A recent study conducted by online gaming site Solitaired claims that out of 150 popular video games released between 1985 and 2022, only 6% of them feature female protagonists. It’s no secret thatfemale protagonistsare generally more difficult to come by in gaming when compared to male protagonists, and that is clearly reflected by the data in this study.
The study took a look at the 150 highest-rated video games on IMDB (excluding remasters and expansions), then determined whether each game had a female protagonist. The results showed that 69.3% of the games featured a standalonemale protagonist, 13.3% of the games featured one male and one female protagonist, 8.7% of the games allowed players to choose the sex of their character, and only 6% featured a standalone female protagonist.
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In total, nine of the games in the top 150 video games on IMDB featured standalone female protagonists:Portal,Portal 2,Beyond: Two Souls,Tomb Raider,Life is Strange,Rise of the Tomb Raider,The Walking Dead: Season Two,Horizon Zero Dawn, andStar Wars Battlefront 2. 104 out of the 150 games featured standalone male protagonists, or multiple male protagonists with no female protagonist options.
In situations where there were both male and female protagonists, the study found that games still often featured more male protagonists than female. Examples given includeLeft 4 Dead,Heavy Rain, andBorderlands 2, which have three male protagonists and one female protagonist each.
The study brought upGrand Theft Auto 5, pointing out how Rockstar’s open world action game features three male protagonists and not a single female protagonist. As themassiveGrand Theft Auto 6leaks have revealed, it appears the next entry in the long-running franchise will indeed feature a female playable protagonist. It seems that game will feature two playable characters, a brother and sister duo, though official details have yet to be revealed at the time of this writing.
It will be interesting to see if this trend changes. It’s possible gaming will start featuring more playable female protagonists in its biggest games, but it’s also possible that video game characters in the more popular games will continue to primarily be made up of male characters. In any case, there are plenty ofupcoming video gamesfor fans to look forward to that feature both male and female playable characters, but it remains to be seen if any of them will crack IMDB’s top 150 and shift this data at all.
