After reading volumes 1 and 2 of Lazarus , I realized that I wanted a similar experience in gaming. Lazarus stars Forever Carlyle- the Carlyle family’s personal enforcer and all-around badass. The problem is there just aren’t very many female leads in gaming. Sure, there’s evergreens like Lara Croft, as well as newcomers like Bayonetta, Clementine, and Red from Transistor , but they tend to be few and far between.
What I never understood about the unequal amount of male characters as opposed to female characters is the concept that since men play the majority of games (debatable), the male leads are built to appeal to their sensibilities. Even if this theory were true, wouldn’t developers want their player base to be able to play as a female lead? I’m assuming a large portion of the audience in gaming are attracted to and enjoy hanging with women, so why shouldn’t that be reflected in video games? It’s kind of like putting a “no girls allowed” sign up on a clubhouse.
Not only that, but building games that focus on female leads allow for more storytelling options as well as deeper insight into the mind of the opposite sex. It’s great to see more and more games allowing players to build their own characters, be they male or female (in which case I almost always go female, seeing how if you’re going to be looking at something for several hours, it may as well be something you enjoy staring at), however I find the stories crafted around those characters to be more simplified and open, as to account for the fact that it could be a character of either gender that those events are happening to. It doesn’t feel personalized in as much as something like the Evil Dead remake (for example) feels fine-tuned to that character’s arc.
All in all, I hope to see more female lead characters in gaming. I hate to think that the only reason more developers don’t create them is because the male demographic is uncomfortable stepping outside of their comfort zone.