Despite making up over half of the world’s population, women have been criminally underutilized as video game characters, especially in the role of protagonist. In the early days, women in video games were mainly used as plot devices — princesses in need of saving and the like — but a few managed to break that mold. Today, we have a larger pool of women in games that we can point to as great examples of characters done right, but as a whole the industry still feels like a boy’s club. Contents Samus Aran (Metroid) Bayonetta (Bayonetta) Ellie (The Last Of Us) Chun-Li (Street Fighter) Aloy (Horizon Zero Dawn) Clementine (The Walking Dead) Jill Valentine (Resident Evil) Yuna (Final Fantasy X) Senua (Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice) Lara Croft (Tomb Raider) Show 5 more items There have been many stumbling points in writing believable and realistic female protagonists, even for some of the characters on this list. The ones that manage to hit the mark and give us a strong character with their own realistic motivations, strengths, and weaknesses are worth spotlighting as examples for future developers to take inspiration from. We’ve focused this list on playable female characters, as either one of…