Upcoming Games With Strong Female Protagonists

Summary

• Video games have historically been marketed exclusively to boys, leading to a lack of strong female protagonists.
• Recent years have seen a positive shift towards more diverse representation, with many upcoming titles featuring strong female leads.
• Grand Theft Auto 6
  is breaking the mold by featuring a female protagonist, marking a significant change in character portrayal.

Video games have an unfortunate history with gender representation. Despite initially gender-neutral marketing and multiple women having key roles in major games, the market crash of 1983 led companies to decide that marketing exclusively to boys was a logical move. This was also reflected in the games produced, which often centered around male heroes. For a long time, female video game protagonists were rare; Lara Croft and Samus Aran were the exception, rather than the rule. Some popular franchises took a long time to start portraying strong female characters in meaningful roles. While not perfect, that has started to change in recent years.

Video games have been slowly becoming more diverse as they start to be seen increasingly less as a “masculine” hobby, and the growing presence of more female protagonists (or at least gender options) has been a welcome change. Although there are still some people who get upset and take to YouTube to rant every time a game with more representation is announced, there are many players who get excited at the prospect of a strong female lead. Fortunately for most, there are a lot of great upcoming titles that have a strong female protagonist to get excited about.

Updated on October 15, 2024, by John Alexander Hitchcock: Since the previous update, three of the previously included games (Arranger, Star Wars Outlaws, and Flintlock: Siege of Dawn) have been released. Thanks to Gamescom and State of Play, several new games with strong female leads have also been announced. As such, all games that were released after the previous revision of this article have been removed, and the list now features a combination of newly announced games and noteworthy titles that were previously missed. Additionally, some entries have been updated with new information.

25 Assassin’s Creed Shadows

An Actual Ninja In Feudal Japan

Assassin’s’Creed Syndicate seemed to start a pattern in the series where the player can choose between a male or female character to play as. It was dropped in Mirage but returns for the upcoming Assassin’s Creed Shadows. The new title finally moves into the long-requested setting of Feudal Japan and introduces two protagonists.

One option is to play as a real-life samurai Yasuke for a more combat-heavy experience. But for those interested in the stealth mechanics that define Assassin’s Creed, there is Naoe. She is a shinobi, one of the stealth-based assassins that would later be mythologized into the modern concept of Ninjas. Not much is known about Naoe’s story, though the trailers do seem to hint at her being motivated by revenge.

24 Civilization 7

Experience History As One Of The Great Female Rulers

The Sid Meier’s Civilization series is structured around players taking on the roles of actual historical leaders and building a civilization from the ground up. The games have always featured a wide range of playable leaders, including both male and female options. Civilization 6 in particular featured a lot of options for women leaders ranging from obvious choices like Cleopatra and Queen Victoria to lesser-known examples like the Polish King Jadwiga and Aminatore of Kush.

Civilization 7 appears to be following suit. Although we don’t have a full list of playable leaders, three women have so far been confirmed. Hatshepsut ruled Egypt as a Pharaoh who brought economic prosperity, Amina was a legendary warrior queen who built an Empire across Africa, and Himiko ruled as a spiritual Queen said to be really good at diplomacy. All three seem to have very different gameplay styles, and it is likely other women leaders will also appear in the final game.

23 Clockwork Revolution

A Heroine Fights Tyranny With Time Travel

• Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X/S
• Release Date: 2024
• Developer: inXile Entertainment

This wild adventure from inXile throws players into a Victorian-inspired steampunk world, which they get to systematically destroy with time travel. Clockwork Revolution players don’t have much information about her yet, but the protagonist is a young woman who stumbles across a time machine (referred to as a “Chronomancer”) and uses it to start a revolution against the authoritarian rule of Lady Ironwood.

Given her apparent role in the game, it can be inferred that she has some sort of personal disdain for the antagonist, possibly coming from a working-class background at the lower end of the social hierarchy. What is known is that the heroine will make extensive use of the Chronomancer to alter history, undoing the city’s achievements and bringing it to ruin.

22 Eternal Strands

A Warrior Digging Up The Past

The first game from the new indie studio Yellow Brick Games follows the adventures of Brynn, a warrior exploring a fantasy world in search of answers about a lost civilization. It’s a dangerous task that will see her facing monsters, including at least one dragon and nine giants who require Shadow of the Collossus-style climbing to defeat.

But Brynn has one unusual advantage—a magic cloak that gives her power over the environment. The big thing in Eternal Strands is the ability to control temperature. Brynn can make it hotter or colder, allowing her to create more favorable conditions for combat and exploration.

21 Fable

A New Heroine Arises In This Classic Fantasy World

Playground Games is back with a reboot of this popular fantasy series, starting with a teaser that revealed some peculiar details. Among Fable‘s cast is, apparently, a giant Richard Ayoade as “Dave the Vegetable Enthusiast,” who may or may not be a boss in the game. However, the teaser also offered a glimpse of the game’s heroine, who ends up clashing with Dave and apparently slaying him. While there was a strange controversy about her not being attractive enough, many fans were excited to meet this new character. Admittedly, not much has been indicated about the character herself, but the teaser shows her brandishing a greatsword, “roughing up bandits” as Ayoade puts it, and confronting a large werewolf-like creature.

The release window trailer offers a little more insight. According to a retired hero named Humphry, the heroine was someone he took as an apprentice until she “made all the wrong choices.” Of course, it is unclear how reliable a narrator he is, but her voice-over promising to “fix it” suggests her story might center around trying to rectify a past mistake.

20 Fading Skies

A Girl And Her Dragon

• Platform: PC
• Release Date: TBA
• Developers: Distant Blue

Distant Blue’s homage to 3D platformers of the PS2 days follows Bryn, an elf navigating a vibrant fantasy world with aid from a small dragon companion. There isn’t a lot to go on, but according to the Steam description, Ryn is on a quest to prevent the world from being destroyed. To that end, she will have to face various trials and uncover secrets about the world.

Some of that will be puzzle-solving, but a big part of Fading Skies is also Ryn’s growing powers. As she progresses, Ryn will develop new abilities that can aid her in her journey, like being able to double-jump or glide during the more parkour-oriented sections.

19 Ghost Of Yotei

A Ronin Seeking Revenge

Ghost of Tsushima was a critical and commercial success, so fans were eagerly anticipating a sequel. Many were expecting the next game to continue Jin Sakai’s war against the Mongol Army and were surprised when it turned out to be an entirely new story. Ghost of Yotei is a thematic sequel set 329 years later and featuring a new protagonist- a female ronin named Atsu.

Sucker Punch has not revealed much about the character or her story, but it appears to center around her traveling around Mount Yotei on a revenge quest, possibly helping others along the way. From what can be discerned, Atsu seems to be experienced in the Kendo fighting style and participates in several duels throughout the game.

18 Grand Theft Auto 6

After Five Entries Of Hyper Masculinity, Fans Finally Get A Female Outlaw

The Grand Theft Auto series has a history of being very male-dominated. GTA 5 got some backlash on its initial release due to the fact that the game centered around three men. While this did make some sense since toxic masculinity was a major theme of the title, that didn’t stop some people from wondering if there was ever going to be a place for a strong female protagonist in the series. It also didn’t help that the few women to have any significance to the plot were mostly cast in an extremely unsympathetic light.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is finally set to change that. For the first time, the series actually features a woman taking center stage. From what’s shown in the trailer, she appears to have a history of causing chaos, enough that she’s done time in prison at least once. But she might have a softer side if her relationship with her currently-unnamed partner is anything to go on. Either way, it will be nice to see a woman cast as something other than a side character.

17 Harmonium: The Musical

A Young Girl Driven By A Musical Passion

• Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One
• Release Date: 2024
• Developer: The Old Gentlemen

This surreal indie game addresses some issues not seen very often in video games. There aren’t a lot of game characters (let alone protagonists) who are both deaf and mute. Harmonium: The Musical is jumping on a largely untouched opportunity to explore this topic.

Protagonist Melody Macato is a child who grew up without the ability to hear or speak and has to rely on sign language to communicate, but she doesn’t let that affect her passion for music. Accessibility is a big theme of the game, with Melody’s fantastical journey being centered around a quest to produce a piece that can be accessible to all her friends, regardless of any disabilities they might have.

16 Industria 2

A Woman’s Journey Through A Bizarre Dystopia

• Platform: PC:
• Release Date: TBA
• Developer: Bleakmill

Bleakmill’s Industria follows a woman named Nora as she is accidentally teleported into an alternate version of East Berlin that has been overrun by automatons. It was a strange FPS, described as a mix of Half-Life and David Lynch. Although short, with a total of four hours of gameplay, its surreal atmospheric world resonated with a lot of players. It was successful enough for Bleakmill to announce a sequel.

Industria 2 continues Nora’s story as she finds herself pulled into the mystery surrounding the mysterious AI that controls this alternate world and discovers she has a much bigger part in it than she realized. This time around, however, Nora has a few more options at her disposal to find more creative ways of solving problems. She can shoot them, but she can also rely on stealth or let her enemies fight each other.

15 Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet

A Bounty Hunter Taking A Big Risk For A Big Reward

Naughty Dog finally announced that they were working on something not related to The Last of Us or Uncharted. While it might not be the sequel to Uncharted: The Lost Legacy that fans have been waiting for, it is the next best thing: Something completely new. The Game Awards trailer for Intergalactic: The Heretic Prophet introduces our heroine, a bounty hunter named Jordan A. Mun. We don’t have a lot of information about her, but the trailer shows her shaving her head, talking with her agent about a bounty (apparently in this setting bounty hunters have agents), and accepting a dangerous bounty for one “Colin Graves.” Who is Colin and why is there such a high bounty on him? Who knows?

However, the big character-establishing moment is Jordan choosing to take the bounty despite her agent’s warnings about the risk. It turns out that Colin is hiding on a planet nobody’s come back from in 600 years. Tracking him down is going to be a big challenge for Jordan, who will have to survive whatever the planet has to offer to find him. And she gets to fight with powerful laser swords, which is never a bad thing.

14 Judas

A Rebel With A Cause

The new shooter from BioShock creator Ken Levine is a peculiar retro sci-fi adventure centered around Judas, a young woman aboard a multi-generational colony ship whose voyage didn’t go as planned. She has a strange history with the ship, having been at least partially responsible for the disaster it is currently in.

Now, as an outcast, she has the job of trying to fix everything. It’s a daunting task that will require a lot of skill. Fortunately, Judas is an expert hacker and engineer, and she can improvise when things go wrong. These are important skills to have since she has to deal with the ship’s malfunctioning service robots, who can be hacked and trashed as she sees fit. Judas is scheduled to be released in March 2025.

13 Metroid Prime 4: Beyond

Samus Aran Is Back

Well before Lara Croft, Samus Aran made her name as a gaming heroine at a time when video games were marketed exclusively to boys and female representation was almost non-existent. While she continues to be a popular character, it’s been a while since Samus really got to star in anything big. There was the side-scroller Metroid Dread and the Metroid Prime remaster, but that was about it. Her Metroid Prime series has been hugely popular, but it hasn’t seen a new installment since Metroid Prime 3: Corruption all the way back in 2007.

Fortunately, in 2024, Nintendo finally revealed the long-awaited Metroid Prime 4. There isn’t much information on the plot, but it appears to involve Samus battling the Space Pirates on a new world and facing off against the bounty hunter Sylux.

12 Okami 2

A Beloved Icon Returns

Originally released in 2006, Okami quickly became a cult classic for its mythology-inspired story and the Ink Wash-inspired aesthetic. The basic story followed the Japanese goddess Ameraterasu—who is portrayed as a wolf due to a translation pun—saving the world from the eight-headed fiend Orochi.

While the game was well-received, it didn’t earn itself any follow-up beyond being ported onto other devices. That is, until the 2024 Game Awards announced plans for a sequel nearly two decades later. It may have been a surprise, but it was a welcome one to fans of the original game. There isn’t much information about the plot yet, but the teaser made a point of highlighting the iconic wolf goddess Amaretsu making her big return. The announcement even made Geoff Keighley teary-eyed.

11 Perfect Dark

A Classic FPS Heroine Is Back

It’s been 19 years since fans last saw Joanna Dark, the star of the iconic spiritual successor to Goldeneye 007. Perfect Dark was an espionage shooter centered around Dark’s mission to uncover an intricate conspiracy set against a sci-fi backdrop.

Despite its popularity, the only follow-up it really got was a prequel and a remaster in 2010. That was until Crystal Dynamics began working on a reboot, which was finally revealed at the 2024 Xbox Showcase The developers have clearly been taking advantage of the technical improvements that have happened in video games since the original’s release, with the trailer featuring parkour that is reminiscent of Mirror’s Edge and combat/stealth mechanics that look a bit like the ones in Dishonored. Perfect Dark is set to release in 2025

10 Retrieval

An Explorer Trapped In A Metro Full Of Mystery

• Platform: PC, PlayStation, Xbox
• Release Date: TBA
• Developer: 333 Studios

333 Studios’ sci-fi horror adventure Retrieval follows Hana Losche, a researcher on the distant planet of Ryhalian who finds herself in an unusual predicament. An accident leaves her trapped in an underground subway network that turns out to be full of uncomfortable secrets. In order to get to the bottom of things, Hana first needs to survive everything the metro can throw at her, which is a lot.

One of the biggest threats is the mutated remnants of the subway’s previous inhabitants, against whom Hana will need to know when to run and when to fight. She will also need to deal with a treacherous environment and overcome a variety of challenges to have any shot at getting out in one piece.

9 SCP: Valravn

An Operator’s Journey Into The More Obscure Parts Of SCP Lore

• Platform: PC
• Release Date: TBA
• Developer: Subtle Bravado Studios

There have been a few indie games adapted from the SCP Foundation mythos, but Valravn is something else; it’s a tactical shooter that dives into some of the more obscure parts of SCP lore. In this one, players control Global Occult Coalition operator Leena Sorjova as she ventures into the depths of the mysterious Valravn Corporation (a sort of Norse-themed cyberpunk PMC that is also a cult) looking for her missing father.

The surreal experience will test her skill against everything Valravn can throw at her, plus a few surprises, as she uncovers a much darker web of intrigue that reveals things aren’t what they seem. SCP: Valravn is currently in pre-production with no set release date.

8 South Of Midnight

A Superpowered Teenager Explores A Cajun Fantasy World

There have been a few games that take inspiration from the swamps of Louisiana. Assassin’s Creed 3: Liberation and Red Dead Redemption 2 both used the environment to great effect, but outright Bayou Fantasy is an area that hasn’t been explored much. That was until Compulsion Games revealed their new adventure, South of Midnight, a Cajun-inspired fantasy game centered around a teenager named Hazel who tries to track her missing mother through the Bayou.

The trailers make it clear that she is in for some bizarre encounters, many drawing on Cajun folklore and culture. The most recent trailer revealed one of her main companions to be a giant talking fish who also acts as a mount. One interesting detail about this game is its art style, which is curiously designed to look like stop-motion animation.

7 SPINE – This Is Gun Fu

A Grafitti Artist With Guns

SPINE is an homage to the gun-fu action movies set in a crazy cyberpunk world. Redline is a graffiti artist who finds herself working with a cybernetic implant called SPINE to take down the oppressive AI that controls the city. And there is one thing she needs to accomplish that goal: guns. Lots of guns.

Guns and parkour are at the center of this adventure, made to feel very cinematic. Redline gets to fight through a bunch of enemies in style, performing all kinds of crazy moves straight out of The Matrix.

6 Split Fiction

Two Authors, One Story

Joseph Fares, the king of experimental co-op games, is at it again with Split Fiction. Following the pattern set by A Way Out and It Takes Two, Split Fiction requires two people to play. However, this is the first Hazelight game where both playable characters are women. The story follows a pair of writers—sci-fi author Mio and fantasy author Zoey—as they accidentally get stuck in a messy VR hybrid of their written work and have to outwit a scummy boss who wants to plagiarize their stories.

Similar to Fares’ other games, Split Fiction requires its protagonists (and, by extension, the players) to work together to solve problems. This means Mio and Zoey have to navigate various stages in both sci-fi and fantasy settings with experimental mechanics that can get pretty weird. The challenges they face are certainly varied, which is par for the course with a game made by Hazelight.