I’ve only recently started to think on this in a way that’s more than a passing thought, like it’s something that’s existed but that it was so common I never really stopped to think about it: why is there a lack of women as the central roles in story based games? The only ones that come to mind for me are Tomb Raider and Remember Me. There’s also the upcoming The Last of Us 2, which will follow Ellie as a grown woman.
But that’s not to say there aren’t games that allow women to have a central role. Role playing games, typically those that allow story choice in them, allow for the player to pick a character or a gender.
Dishonored featured a male character, but the sequel to it allowed characters to play as either the same character or his daughter, Emily.
The Banner Saga starts you off by playing as Rook, the father to Alette, who you can play in the second and third iterations of the game if you let Rook fire a special arrow at the final boss in the first game. Alternatively, you can continue to play Rook if you allow Alette to fire the arrow.
Now, Assassin’s Creed allows you to play as Alexios or Kassandra, who are siblings. This isn’t the first time that Ubisoft has allowed players to pick a character, that honor bestowed to Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate that features Jacob and Evie Frye, twins. And giving credit where credit’s due, Ubisoft has made at least one game with a woman at the forefront, Assassin’s Creed: Liberation, which features a Black woman in New Orleans, but the game is a reskin of Assassin’s Creed III at best and a DLC at worst, hardly calling it it’s own game.
I can’t quite place the specific flavor of distaste in my mouth on the fact we’re more likely to find a game that let’s us play as a woman than a game made about a woman. Maybe it’s pandering to the male audience, some of which claim they can’t connect or empathize with a female protagonist to play as without the awareness that women do the same thing with male protagonists already. Maybe it reaches a wider audience to include both, or maybe it’s a marketing thing.
I don’t think it’s a conscious decision on the part of the writers to specifically avoid telling stories about women in games, but making games where you can choose your character or gender and skipping the possibility of making a game about a woman (for instance, Dishonored 2 could’ve just been a game for Emily, without the choice to also play as Corvo) feels like it’s stepping around the problem without addressing it.
Video Games Deconstructed 