Srs Bsns: Women Representations in Games

For as long as I can remember it seemed you really had to go out of your way to find positive, or even just passable representations of women in gaming. The average person who thinks about good women characters in video games will think Lara Croft, Samus Aran, Jill Valentine, etc. You want anymore than that then you need to know where to look, and even then some of these inclusions has only happened in the last couple of years. This article isn't meant to be nearly as negative as it sounds, instead I want to take this time to focus on all the good that has been accomplished and developers who are going out of their way to provide it. Without further ado let's start with the obvious.

Ellie was introduced to us through the 2013 Game of the Year, The Last of Us. She wasn't sexualized (as that would be creepy given her age) or reduced to a useless damsel in distress trope. Ellie was a girl who had to be tough due to the nature of the world around her and she was actually useful. Often she would find ammunition for Joel and even use actual weapons on enemies to defend herself. Her popularity would become so great that Naughty Dog would add a DLC prequel where you can play as her and her kiss with her best friend would break the internet! Ellie is someone who is easy to relate to and think about as a real human being, and that gives her character more depth. Ashley Johnson does a wonderful job of bringing this character to life and deserves mad props.

To Naughty Dog's credit, they fought just to keep her on the cover of the game. I don't know who it was that wanted to take her off, but there seems to be this belief that women on game covers decrease sales for whatever stupid reason. I think both The Last of Us and the recent Tomb Raider reboot has proven that theory false. If you needed more reason to love Naughty Dog then there you go.

Telltale Games is another development team that hasn't shied away from writing for women. They gave us a memorable character in Clementine, a little girl also surviving in a zombie apocalypse who goes from needing a guardian to becoming a young adult who knows how to handle herself. Not only are you playing as a girl by the second game, but in both games you get to play as a black person. Can you name how many times a game lets you play as one, or even has one who isn't a racial stereotype? Clementine isn't defined by her race or gender, she's just another individual trying to make the best of a terrible situation, and Melissa Hutchison plays it to a tee whether it's the innocent little girl or the child who's gone through puberty, and Clementine is just the tip of the iceberg.

In the last couple of years Telltale has given us Lilly, Carley, Katjaa, Molly, Christa, the women from 400 Days, Jane, Mira, Sera, Elissa, Talia, the women from The Wolf Among Us, and I'm sure there are others I'm forgetting since I haven't played every single game of theirs. The Wolf Among Us actually manages to have a topless scene in a strip club that isn't the least big sexualized. Do you know how fucking rare that is!? The good isn't just in original characters either, other characters who have been around for a lot longer have started to be resigned to look a lot more respectable.

  LOOK AT THIS! LOOK AT HOW AWESOME THIS LOOKS!

In the newest Resident Evil installment Claire actually looks a lot more normal than she's ever have. She isn't overly attractive, but she isn't hideous or anything either. She comes across as someone you could actually meet on the street and her appearance is appropriate for the role she has in the game. Even Lara Croft underwent a complete rehaul in appearance and looks a lot more reasonable now.

The big thing about Claire's change for me is that it's coming from a country where people just accept that the way Japanese people are. Cindy is sexualized? That's Japan for you. Quiet is sexualized? That's Japan for you. What about this? Capcom are just as Japanese as Square and Kojima are so why can they avoid sexualizing women but the other two can't? It's almost as if people over there don't just do things because of their race because if Capcom is ahead of the curve in Japan than the country is in trouble.

  If I don't talk about this girl nobody will.

Not all of these characters have to be heroes. It's just as good to see a villain or two join the woodwork. One of the best villains I've seen is Alma Wade from the F.E.A.R. franchise. While they ruin her character in later titles, the original F.E.A.R. displays her in the best light. Alma is a woman who was experimented on at a young age and locked away left to die after having not one, but both of her children taken away from her. Something like that would be traumatizing to ANYONE. Alma comes back through sheer force of will to have her revenge and be reunited with her children. You can sympathize with her, but at the same time you realize she's a threat that needs to be put down.

Alma has haunted the dreams of gamers for the past ten years and is one of the big reasons so many people have turned to F.E.A.R. Women can be just as evil, just as vindictive, just as motivated by hatred and rage as the men can and Monolith displays this with the Alma character brilliantly, and I don't know about you all but I want to see more of this. Needless to say there's a reason Alma Wade is my mascot. If you haven't checked out the F.E.AR. Franchise I recommend giving the first one a try. Check out my reviews of them on the blog if you want to learn more.

  You knew this was coming.

BioWare is probably one of the more well known developers who have offered a lot of variety in their characters, whether it be Mass Effect, Dragon Age, or their older IP Knights of the Old Republic. Not all of these women were young, either. We even got a couple of badass elderly ladies in Kreia and Asha'bellanar. Through giving us the choice to make our own character they actually birth one of the best female characters in recent years, Commander Shepard, and by not having an official gender for Shepard it allowed players to go with their own interpretation. This helped fulfilled a much desired niche as it was something we didn't see in a lot of mainstream games.

While it's true Male Shepard was primarily on the cover of the games (though you can flip it with 3) and the promotional market, chances are you've seen a lot more people play as Femshep than the male counterpart. Because of the choice between male and female the writers wrote the character in a gender neutral way (for the most part) and it showed that just because the character is a woman doesn't change anything or hurts the narrative. A fact that a lot of us have been saying for years. We get to see this character in both a good or bad light depending on how we play so we get to explore more ranges of character with her that we don't get with a lot of other games that are out there, and Jennifer Hale just fucking nails it in every single scene. It's not the race or gender of the character that makes something good or bad, it's the writing and the effort put in by those making the game.

I'm glossing over a lot of other games that represent women fairly, but I'm not going to be able to cover them all. Fact is they exist. Are we where we want to be yet? No. For every couple of good examples we can think of we can probably find twice as many misrepresentations, but it's important to remember that progress is being made. More and more developers are opening up to the idea of their women being more than just a damsel or a sex object, and nothing bad has happened.

There seems to be an irrational fear that if women get their way the industry will just implode, and yet with all of these examples I named that isn't apparent anywhere. Games haven't been made worse. If anything it actually made the industry better because they're more variety and I know for a fact that all the women I talked about have been enjoyed by gamers regardless of their gender. The more we make it clear this is what we want from our games the more developers and publishers are going to realize this and start including it in their games. Even Ubisoft is finally giving us a female assassin after all the excuses they've made for it. All we have to do is keep fighting the good fight and we will get there.

Have another example of a well written female character you'd like to share? Don't be shy, tell us in the comment section below.

Women's Month 2015
Beyond: Two Souls 
The Walking Dead: Season Two 
Resident Evil 3 Nemesis 
Silent Hill 3 

Women's Month 2014
Tomb Raider 
Metroid Prime 
Bayonetta 
The Longest Journey 
Dreamfall