Study Claims Only 6% of Popular Games Feature Standalone Female Protagonists
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 that female protagonists are 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 standalone male 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.
Study Claims to Reveal 'Most Confusing' Modern Games
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, and Star 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 include Left 4 Dead, Heavy Rain, and Borderlands 2, which have three male protagonists and one female protagonist each.
The study brought up Grand Theft Auto 5, pointing out how Rockstar's open world action game features three male protagonists and not a single female protagonist. As the massive Grand Theft Auto 6 leaks have
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