Mine is Joanna Dark (Perfect Dark N64)
Cate Archer from No One Lives Forever
Who's your favorite female protagonist in a video game? (Add pic of character in response)
Submitted 14 hours ago by lunatique@lemmy.ml to games@lemmy.world
Comments
RavuAlHemio@lemmy.world 2 hours ago
lunatique@lemmy.ml 1 hour ago
I like her character and I’ve only had the chance to watch gameplay videos online.
hades@feddit.uk 5 hours ago
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Zero, from Drakengard 3. The perfect amount of crude and the dryest delivery of humor imagineable.
lunatique@lemmy.ml 1 hour ago
Yeah she was badass
Spacehooks@reddthat.com 2 hours ago
Loved her brand of heroism. Kill her sisters, steal their men, saved the world
Zangoose@lemmy.world 10 hours ago
impudentmortal@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
Protagonist has got to be Bayonetta (though it’s based only on the first game). Her character growth in the first game was so good, even if the plot was a little convoluted. Never finished the second one since I didn’t like playing on the Switch and never played the third one. Hope her character is still good though.
Honorable mentions are Kassandra from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey, Elizabeth from Bioshock Infinite, and Stelle from Honkai Star Rail (though this one is mostly for the absolutely ridiculous dialogue options we get to choose).
Favorite female antagonist is hands down GLaDOS. Such a fun, sarcastic, and likeable villain.
Quazatron@lemmy.world 4 hours ago
“Oh. It’s you.”
Such a loveable heap of junk.
phx@lemmy.world 7 hours ago
cecilkorik@lemmy.ca 5 hours ago
Nice choice, but personally I always found Terra a bit hard to relate to, very fey and even sort of creepy in her half-Esper form.
Celes, on the other hand, is a bonafide badass, and her storyline was among the better developed ones and more humanizing than most of the other characters in the game. Although romantically I think she could probably do better than Locke. That boy needs some help.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 3 hours ago
I agree. That scene on the island with Celes hit me like a ton of bricks the first time.
chunes@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Bonesince1997@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
smeg@feddit.uk 1 hour ago
I played Metroid Prime for the first time recently and Samus Aran is an absolute badass. She crash lands on a planet and kills every single thing she encounters. If you read the logs of the space pirates you find scattered around they basically say “oh fuck the hunter is here, she’s coming for us next”.
The atmosphere is almost a little survival-horror-esque, but the experience is more like doom: you’re not locked in here with all these monsters, all these monsters are locked in here with you.
RightHandOfIkaros@lemmy.world 3 hours ago
Shame about Other M though. Fun to play and watch others play, but held back by a bad control scheme and poor voice direction.
RaoulLeLapin@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Durandal@lemmy.today 13 hours ago
She looks like she really knows how to use a microwave… >.>
nore@sh.itjust.works 2 hours ago
CatZoomies@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Some of my favorites have already been mentioned.
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice by Ninja Theory Image
This lady is a standout from recent games I played in the past several years. Senua is an incredible character, complex, driven, and felt very human. I and probably a million other gamers connected with her deeply. Won’t say any more to avoid spoilers, but she was in one of the greatest games I ever played. Her actress, Melina Juergens, was perfect for the role in many ways (which I won’t say why here to avoid spoilers for those who haven’t played this game). Haven’t played the sequel yet, but I remember Melina won an award at the recent Game Awards for her performance in Senua’s Saga: Hellblade II.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 3 hours ago
Great pick, she’s up there for me too. I also only played the first one but thought it was an amazing experience.
0li0li@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
You beat me to it!! She wins in my book.
CatZoomies@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
She’s an absolute badass. I cheered her on, suffered with her, and cried when I finished the game. I felt every emotion she had during the game, because I felt like I was on the journey with her by her side while she faced her trials. Beautiful and unforgettable experience.
pika@lemmy.today 10 hours ago
Hi!!!
Lea.
Even she’s not one of many words, Lea still manages to be expressive and have a fantastic story.
Tarquinn2049@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
Man, I need to play crosscode again. I think of all the games I have played in the last 40 years, that has been the best one. Feels like it was made specifically for me.
deadbeef79000@lemmy.nz 11 hours ago
Shepherd, Mass Effect.
TheFeatureCreature@lemmy.ca 12 hours ago
Honestly? Aloy from the Horizon games. She’s maybe not the most rounded character, but she is a very strong, determined, stubborn, and intelligent person. She knows what she wants and will stop at nothing to get it. I think it also helps that the games don’t really have many choices or multiple endings, which I think was a good design choice. The story belongs to Aloy, not the player.
Also she’s not a protag (sorta, you can play as her) but I would like to give a shoutout to Lae’zel from BG3. I suspect a lot of players haven’t explored her character questline much because of how prickly she is at the beginning, but her character development is extensive and, at times, heart-wrenching. A story of someone getting the entire fabric of their life and soul torn out from under them.
Goodeye8@piefed.social 5 hours ago
My issue with Aloy is that she was such a Mary Sue in the first game. I can give some benefit of doubt to her on the account of the spoilers, but my god literally the only time she failed was at the beginning of the game during the trial and even then it was more a force majeure than anything she did wrong. She could thrust herself into any situation and come out on top with nothing dragging her down.
I’m found her more relatable in the second game because in the second get we at least get some hints of her mission being a burden on her and when she is caught off guard by a superior opponent she doesn’t magically beat them. But even in the second game she doesn’t have a lot of depth. There’s so much more depth Aloy could have but the writers never gave her the depth she deserves. And I don’t want people to think I’m dunking on Aloy, I think she could be a very interesting character if she had been properly fleshed out as a person. It’s an issue all Horizon series characters suffer, they all lack depth. Some of them are flatter than the Bonneville Salt Flats.
And I completely agree with Lae’zel. She’s my favorite characters from the BG3 party of character. She’s literally how you described Aloy: determined, stubborn and intelligent. If we ignore the zealotry (which stems from her upbringing) Lae’zel is very similar to Aloy because she thinks she exists solely for the sake of her mission, she is indominably determined to fulfill her mission and she will step on anyone who gets between her and her mission. I find it pretty weird how Aloy is almost universally liked while Lae’zel is one of the least liked companions. I guess it’s the difference of seeing the world through the eyes of the person vs seeing the person as they are within the world.
jjjalljs@ttrpg.network 1 hour ago
None of the guys at my old job liked lae’zel. I think because she’s kind of mean. I’m like that’s what I’m here for. I don’t want some pushover passive aggression like shadow heart, and karlach is fine I guess, but lae’zel making people lick her boots is the shit. I’m not even into being dominated but I do like women with agency.
captain_aggravated@sh.itjust.works 5 hours ago
Two occur to me: Chell from the Portal games, and Lufia from Lufia and the Fortress of Doom. And both of those almost don’t count.
I almost don’t want to count Chell because she’s almost not a character, but I’ve had quite a bit of fun playing as her.
Lufia is one of the rare SNES JRPGs not made by Squaresoft or Enix, it was published by Taito. Gameplay is similar to classic Final Fantasy, the story manages to be quite tragic. Lufia, the title character, is not the player character, Enter Your Name is the player character, and Lufia is a playable party member/his love interest/…well, play the game to find out. So there’s reasons why I hesitate to call her a “protagonist.”
I have to mention a fun thing that series did: Lufia 1 starts with a playable prologue/tutorial section where you play as some legendary heroes fighting an ultimate battle. Lufia 2 is a prequel, and it’s the story of those legendary heroes, which ends with that same ultimate battle as the final boss. In Lufia 1, the heroes speak very formally. They sound stalwart and brave and a bit old fashioned, as legendary heroes should. In Lufia 2, we know these characters more as real people, and the dialog treads the exact same ground but it’s much less formal, makes them sound less hypercompetent.
janonymous@lemmy.world 6 hours ago
TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 13 hours ago
photojournalist/caretaker Jade from Beyond Good & Evil.
CatZoomies@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Commenting to say I feel this also. Underrated cult classic game. Jade is one of my all time favorites, and Beyond Good & Evil is a unique game made by Ubisoft back when they took risks, innovated, and created wonderful games.
Zero interest in the sequel if it ever does release. Ubisoft is a shadow of what they once were, ever since their gradual downfall arguably starting around ~2013. Every few years though, I come back to this game and replay it. It left a profound impact on me and probably a million other gamers that played it.
lunatique@lemmy.ml 13 hours ago
Is that sequel ever coming out?
tal@olio.cafe 13 hours ago
I don’t see any official announcement of cancellation, but honestly, between its development not going well:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Beyond_Good_and_Evil_2
The game was originally announced at Ubidays 2008, with almost a decade of silence before being re-revealed at Ubisoft’s E3 2017 conference, although no release window or target platforms have been mentioned.
Its development was characterized in the media by uncertainty, doubt, and rumors about the game’s future, and has been referred to as vaporware by industry figures such as Jason Schreier due to its lengthy development and lack of a release date.[1] In 2022, Beyond Good and Evil 2 broke the record held by Duke Nukem Forever (2011) for the longest development period of a AAA video game, at more than 15 years. In 2023, the creative director, Emile Morel, died suddenly at age 40.
And Ubisoft as a whole having problems recently:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ubisoft
Financial concerns and reorganization (2023–present)
Citing disappointing financial results in the previous quarter, Ubisoft cancelled another three previously unannounced games in January 2023.[86] In an email to staff, Yves Guillemot told employees to take responsibility for the company’s forthcoming projects, asking that “each of you be especially careful and strategic with your spending and initiatives, to ensure we’re being as efficient and lean as possible”, while also saying that “The ball is in your court to deliver this line-up on time and at the expected level of quality, and show everyone what we are capable of achieving."[87][88] Union workers at Ubisoft Paris took issue with this message, calling for a strike and demanding higher salaries and improved working conditions.[89]
In August 2023, Ubisoft announced that it had reached a 15-year agreement with Microsoft to license the cloud gaming rights to Activision Blizzard titles; this came as part of efforts by Microsoft to receive approval from the UK Competition and Markets Authority (CMA) for its acquisition of Activision Blizzard. The agreement would allow Activision Blizzard games to appear on Ubisoft+, and allow Ubisoft to sublicense the cloud gaming rights for the games to third-parties.[90][91]
As part of a cost reduction plan, Ubisoft reduced its number of employees from 20,279 in 2022 to 19,410 in September 2023.[92] In November 2023, Ubisoft laid off 124 employees from its VFX and IT teams.[93] In March 2024, Ubisoft laid off 45 employees from its publishing teams.[94] Another 45 employees were cut between its San Francisco and Cary, North Carolina offices in August 2024.[95] By the end of September 2024, Ubisoft had reduced its number of employees to 18,666.[96]
In 2024, Ubisoft released multiple games that experienced underperforming sales and declining playerbases post-launch, which included Avatar: Frontiers of Pandora, Skull and Bones, XDefiant, and Star Wars Outlaws, causing its stock to fall to nearly its lowest levels in the previous decade.[97] As a result, the company announced they were launching an investigation of their development cycles to focus on a “player-centric approach”, and opted to delay its next major flagship game, Assassin’s Creed Shadows, from November 2024 to February 2025.[98]
On 16 October 2024, over 700 Ubisoft employees in France began a three-day strike, protesting the company’s requirement to return to the office three days a week. The strike, organized by the STJV union, involved Ubisoft’s offices in Paris, Montpellier, Lyon, and Annecy. Workers expressed dissatisfaction over a lack of flexibility, salary increases, and profit-sharing, which they believe the company has ignored. Ubisoft has yet to address the union’s concerns.[99]
In December 2024, Ubisoft announced that their free-to-play game XDefiant would be shutting down in June 2025, less than a year after its initial release.[100] They also announced that its lead development studio Ubisoft San Francisco, and Ubisoft Osaka, were to close, resulting in up to 277 employees being laid off.[101]
In January 2025, Ubisoft closed the Ubisoft Leamington studio and downsized several other studios, resulting in up to 185 staff being laid off as part of ongoing cost-cutting measures.[102][103]
Around September 2024, one of Ubisoft’s shareholders, AJ Investments, stated they were seeking to have the company purchased by a private equity firm and would push out the Guillemot family and Tencent from ownership of the company.[104] Bloomberg News reported in October 2024 that the Guillemots and Tencent were considering this and other alternatives to shift ownership of the company in light of the recent poor financial performance.[105] Later reports in December 2024 suggested that Tencent was seeking to capture a majority stake in Ubisoft and take the company private, while still giving the Guillemot family control of Ubisoft.[106] In January 2025, it was reported that the Guillemots had also considered carving out certain Ubisoft assets into a new subsidiary, which would allow Tencent to make targeted investments to increase the company’s overall value.[107] Ubisoft announced this subsidiary on 27 March 2025, devoted to its flagship Assassin’s Creed, Far Cry, and Rainbow Six franchises; the subsidiary will consist of the franchises’ assets and development teams, and have dedicated leadership. Tencent will make a €1.16 billion investment in the new subsidiary, giving it a 25% stake at a valuation of €4 billion; the value of this subsidiary is larger than the current valuation of Ubisoft, which is based on Tencent’s belief that these properties are undervalued. Ubisoft stated that the subsidiary would “focus on building game ecosystems designed to become truly evergreen and multi-platform”.[108][109][110] The new subsidiary, Vantage Studios, was unveiled in October 2025,[111] with Christophe Derennes and Charlie Guillemot to be co-CEOs.[112] With its financial quarterly report on July 2025, Ubisoft stated that it will reorganize into “creative houses” that will “enhance quality, focus, autonomy and accountability while fostering closer connections with players”, with the previously announced Tencent-backed subsidiary as an example of such a division.[113] At the end of August, Ubisoft sold the rights to five of their titles, including Grow Home and Cold Fear, to Atari SA.[114]
…my bet would be against it coming out. Or, even if it does…I mean, people who wanted the game want it because the original Beyond Good and Evil was a solid game. That first game came out in 2003, 22 years back. That’s a long gap in time, technology, and people. Someone could probably sit down and try to come up with a list of examples where you had one very successful game in a series and another that far down the road, and my guess is that in most cases, the next game doesn’t live up to the original.
tries to think of an example where someone’s managed something like this
I like Carrier Command 2. That came out 33 years after Carrier Command, though it certainly didn’t meet with the same level of relative success, and there was an (unsuccessful) remake of the original between the two releases.
brsrklf@jlai.lu 5 hours ago
Probably not. Even the thing that was shown several years ago, and that hasn’t been mentioned again since, wasn’t a sequel. It was a completely different style of game, and a prequel with different characters.
The first game ends on a sequel hook, and left a lot unresolved. People who asked for a sequel mostly wanted to know what happens next. They weren’t asking for a procedural multiplayer open world with different characters in another time frame.
BGE ends like the Empire Strikes Back. It’s a bittersweet ending in which main characters have evolved, but the conflict is not resolved at all… and there’s even a good guy still in deep shit. Obviously it needs the sequel to wrap everything up.
BGE2’s announcement is like we got nothing after Empire Strikes Back for a decade, so no Return of the Jedi, and George Lucas came back to tell us “we’re doing the prequel trilogy now, no plan on ever concluding the old storyline”.
hendu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
I loved the original. Even if the sequel does eventually come out, Ubisoft won’t be getting any more of my money. They’ve burned me too many times.
TheReturnOfPEB@reddthat.com 13 hours ago
I don’t need one. But there has been talk a few years back. I’m fine with letting that one be a grand moment in my gaming memories. No need to top it off.
rikudou@lemmings.world 12 hours ago
Jesse Faden, hands down the best.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 3 hours ago
I love Control, I think the gameplay and level design is amazing, the world building is phenomenal and some of the side characters are great. Jesse herself wasn’t really that memorable to me though. I get that she’s supposed to act like a foil for all the craziness that’s happening, but as a result she ended up feeling kind of bland and forgettable. I always thought this was intentional, as the main focus of the game was the world building and lore and the Oldest House. Having a protagonist with a super strong colorful personality would be too much and just end up distracting from that.
CatZoomies@lemmy.world 11 hours ago
Control is a very fun game, and Jesse was an intriguing character with ann unusual backstory. Enjoyed my time with it. I’m optimistic for Control 2 and hope we’ll get more lore! And of course, something that hits as hard as the Ash tray maze!
hendu@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
ouRKaoS@lemmy.today 4 hours ago
It’s a Toss up between Ayla and Lucca for me, because of Lucca’s little side quest of “Wait, we can time travel… Let me go fix something real quick…”
Ayla gets bonus points for “Magic? F that ‘new’ stuff… Imma just bite & kick!”
tanisnikana@lemmy.world 12 hours ago
edgemaster72@lemmy.world 9 hours ago
I’m gonna cheat and give 3 I don’t see mentioned
Red from Transistor
Miriam from Bloodstained: Ritual of the Night
Ajna from IndivisibleNefara@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Probably April Ryan from the Longest Journey. She was clever, empathetic, funny, and well grounded. She certainly had more than enough opportunity to get annoying over the many, many hours it takes to play that game but I think I could only call her somewhat bland at points. I found myself reading the journal that served as a story tracker just to see what she had to say about what had happened. I genuinely missed her during Dreamfall. Though I had a few other favorite games with female protagonists that I loved (like Rynn from Drakan), it says something that decades later I still remember April’s name, and major character traits.
silverchase@sh.itjust.works 13 hours ago
KoboldCoterie@pawb.social 12 hours ago
Just wish her cards weren’t so janky!
silverchase@sh.itjust.works 11 hours ago
My best friend is Zircon Zip
foodandart@lemmy.zip 13 hours ago
Katana314@lemmy.world 13 hours ago
Estelle, from Trails in the Sky.
She’s introduced as a bit of a cocky moron who constantly has to be wrangled by her more mature brother. But, there’s a slow development of competency where she starts to become decently sufficient at all the things her brother is good at, while he meanwhile lays bare some heavy emotional flaws - many of which Estelle excels at processing (call it a feminine trope, but it works).
Of note, all the rest of the Trails series have had male leads, and their pace of character development ground to a complete halt.
Sonotsugipaa@lemmy.dbzer0.com 7 hours ago
Robin from Iconoclasts:
- Pacifist until the end (depending on the definition of “end”), despite the game’s pixel aesthetic it tries to make it clear that murder is her last option;
- Altruistic, she goes out of her way to help people with complete disregard of her own safety;
- Doesn’t talk much;
- Kind hearted, doesn’t reject a well-intentioned yet spoiled acquaintance even though fucking up is his character arc and everyone hates him;
-
Plot spoiler
becomes friends with Jesus and goes with him back to heaven
-
Ending spoiler
fucking kills god, then fill him with seeds (tbf all the poor guy did was pull up at the gas station and have strangers harass Him)
NONE_dc@lemmy.world 8 hours ago
WatDabney@lemmy.dbzer0.com 12 hours ago
Shukran from Arabian Nights: Sabaku no Seirei Ou on the Super Famicom
Ifrit is a djinn who was once the king of the djinn. Then he was cursed and bound to a ring until he granted the wishes of 1000 people. He’s granted wishes to 999 people when his ring comes into the possession of an orphan girl named Shukran. Over the years he’s become bitter and cynical, and he just expects she’s going to want gold or such, but instead, to his surprise and dismay, she wishes to bring peace to the land. And she means it. So Ifrit has to first set out to find and recruit the most powerful of his former djinn subjects, and since he can’t stray far from the ring, Shukran has to come along.
She’s far and away the weakest character in the game, but at every turn, when it’s (eventually predictably) revealed that whichever djinn they’re trying to recruit at the moment has a well-deserved grudge against Ifrit and no intention of helping him with anything, it’s Shukran and her optimism, determination, honor and kindness that wins them over, and (after Shukran and Ifrit and their allies complete whatever trial or quest the djinn tasks them with) they end up swearing allegiance not to him, but to her. So while she herself remains ridiculously weak, she is very much the driving force behind the party. And over time she can summon more and more powerful djinn in battle, and they’re decidedly not weak.
ZindaDil@sopuli.xyz 5 hours ago
Madzielle@lemmy.dbzer0.com 2 hours ago
Image
Kassandra from Assassin’s Creed Odyssey.
Fantastic voice acting, awesome gameplay, beautiful world. 10/10 I love her.