid deadly polar bears as she works to stop this man. Along the way, she must also stop a giant who is causing the horrible blizzard. While sometimes the game feels a bit clunky, and Nuna doesn't get too much characterization, it's still a nice little game, with a pretty art style. What's nice about having it focus on a young girl is that the story itself - one that is a traditional Inupiaq story - is built on the idea that the least expected person is often the one who steps up to become incredible. In this case, it's a young girl, and in a video game.
6. PORTAL 2 (2011) - XBox 360, PS3
Chell is one of the most well known and beloved female protagonists in video games, but she gets next to no actual characterization. What's nice about both Portal and Portal 2 is that the other main character, the evil robotic overlord GLaDOS, is also presented as a female voice. (Technically not a woman, given she's a robot, but it's a female voice actor, so for all intents and purposes, she really is.) The fact that Chell's personality is mostly up to the player's imagination is what lands this game so low on our list, even though it might actually be the best overall game on it.
Some have argued that the game isn't a good one to list as a beacon of feminism because of this fact. Still, the fact that Chell didn't have to be a woman, but the folks at Valve made her one, actually is kind of a big (ish) deal. 99% of the time when that's the case, developers default to 20 or 30-something year old white dude.
5. THE WALKING DEAD: SEASON 2 (2013) - PS3, PS4, XBox 360, XB1
The first season of Telltale's episode The Walking Dead game is something of a mixed bag. The characters are pretty bland, the story is pretty typical, the shock value is pretty predictable, and the game itself can get a little boring given the only mechanic is making choices, and the game is pretty bad at masking that those choices are more often than not totally irrelevant. The emotional core though is fantastic. In the first season, you play as Lee, a man who finds himself in the role of a father figure as he takes care of young Clementine.
Season 2 is noticeably better than the first, in part because now you're controlling Clem. It's an interesting dynamic shift, to go from raising this girl to playing as this girl. Left on her own, it's now her in the lead. She makes the calls. Even though she ultimately isn't much older, you really see the impact of the previous season's events, regardless of how you played it. At the same time, she's still a great protagonist. You simultaneously use what you learned from the last game with new information from this season. The game does a great job highlighting the growth of Clementine, and really allows you to determine how much of what you taught her really stuck.
4. TOMB RAIDER (2013) - PS3, PS4, XBox 360, XB1
Lara Croft has something of a checkered past. Her original creation was meant to be something of a highlight for women. She was one of the earliest female action stars of video games. She's also arguably the most recognizable female character in gaming - even if only because of those mediocre Angelina Jolie films. Yet at the end of the day, the studios decided to sexualize her (against her creator's will). Big breasts and short shorts became her look, and so this character who should have been a great representation of women in gaming became a prime example of the objectification.
Square-Enix has done much to change that, however. With their recent relaunch of the character, they decided to make her look like, ya know, an actual woman. Proportions are much more reasonable. This sounds like such a small thing, but it's actually quite important. That, along with better writing, all work wonders to make her an actual character. The relaunch also reinvigorates the franchise with expanded gameplay that takes cues from other great action/adventure games. The exploration and combat are fun, and does a lot to allow new fans to get on board.
3. MIRROR'S EDGE (2008) - PS3, XBox 360
With a lot of male-driven games, the action tends to be about shooting people or blowing stuff up or some other form of killing. When Mirror's Edge came out, there hadn't been a ton of female-driven action games. Apart from the fact that it is lead by a female protagonist, and most of the key relationships in the story are also among women, the game also changes up the style of play. The emphasis of this action game is not on gunplay, but rather in its first person parkour and melee action. True, in some cases, you're going to have to pick up a gun for a moment, but it's actually detrimental to hold onto it too long.
Instead, it's in the player's best interested to keep moving. Staying still too long will result in being overwhelmed by enemies. Spending too much time shooting guards will go just as poorly. The game itself can be a little unforgiving with how precise the player must be at points to get across certain sections of the game, but that can be part of the charm if you've got the patience. It is a lot of trial and error. And Faith is a pretty kick-ass protagonist. It's hard to say how much of the shift away from typical FPS action came from centering it on a female character, or if making Faith the main character was the result of DICE trying to get completely away from everything it does with its Battlefield franchise. Either way, it's a welcome change. The argument for female characters hasn't exactly been that games should feature completely interchangeable roles. It isn't that the character's sex is literally irrelevant - although that would be nice too. It's about adding difference perspectives, and Mirror's Edge does that with its gameplay and its narrative.
2. ALIEN ISOLATION (2014) - PS3, PS4, XBox 360, XB1
Ridley Scott's best film, Alien, has regularly been used as an example of a strong female protagonist in a genre typically dominated by male characters. Sigourney Weaver kills it in the role of the iconic Ellen Ripley. She's smart, brave, and capable. But she isn't your typical action hero. Alien Isolation does everything it can to make itself feel as much like the original film as possible. (In fact, it does a much better job than any of the sequels.)
In the game, players control Amanda Ripley, Ellen Ripley's daughter, as she follows clues to her mother's whereabouts after the events of the original film. Long story short: she's trapped on a giant space station after the alien shows up. Amanda features many of the same traits as her mother. She's intelligent, brave, and capable, but she isn't your typical action hero. Where a lot of games have male characters just go, "What the heck was that?" and that's it, Alien Isolation makes it a point to highlight that Ripley is scared too. That's what makes her and the game so compelling. She's terrified, just as her mother was in the film. What makes her so strong is that she pushes forward through the fear. It kind of all ties back to the point of Never Alone's story, which is that sometimes, the least expected is the person who makes a great impact. Alien was like this in the sense that we hadn't really seen many female characters as survivors. And Aliens pushed it another step by making her more of a traditional action hero. Alien Isolation continues that trend.
Also doesn't hurt that the game is one of the best survival horror games out there, and it's the best Alien thing since the original film.
Certainly, there are more than seven. But these are the ones worth mentioning.
7. NEVER ALONE (2014) - PS4
Never Alone is not exactly the cleanest, smoothest little game on the market, but it's also pretty cute and informative. The game was built primarily as means to share the culture of the Inupiaq, natives of Alaska. At its core, it's an educational game. A basic puzzle-platformer, you unlock videos covering different aspects of Inupiaq culture. The game itself focuses on Nuna, a little girl who must flee her home after it's attacked by a crazed man. She is assisted by a fox as she traverses the cold, fights against wind storms and spirits, and must avoid deadly polar bears as she works to stop this man. Along the way, she must also stop a giant who is causing the horrible blizzard. While sometimes the game feels a bit clunky, and Nuna doesn't get too much characterization, it's still a nice little game, with a pretty art style. What's nice about having it focus on a young girl is that the story itself - one that is a traditional Inupiaq story - is built on the idea that the least expected person is often the one who steps up to become incredible. In this case, it's a young girl, and in a video game.
6. PORTAL 2 (2011) - XBox 360, PS3
Chell is one of the most well known and beloved female protagonists in video games, but she gets next to no actual characterization. What's nice about both Portal and Portal 2 is that the other main character, the evil robotic overlord GLaDOS, is also presented as a female voice. (Technically not a woman, given she's a robot, but it's a female voice actor, so for all intents and purposes, she really is.) The fact that Chell's personality is mostly up to the player's imagination is what lands this game so low on our list, even though it might actually be the best overall game on it.
Some have argued that the game isn't a good one to list as a beacon of feminism because of this fact. Still, the fact that Chell didn't have to be a woman, but the folks at Valve made her one, actually is kind of a big (ish) deal. 99% of the time when that's the case, developers default to 20 or 30-something year old white dude.
5. THE WALKING DEAD: SEASON 2 (2013) - PS3, PS4, XBox 360, XB1
The first season of Telltale's episode The Walking Dead game is something of a mixed bag. The characters are pretty bland, the story is pretty typical, the shock value is pretty predictable, and the game itself can get a little boring given the only mechanic is making choices, and the game is pretty bad at masking that those choices are more often than not totally irrelevant. The emotional core though is fantastic. In the first season, you play as Lee, a man who finds himself in the role of a father figure as he takes care of young Clementine.
Season 2 is noticeably better than the first, in part because now you're controlling Clem. It's an interesting dynamic shift, to go from raising this girl to playing as this girl. Left on her own, it's now her in the lead. She makes the calls. Even though she ultimately isn't much older, you really see the impact of the previous season's events, regardless of how you played it. At the same time, she's still a great protagonist. You simultaneously use what you learned from the last game with new information from this season. The game does a great job highlighting the growth of Clementine, and really allows you to determine how much of what you taught her really stuck.
4. TOMB RAIDER (2013) - PS3, PS4, XBox 360, XB1
Lara Croft has something of a checkered past. Her original creation was meant to be something of a highlight for women. She was one of the earliest female action stars of video games. She's also arguably the most recognizable female character in gaming - even if only because of those mediocre Angelina Jolie films. Yet at the end of the day, the studios decided to sexualize her (against her creator's will). Big breasts and short shorts became her look, and so this character who should have been a great representation of women in gaming became a prime example of the objectification.
Square-Enix has done much to change that, however. With their recent relaunch of the character, they decided to make her look like, ya know, an actual woman. Proportions are much more reasonable. This sounds like such a small thing, but it's actually quite important. That, along with better writing, all work wonders to make her an actual character. The relaunch also reinvigorates the franchise with expanded gameplay that takes cues from other great action/adventure games. The exploration and combat are fun, and does a lot to allow new fans to get on board.
3. MIRROR'S EDGE (2008) - PS3, XBox 360
With a lot of male-driven games, the action tends to be about shooting people or blowing stuff up or some other form of killing. When Mirror's Edge came out, there hadn't been a ton of female-driven action games. Apart from the fact that it is lead by a female protagonist, and most of the key relationships in the story are also among women, the game also changes up the style of play. The emphasis of this action game is not on gunplay, but rather in its first person parkour and melee action. True, in some cases, you're going to have to pick up a gun for a moment, but it's actually detrimental to hold onto it too long.
Instead, it's in the player's best interested to keep moving. Staying still too long will result in being overwhelmed by enemies. Spending too much time shooting guards will go just as poorly. The game itself can be a little unforgiving with how precise the player must be at points to get across certain sections of the game, but that can be part of the charm if you've got the patience. It is a lot of trial and error. And Faith is a pretty kick-ass protagonist. It's hard to say how much of the shift away from typical FPS action came from centering it on a female character, or if making Faith the main character was the result of DICE trying to get completely away from everything it does with its Battlefield franchise. Either way, it's a welcome change. The argument for female characters hasn't exactly been that games should feature completely interchangeable roles. It isn't that the character's sex is literally irrelevant - although that would be nice too. It's about adding difference perspectives, and Mirror's Edge does that with its gameplay and its narrative.
2. ALIEN ISOLATION (2014) - PS3, PS4, XBox 360, XB1
Ridley Scott's best film, Alien, has regularly been used as an example of a strong female protagonist in a genre typically dominated by male characters. Sigourney Weaver kills it in the role of the iconic Ellen Ripley. She's smart, brave, and capable. But she isn't your typical action hero. Alien Isolation does everything it can to make itself feel as much like the original film as possible. (In fact, it does a much better job than any of the sequels.)
In the game, players control Amanda Ripley, Ellen Ripley's daughter, as she follows clues to her mother's whereabouts after the events of the original film. Long story short: she's trapped on a giant space station after the alien shows up. Amanda features many of the same traits as her mother. She's intelligent, brave, and capable, but she isn't your typical action hero. Where a lot of games have male characters just go, "What the heck was that?" and that's it, Alien Isolation makes it a point to highlight that Ripley is scared too. That's what makes her and the game so compelling. She's terrified, just as her mother was in the film. What makes her so strong is that she pushes forward through the fear. It kind of all ties back to the point of Never Alone's story, which is that sometimes, the least expected is the person who makes a great impact. Alien was like this in the sense that we hadn't really seen many female characters as survivors. And Aliens pushed it another step by making her more of a traditional action hero. Alien Isolation continues that trend.
Also doesn't hurt that the game is one of the best survival horror games out there, and it's the best Alien thing since the original film.
1. LIFE IS STRANGE (2015) - PS3, PS4, XBox 360, XB1
Dontnod made headlines with their previous female-centered game Remember Me for some crazy reasons. The creators were talking about how hard it was to shop the game to studios because no one wanted to put out a game with a female protagonist. Even after it managed to find a home, word came out that they had to cut most of a romantic subplot because it was assumed the audience was mostly men and wouldn't feel comfortable seeing that side of things.
Remember Me is a fun, solid game, but nothing all that amazing. However, Dontnod came back in a big way with their much lauded episodic game Life Is Strange. Telltale seemed to have a stranglehold on the choice-based narrative-driven games, but Life Is Strange is done so well that it really highlights just how dated and weak Telltale games seem today. Choices are done much better, even if some inevitably don't lead anywhere in the end. Exploration is more a part of the game. Interacting with other characters gives the world more life. The soundtrack is amazing. The time rewind power, and the way it gets incorporated is fun and, at times, profound in the narrative sense.
Most importantly though, Max is an amazing character. She's awkward and sweet and relatable and heroic and normal and super all at the same time. Sometimes the dialogue feels a bit contrived, like what adults think teenagers sound like, but she really does just come off as a real person you probably knew in high school. Though it could be argued that Max doesn't need to be a girl for the game to work, it's important to note that they commit to it. Max is a girl, and she's in a dorm with only girls. It centers on her and her old girl friend Chloe rekindling their friendship. There's teenage girl drama at the center early on. There's hostility towards one female character for reasons that are only realistic if its targeting a female character (to highlight how horrible it is that young women have to deal with that nonsense).
Point being, Life Is Strange isn't just a game with a female protagonist. It's a game from a female perspective. And it's great. And it's been successful. And - surprise surprise - such a game has drawn out a lot of female gamers voicing their satisfaction with the game. Sure, it's not appealing to the dudes playing Call of Duty or Halo, but such a game never would have in the first place. And frankly, a lot of guys who I've got to play it love it too. Life Is Strange is a good example of how you totally can make a game from a female perspective and have it be great.
It is often argued that the sign of true progress is to create more games that are gender neutral. Certainly, that is a good thing to have. A lot of games already are, but still default to "straight white male" anyway. Having games like Portal - in which the protagonist's gender is irrelevant, but default to female anyway - are certainly good things to have. By and large, it's people who are very well represented in video games (or media as a whole) who often argue that it doesn't or shouldn't matter. But it's clear that to a lot of people, it does. Young women who are getting into gaming probably appreciate being represented, just the same was as us dorky, socially awkward guys appreciate having such characters in comics and movies all the time too.
And certainly, some of these games don't need to have female protagonists. Tomb Raider would probably work as well if it were Lenny Croft instead of Lara. Similarly, Alien Isolation would be a great game if it were a totally new character bearing no relation to the original film. (Although having it be Ripley's daughter gives it a nice parallel, and makes it feel even more like the movie.) There are elements of their gender and that perspective that inevitably spill into the game, but nothing so blatant that the game couldn't work if the gender were swapped.
But making everything gender neutral isn't, nor shouldn't be, the end game here. There is nothing wrong with games focused on a male perspective, and indeed, some games do work best because their protagonist is male. Progress should be measured by the availability and accessibility of games that swing the other way. Life Is Strange wouldn't work as well if it were a male perspective. Never Alone wouldn't work as well if it were a young boy. The problem has, by and large, been that games are often told specifically from a male perspective, or gender neutral but defaults to male. More games that swing the other way serves to balance it. And we need more of that in all forms of media and entertainment.
Gaming has - despite the ugliness of GamerGate - made some big efforts to push female characters in recent years. In an earlier post looking at some of the most interesting looking games coming up during E3, it was worth noting how many of those games featured a female protagonist. So developers are hearing that consumers want variety, and that women are a part of the market that has largely been untapped. Still, there could always be more.
These games are certainly a good start.
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