Ellie, from The Last of Us 2
It was horrible, terrifying, gruesome, heartbreaking, and, frequently made me wonder if I was a bad person, but The Last of Us 2 was my favorite game of 2020. I’m not alone. The game was the fastest selling PlayStation 4 exclusive, with over 4 million sales, dwarfing even the amazing Marvel’s Spider-Man and God of War. People clamored to play this harrowing story of an apocalypse, revenge, and the futility of fury. It’s a masterpiece.
And players played as not just one, but two women. Two women who defied norms for a female protagonist. Ellie is a lesbian, and has a girlfriend in the game. Abby is a brutal soldier, who has, for the last few years of her life, trained for nothing but revenge. The two are opposites, both trying to kill the other. Through playing as them, you learn to empathize with their stories of love, loss, and pain.
Because these games force players into the roles of these women, they are forced to empathize with them. Not just the pain and loss they experience, but their unique experiences as women. This is something rare in games or blockbuster storytelling. Yet here, in the most popular games Sony has ever sold, a game forced all players to empathize with a woman and her unique experiences. Men were forced to see her as an equal. There aren’t many stories like that in any form of media, though it was exceedingly rare in mainstream gaming.
According to Feminist Frequency, that’s finally changing.
Feminist Frequency’s “E3” Breakdown
Feminist Frequency does a regular breakdown of the games announced at E3. However, due to the unmitigated COVID pandemic, E3 didn’t happen this year. Instead, Feminist Frequency put together a list based off of the games that companies announced in their own presentations this year around the time that E3 would have been held. This included events from Sony, Microsoft, Ubisoft, and EA, some of the biggest names on gaming, and those who would have headlined presentations at E3.
As it turns out, 2020 was the year game developers realized that half of all gamers are women. This year, female protagonists made up 18% of games shown off. That’s the highest percentage ever, and doubles the previous best from 2015.
The Need for More Female Protagonists
It may not sound like much. Just 18%? However, this only includes games where the protagonist is female and the player has no other choice. Life simply isn’t the same for men and women. In games where you can customize your character, the narrative often does not reflect this. No one in Skyrim even shrugs at the female warrior claiming to take on the whole world and every dragon (but one) in it. But in real life, men complained about a female protagonist being “too strong” in The Last of Us 2 because they thought it was “too unrealistic.” Horizon: Zero Dawn, however, confronted this on more than one occasion. That’s because the narrative was designed around Aloy, the lead female character. It wasn’t a generic story. Therefore, since these offer a more realistic view into the life of a female protagonist, Feminist Frequency splits these stories out. The same goes for games with male protagonists.
Finally, Progress
Games have had exclusively a male protagonist in their games most of the time. Even this year, with the most female protagonists ever, making up 18% of games revealed, male protagonists still made up 23%. This year, the categories for stories with multiple options or ambiguous genders or those without gender at all (think Pong) shrunk. People are feeling a pull towards games with rich stories, and such narratives often require developers to pick a gender for their main character.
In 2016, only 2% of games shown off had a female protagonist. Up until 2019, the most we saw that value go up was 9% in 2015. This year, women have just about caught up to the men, with over double the percentage as 2015. 18% of games shown off featured female protagonists, compared to 23% with male protagonists. That’s serious progress.
A Long Way to Go
Gender imbalance at gaming companies still is a problem that will hurt gaming narratives and diversity in stories and protagonists.
The Last of Us 2 was the perfect example for just how important female protagonists are to a story. We shape our stories as much as we are shaped by them. If people always see women as secondary characters in stories, as rewards for the male protagonist, or sidekicks, then people’s perception of women’s roles in society will be diminished. If all anyone ever hears are stories told from the male perspective, they’ll never understand how the female experience is different. The Last of Us 2 showed us a tremendous story of rage and grief, of revenge and loss, but also one of love and sisterhood.
Some guys really didn’t like that. Some men playing the game didn’t like that they could not play as the previous protagonist, a male character. They didn’t like how he was cast out of the story. They didn’t like playing as a lesbian character, or a buff woman who didn’t match their idea of femininity as something weak, small, or lesser. These gamers didn’t like that the game featured a transgender character, and that he spoke of the persecution he faced. Yes, many men and boys felt betrayed by this “forced diversity.” However, their voices were small, drowned out by the overwhelming praise and support for the game.
They bombed reviews online, tried to hold back the game’s popularity, even leaked details in an effort to kill enthusiasm for the game. It didn’t work. People really wanted to play a new story they hadn’t heard before. Something new, unique, exciting, and informative. Something that can make you grow a little as a person. While the uproar over the game proved exactly why games like this are necessary, to force these men to empathize with female characters as well as actual women, it also proved that many are on board with doing that already.
So there, now you’ve heard some good news in 2020. It took 10 full months, but we got there. Hopefully there’s nothing but more good news the rest of this week.
Sources:
- Anita Sarkeesian, Feminist Frequency
- Anita Sarkeesian and Carolyn Petit, Wired