I love video games as much as the next person. I grew up on them like so many others. And sure, in the plethora of video games that exist, there are plenty that I haven’t played. That being said, the ones I have played have some rather noticeable themes I’d like to address, as someone who cares for the medium and the potential it has as a storytelling mechanism.

Women.

Simply put: we need better ones. We’re on our way, to be sure. For instance, we’ve had some good characters, protagonist or NPCs, over the past few years. The 2013 reboot of Tomb Raider introduced us to a complex Lara Croft, The Last of Us gave us a well-rounded Ellie, and Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate gave us Evie Frye, who kicks all kinds of butt without showing her cleavage. But even so, we’ve still got a way to go. For every well-written female character in a position of authority, we get a 'fridged Aeris, a kidnapped Peach/Zelda, or any number of improperly dressed NPC ladies filling in the background who don’t even get so much as a name.

There are two major themes that I find to be the most pervasive and the most aggravating: female character disempowerment and unnecessary female character sexualization.

Firstly, disempowerment. It’s disheartening as a player to see any number of female characters who are presented as incredibly powerful and competent being killed, kidnapped, or weakened for the development of another, usually male, character. I’ll never forget the first time I felt this disappointment. In The Legend of Zelda: Wind Waker, which I’ve mentioned in a previously as one of my favorite games of all time, one of the few female characters in the game, the pirate captain Tetra, is revealed to be the legendary Princess Zelda. And from that point until the final boss fight, she is pushed out of the story “for her own safety," and then she who avoided capture in the first few minutes of the game gets kidnapped, and seemingly something about her wearing a skirt rather than pants prevents her from escaping. Her name is on the cover of the game, and yet she is put on the side lines as the motivation for the hero Link to move forward in his quest, despite her being the one who helped get the adventure started. For the first third of the game, I loved Tetra and admired her strength and leadership. But when she became Zelda, suddenly she was useless. This happens to be the most salient example for me, but it is not the only representation of this trope by a long shot.

Some games attempt to remove this problem of female disempowerment in video games by allowing for the player to choose their gender at a customization screen. The Elder Scrolls Series, Mass Effect, and Bloodborne are a few games that offer such options with no difference between the overall skills of male or female characters. That being said, this is not necessarily the same as having the player follow the scripted story of a female protagonist, as is the case with some other games.

The second most prevalent issue of female characters in games as a whole is the remarkable amount of female characters, playable or not, who are designed to make said character appear more visually attractive to a player who is presumed to be attracted to women. This usually involves either improper clothing for their given environment (a tank top and short-shorts has never been suitable for archaeology, I promise you) or otherwise unnecessarily form fitting. Cortana, from the Halo series, is an artificial intelligence program whose hologram renders her naked with only patterns covering her body. Or Bayonetta, who is powerful in her own right, but whose character design puts her in a skin tight, cleavage-and-back revealing catsuit. Even in one of the aforementioned games, The Elder Scrolls: Skyrim, the female armor builds are noticeably form fitting in comparison to their male builds:

For this example, it should be noted that there is no tactical advantage to having vacuformed armor. If anything, the possibility of pressure being focused on the sternum - increasing the likelihood of it being damaged at best and shattered, puncturing the lungs, at worst - makes the shaping of the armor impractical. The design of armors and outfits such as these seem to imply that the creators who make these games have no knowledge of how breast tissue truly functions, and are unaware of the fact that it is entirely possible for a female knight, no matter her chest size, to comfortably wear the armor on the right and do just as well as her male counterpart.

And these examples do not cover the amount of background NPCs that are either implied or explicitly stated to be prostitutes, filling any number of open-world cityscapes with more cleavage than most people will ever see in their offline life.

It cheapens the experience, as a female player, to see the only representation of your gender portrayed in such a limited view. In the vast gaming industry, finding one well-written, non-sexualized female character is a game of “Where’s Waldo." I can recall the number of times my female friends and I have rejoiced at the sight of one, which shouldn’t have to be the case. After all, it isn’t the case with most male protagonists. No one looks at Uncharted and says, “Oh thank goodness, a well-written male character," because male characters are not generally lacking in depth or complexity.

Currently the market for the sort of female, playable characters we’ve been clamoring for is relegated to the indie game scene. Triple-A games are coming around, slowly but surely, so I don’t feel like I’m shouting into the void about this topic. But it’s something I care a lot about, and something I want future generations of female and male gamers to enjoy. There is a market for games with female characters who are written like human beings, as crazy as that sounds. And come on, video games make their mark through innovation. Innovation in story counts too. And this article is not intended to demand that video games be relegated to only having female protagonists from here on out, but after so many Nathan Drakes or Desmond Mileses or Booker DeWitts or Master Chiefs or any other macho, probably broody, usually thirty-something male protagonists, I don’t think it’s too much to ask for more mainstream companies to tell stories about the other 50% of the population. So thank you so far for the Laras and Ellies and Evies, but don’t let that stop you! Keep making women that are just as cool as their male counterparts.