I’ve always loved video games and interactive storytelling. I can be a hero… or a villain; I can make big changes; I can discover new things. I get to feel like a badass and not as acrophobic or easily bruised as I am. As much as I like video games though, it’s rare to find a main character that I really relate to and anticipate playing. There are so many white male leads, often motivated by women on the sidelines. The gaming industry has always been by and for men. Only recently has women had any say in that, which is why I compiled a list of five games with awesome female leads.
Dishonored 2: Emily Kaldwin
Dishonored is a stealth action-adventure series set in the industrial aged nation, The Empire of the Isles. The first Dishonored game centers around Corvo Attano, Empress Jessamine’s revered personal guard, and father of their daughter, Emily. Framed for the murder of Jessamine, Corvo becomes a fugitive, beginning a journey to avenge the Empress, rescue Emily from her kidnappers, and find those who conspired against him. Dishonored 2 is set fifteen years later, after Corvo has cleared his name and helped his daughter reach her throne, focusing on the twenty-eight-year-old Empress, Emily Kaldwin. On the anniversary of Jessamine’s murder, a witch usurps the throne from Emily, claiming to be the next true heir. Emily is thrown from power and Corvo is imprisoned, forcing her to fight to regain her empire, free her father, and avenge those who dishonored her. Emily is aided by a supernatural being that provides her with the ability to shape space and time to maneuver, attack, or manipulate as the player sees fit.
The Dishonored series is characterized by how the player’s choices take effect on the characters, setting, story, and ending. How the characters behave depends on whether they are a ruthless killer or pacifist, and if they fight with guns blazing or take a stealthier approach. Although Emily is largely shaped by the player’s choices, she is a consistently strong character. Her path wavers with insecurity and uncertainty as she isn’t sure if she will be able to uphold the legacy that her mom passed onto her and that her father risked life and limb to ensure. Emily fights with a steely sense of duty to her nation and determination to free her father and clear her name.
Overwatch: Ana Amari
Overwatch is a team-based online shooter game that takes place sixty years in the future, following the Omnic Crisis, an international decade-long war between humanity and self-aware robots called omnics. While Overwatch isn’t a plot-focused game, it has a wealth of characters who each have an in-depth backstory and serves a role in the greater narrative explored in online comics, animations, and in-game events. The developers of Overwatch took strides to be inclusive, portraying characters of multiple ethnicities, genders, sexual orientations, ages, and disabilities; also matching each character with a voice actor who comes from a similar background.
Ana Amari is a support hero, both a sniper and healer. She is a compassionate, but fierce fighter who values the lives of her teammates, possessing a strong sense of responsibility for their welfare. She is one of the founding members of the international task force, Overwatch, using her skills and expertise to defend her home in Egypt. She was second-in-command of Overwatch, served well into her fifties, and in addition to being an incredible sniper and war hero, she was an endearing friend and mother. She stayed on active duty until she was believed to have been killed during a mission, which in truth, left her gravely wounded. She lost the eye that she used to aim and burdened with doubt and guilt, she drifted away from the conflicts of the world. At age 60, she returns to the fight to protect those who need her, having overcome her struggles and teaching herself how to fight around her disability. Ana is an incredible character that we don’t get to see often enough as it’s rare to have an older woman within an action setting who not only can hold her own, but that others look up to.
Overwatch: Symmetra (Satya Vaswani)
Satya Vaswani, otherwise known as Symmetra, is another character from the game Overwatch. Symmetra is obsessed with order and perfection, believing that humanity is better off without freedom and should be put under strict rule. She learned these ideals from the Vishkar Corporation, which contracts and gentrifies cities, putting communities under oppressive control and exploiting the population for cheap labor, under the guise of making a more orderly society.
The company took her in at a young age, taking her from her impoverish family and putting her into the Corporation’s Architech Academy in Utopaea, India. She showed promise as an architech, capable of using hard-light technology to craft streets and utilities, building new self-sustaining cities in a flash. As a child, she didn’t relate to her peers which she deemed was due to her position on the autistic spectrum. She threw herself into her studies and quickly became one of the top students in her class, manipulating light using traditional dance. She becomes Vishkar’s top architech and works around the world to uphold the corporation’s influence. While she believes her actions are good, she conflicts with whether the control and order she desires is really best for humanity, illustrating what an interesting, multifaceted character she is.
Superbrothers: Sword & Sworcery: The Scythian
Sword & Sworcery is an indie pixel adventure game that follows a hero called The Scythian on her quest to defeat an ancient evil. The Scythian travels the countryside set near the Caucasus mountains, along cliff sides and through ruins, interacting with the few locals in the area, and defeating the evil creatures in order to fulfill her “woeful quest”.
Along the way, The Scythian must acquire the three pieces of the trigon, reflecting one of the most iconic video game missions stemming from the Legend of Zelda franchise. She is archetypal, but subverts the male-centric conventions told over and over in retro video games, illustrating how female characters do not change the formula to a good story. The game reinforces this idea in how it portrays The Scythian as a normal person; she isn’t characterized by her gender and she doesn’t express it with flashy signifiers, like a bow or pink clothing.
The Scythian narrates her thoughts in a casual, frank way that is a funny contrast to the setting. She states what she thinks, grumbles over silly things, and makes light of bad situations. She’s positive and relatable, but also a hero who selflessly is trying to rid the world of evil. And though the game features violence and has combat mechanics, it’s more focused on highlighting the beautiful world that The Scythian is trying to protect. She serves to show the whimsical, gorgeous, and melancholy life of a hero.
The Last of Us: Ellie
The Last of Us is an action-adventure survival game that takes place in the post-apocalyptic United States. The player controls Joel, a smuggler who is tasked with escorting a teenage girl named Ellie, who is possibly the key to curing the Cordyceps fungus. This parasite has infested the population and turned the infected into vicious cannibalistic predators. Joel and Ellie must evade military personnel, bandits, and infected to reach a rebel militia called Fireflies in order to create the cure.
Ellie is a fourteen-year-old survivor that travels alongside Joel. Her mother died when she was young and she lived in an orphanage in Boston which was governed under oppressive military control. There, she met her best friend Riley. On a trip to a decimated mall, the girls ran into infected and a fight broke out. They managed to escape but found that they both had been bitten, and after two days, would be fully taken over by the fungus. They weighed their options and chose to let the infection take over and spend the little time they had together. In the end, Riley succumbed to the infection and died, but Ellie survived, finding that she was immune. Ellie is discovered by Marlene, the leader of the Fireflies and is taken to Joel, who is hired to take her to the Fireflies base so that Ellie could be used to make a cure.
Although Joel is an adult man, he isn’t framed to be superior to Ellie. She isn’t looked down on for her age or gender. They are equals in capability and resourcefulness, working together to surpass obstacles, defend against enemies, and support each other through hardships. They couldn’t survive without one another. There is even a part of the game in which Joel is fatally injured and unable to move for several days. All by herself in the midst of winter, Ellie takes the responsibility to hunt, evade infected, scavenge supplies, and keep Joel alive. Over the course of the game, the two slowly form a bond, both willing to give anything to survive alongside each other. The many losses in Ellie’s life, as well as her love for Joel, contributes to her survivor’s guilt, making her feel responsible for her commitment to the cure, even at the stake of her life.
Night in the Woods: Mae Borowski
Night in the Woods is an adventure game set in the town of Possum Springs, following an anthropomorphic cat named Mae Borowski as she explores and interacts with the townspeople. Mae is a college dropout returning home to Possum Springs for the first time in two years. She moves back into her parents’ attic and reunites with her old friends, gloomy Bea, hyperactive Gregg, and Gregg’s quiet boyfriend, Angus. She rejoins her not-that-great band, reminisces about the stores she liked, talks to the rude neighbors, and realizes how much has changed since she left. However, Mae and her friends begin to believe that something terrible is happening, something involving the closed down mines and maybe even the recent disappearance of her old friend, Casey.
Despite the bright, cartoony style, the game covers themes of mental illness, explored through Mae’s experience with depression, anger issues, and episodes of derealization. Story highlights her struggles to move on, both from home and her childhood. She so remarkably relatable, a character that I have a hard time letting go of.