Video games have an unfortunate history with gender representation. Despite initially gender-neutral marketing and multiple women having key roles in major games, the market crash of 1983 led companies to decide that marketing exclusively to boys was a logical move. This was also reflected in the games produced, which often centered around male heroes. For a long time, female video game protagonists were rare; Lara Croft and Samus Aran were the exception, rather than the rule. Some popular franchises took a long time to start portraying strong female characters in meaningful roles. While not perfect, that has started to change in recent years.

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Video games have been slowly becoming more diverse as they start to be seen increasingly less as a "masculine" hobby, and the growing presence of more female protagonists (or at least gender options) has been a welcome change. Although there are still some people who get upset and take to YouTube to rant every time a game with more representation is announced, there are many players who get excited at the prospect of a strong female lead. Fortunately for most, there are a lot of great upcoming titles that have a strong female protagonist to get excited about.

Update June 18, 2024, by John Alexander Hitchcock: Since the previous update, five of the previously included games (Open Roads, Phantom Fury, Princess Peach Showtime, Pepper Grinder, and Stellar Blade) have been released, and many more have been announced. Thanks to the Summer Game Fest and the Xbox Showcase, a plethora of interesting games with strong female leads were revealed, and many gamers are excited for them to eventually release. As such, all games that were released after the original publishing of this article have been removed, and the list now features a combination of newly announced games and noteworthy titles that were previously omitted.

18 Arranger: A Role-Puzzling Adventure

Tile-Moving Adventurer In Pursuit Of Answers

• Platforms: PC, Nintendo Switch, PlayStation 5PS5, Xbox, PC
• Release Date: July 25, 2024
• Developer: Furniture and Mattress LLC

Furniture and Mattress's "role-puzzling" adventure is a strange mix of simplified RPG mechanics with tile arrangement puzzles. The story of Arranger concerns a girl named Jemma, a young child who leaves the comfort of her hometown to find herself, leading to a wacky adventure that might just end up changing her world for the better.

It is a simple enough premise, but the incorporation of tiles gives the game a unique mechanic. The world is designed as a grid, and instead of walking, Jemma "moves" by shifting rows and columns to move her own square. This makes for some unusual puzzles, such as allowing her to circumvent a lock by looping to the other side of the screen. Naturally, it can also produce chaos when it inevitably affects people around Jemma.

17 Assassin's Creed Shadows

An Actual Ninja in Feudal Japan

• Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
• Release Date: November 12, 2024
• Developer: Ubisoft

Assassin's'Creed Syndicate seemed to start a pattern in the series where the player can choose between a male or female character to play as. It was dropped in Mirage but returns for the upcoming Assassin's Creed Shadows. The new title finally moves into the long-requested setting of Feudal Japan and introduces two protagonists.

One option is to play as a real-life samurai Yasuke for a more combat-heavy experience. But for those interested in the stealth mechanics that define Assassin's Creed, there is Naoe. She is a shinobi, one of the stealth-based assassins that would later be mythologized into the modern concept of Ninjas. Not much is known about Naoe's story, though the trailers do seem to hint at her being motivated by revenge.

16 Clockwork Revolution

A Heroine Fights Tyranny With Time Travel

• Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X/S
• Release Date: 2024
• Developer: inXile Entertainment

This wild adventure from inXile throws players into a Victorian-inspired steampunk world, which they get to systematically destroy with time travel. Clockwork Revolution players don't have much information about her yet, but the protagonist is a young woman who stumbles across a time machine (referred to as a "Chronomancer") and uses it to start a revolution against the authoritarian rule of Lady Ironwood.

Given her apparent role in the game, it can be inferred that she has some sort of personal disdain for the antagonist, possibly coming from a working-class background at the lower end of the social hierarchy. What is known is that the heroine will make extensive use of the Chronomancer to alter history, undoing the city's achievements and bringing it to ruin.

15 Fable

A New Heroine Arises In This Classic Fantasy World

Playground Games is back with a reboot of this popular fantasy series, starting with a teaser that revealed some peculiar details. Among Fable's cast is, apparently, a giant Richard Ayoade as "Dave the Vegetable Enthusiast," who may or may not be a boss in the game. However, the teaser also offered a glimpse of the game's heroine, who ends up clashing with Dave and apparently slaying him. While there was a strange controversy about her not being attractive enough, many fans were excited to meet this new character. Admittedly, not much has been indicated about the character herself, but the teaser shows her brandishing a greatsword, "roughing up bandits" as Ayoade puts it, and confronting a large werewolf-like creature.

The release window trailer offers a little more insight. According to a retired hero named Humphry, the heroine was someone he took as an apprentice until she "made all the wrong choices." Of course, it is unclear how reliable a narrator he is, but her voice-over promising to "fix it" suggests her story might center around trying to rectify a past mistake.

14 Flintlock: Siege Of Dawn

A Protagonist Who Wields Guns Against Gods

• Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4
• Release Date: 2024
• Developer: A44 Games

Flintlock: Siege of Dawn is a curious fantasy adventure that follows the relationship between a warrior named Nor and a creature called Enki as they explore a Napoleonic-inspired world rebelling against Mesopotamian-inspired gods. It is a strange premise, heavily influenced by Elden Ring mixed with God of War.

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Nor has an interesting selection of combat options that make her stand out from other soulslike protagonists. Intead of a sword, her weapon of choice is an axe. Access to magic isn't unusual, but how many games of this type make use of firearms?

13 Grand Theft Auto 6

After Five Entries Of Hyper Masculinity, Fans Finally Get An Outlaw Woman

The Grand Theft Auto series has a history of being very male-dominated. GTA 5 got some backlash on its initial release due to the fact that the game centered around three men. While this did make some sense since toxic masculinity was a major theme of the title, that didn't stop some people from wondering if there was ever going to be a place for a strong female protagonist in the series. It also didn't help that the few women to have any significance to the plot were mostly cast in an extremely unsympathetic light.

Grand Theft Auto 6 is finally set to change that. For the first time, the series actually features a woman taking center stage. From what's shown in the trailer, she appears to have a history of causing chaos, enough that she's done time in prison at least once. But she might have a softer side if her relationship with her currently-unnamed partner is anything to go on. Either way, it will be nice to see a woman cast as something other than a side character.

12 Harmonium: The Musical

A Young Girl Driven By A Musical Passion

• Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One
• Release Date: 2024
• Developer: The Old Gentlemen

This surreal indie game addresses some issues not seen very often in video games. There aren't a lot of game characters (let alone protagonists) who are both deaf and mute. Harmonium: The Musical is jumping on a largely untouched opportunity to explore this topic.

Protagonist Melody Macato is a child who grew up without the ability to hear or speak and has to rely on sign language to communicate, but she doesn't let that affect her passion for music. Accessibility is a big theme of the game, with Melody's fantastical journey being centered around a quest to produce a piece that can be accessible to all her friends, regardless of any disabilities they might have.

11 LEGO Horizon Adventures

The Machine Hunter Returns In LEGO Form

The sudden announcement of a LEGO Horizon game was a bit surprising for players, but the trailer managed to win over a lot of people with its humor and its stop-motion-inspired animation. The game appears to be a tongue-in-cheek original story, with minifigures based on its characters and iconography reconstructed in brick form.

Aloy once again appears to be the star, though other characters might be playable, and this version incorporates a lot more slapstick and screwball humor compared to its predecessors. Aloy does do some machine hunting, but that is also mixed with village buildings, which allows for a lot of wacky options. Amusingly, it might even cross over with some other LEGO properties, with "Hot Dog Guy" (a collectible minifigure) having a prominent role in the trailer, and the ability to dress Aloy in costumes taken from original LEGO characters.

10 Life Is Strange: Double Exposure

Max Is Back, And She Has Access To New Powers

Life is Strange was a popular episodic adventure game about a photography student, Max Caulfield, who discovers she can control time. After two sequels focusing on different protagonists, Double Exposure brings Max back into the forefront.

As if she didn't go through enough in the first game, the sequel involves Max having to deal with the murder of another friend, Safi, but there is a twist. In addition to time travel, Max discovers she can enter a parallel universe, one where Safi is alive. The game will involve Max having to travel between both realities to solve the murder.

9 Judas

Follows A Rebel Taking Matters into Her Own Hands

• Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
• Release Date: March 2025
• Developer: Ghost Story Games

Admittedly, not much has been revealed about the upcoming sci-fi shooter from Bioshock creator Ken Levine. Judas appears to take place on a spaceship called the Mayflower where things are not going well. As vague as they are about the story, the trailers seem to emphasize a young woman with long blonde hair and a cream-colored tank top who is often covered in bruises.

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According to Levine, she is the "Judas" identified in the title. She appears to really hate the people running the ship and starts a revolution, with the idea apparently being that the players' actions determine how things work out for her and the characters she encounters along the way. Not much else is clear about the game, other than that it appears to feature some form of bodily augmentation (possibly similar to Bioshock's plasmids), but it will be interesting to see where Levine goes with this.

8 Perfect Dark

The Classic FPS Heroine is Back

• Platforms: PC, Xbox Series X/S
• Release Date: 2025
• Developer: The Initiative

It's been 19 years since fans last saw Joanna Dark, the star of the iconic spiritual successor to Goldeneye 007. Perfect Dark was an espionage shooter centered around Dark's mission to uncover an intricate conspiracy set against a sci-fi backdrop.

Despite its popularity, the only follow-up it really got was a prequel and a remaster in 2010. That was until Crystal Dynamics began working on a reboot, which was finally revealed at the 2024 Xbox Showcase The developers have clearly been taking advantage of the technical improvements that have happened in video games since the original's release, with the trailer featuring parkour that is reminiscient of Mirror's Edge and combat/stealth mechanics that look a bit like the ones in Dishonored. Perfect Dark is set to release in 2025

7 SCP: Valravn

An Operator's Journey Into The More Obscure Parts Of SCP Lore

• Platform: PC
• Release Date: TBA
• Developer: Subtle Bravado Studios

There have been a few indie games adapted from the SCP Foundation mythos, but Valravn is something else; it's a tactical shooter that dives into some of the more obscure parts of SCP lore.

Here, players control Leena Sorvoja, a rogue foundation operator who infiltrates a facility run by the Valravn corporation (a sort of Norse-themed PMC that also happens to be a cult) in search of her father. In doing so, she faces off against Valravn's anomalous forces and some dangerous SCPs, such as the supersoldier SCP-7542 and the flesh-devouring virus SCP-610. SCP: Valravn is currently in pre-production with no set release date.

6 South Of Midnight

A Superpowered Teenager Explores A Cajun Fantasy World

There have been a few games that take inspiration from the swamps of Louisiana. Assassin's Creed 3: Liberation and Red Dead Redemption 2 both used the environment to great effect, but outright Bayou Fantasy is an area that hasn't been explored much. That was until Compulsion games revealed their new adventure, South of Midnight, a Cajun-inspired fantasy game centered around a teenager named Hazel who tries to track her missing mother through the Bayou.

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The trailers make it clear that she is in for some bizarre encounters, many drawing on Cajun folklore and culture. The most recent trailer revealed one of her main companions to be a giant talking fish who also acts as a mount. One interesting detail about this game is its art style, which is curiously designed to look like stop-motion animation.

5 Star Wars Outlaws

A Young Woman Faces The World Of Organized Crime

Many fans were annoyed when Jedi: Fallen Order was announced, resulting in them getting another story about a white male hero. Fortunately, that changes with Outlaws. Ubisoft's exciting foray into Star Wars follows Kay Vess, an up-and-coming scoundrel trying to navigate the galaxy's criminal underworld. Her adventure will take her all over the galaxy and across several different planets, all of which can be freely explored, and she has a lot of options for just how to survive in these scum and villainy-filled worlds.

The gameplay teaser indicated she already knows a few things about sneaking into heavily guarded places and improvising when things go wrong. She is also a capable speeder rider and can fly her own starship. This looks like something that will be a very unique take on Star Wars.

4 Unknown 9: Awakening

A Heroine Fights Back Against Imperialism

• Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, PlayStation 4, Xbox Series X/S, Xbox One
• Release Date: 2024
• Developer: Reflector Entertainment

Reflector Entertainment's historical fantasy brings players into a detailed reconstruction of colonial India, mixed with superpowered heroine Haroona. Unknown 9: Awakening could be described as looking like something between Assassin's Creed and Dishonored, with the historical realism of the former and the special powers of the latter.

Haroona can tap into something called "The Fold," a kind of otherworldly space that allows her to develop supernatural abilities (possibly something like the void in Dishonored). One of those powers is apparently the ability to possess and control enemies. These are valuable skills for her quest to take on a mysterious secret society, the titular "Unknown 9." Although India has been highlighted as a major setting, the official description of the game indicates that Haroona may have visited several historical settings, though Portugal is currently the only other known setting.

3 Wanderstop

Centers Around A Reluctant Tea Shop Manager

• Platform: PC
• Release Date: 2024
• Developer: Ivy Road

Wanderstop follows a former adventurer named Alta, who is stuck having to run a tea shop against her will. The game adopts the basic format of many so-called "cozy" games, like Stardew Valley and Animal Crossing, with gameplay heavily emphasizing the day-to-day life of running the shop.

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Alta has to do things like cleaning, gathering resources, making tea, and serving it to customers. The twist is the way the game juxtaposes the repetitive and mundane tasks with Alta's aggressive and impatient personality. This is likely to subvert expectations for fans of the genre.

2 Wonder Woman

DC's Iconic Super-Heroine Finally Gets Her Due

• Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
• Release Date: TBA
• Developer: Monolith Productions

Monolith Productions has been hard at work, finally giving the classic DC superhero her due. Admittedly, information about the Wonder Woman game is limited, but Monolith has confirmed it will be an open-world title with a story centered around the conflict between the Amazons of Themyscira and the modern world.

The teaser seems to imply that the lasso of truth will be a major gameplay mechanic, though exactly how it will work is unclear. Monolith even confirmed their trademark nemesis system would make its way into the game. After decades of Batman games, it will be refreshing to finally see Wonder Woman get the attention she deserves.

1 Wuchang: Fallen Feathers

Follows A Skilled Warrior Who Has Access To Supernatural Abilities

• Platforms: PC, PlayStation 5, Xbox Series X/S
• Release Date: 2025
• Developer: Chengdu Lingze Technology Co., Ltd.

There seems to be a growing trend of Soulslike games being inspired by Medieval Asian history, with Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice, Nioh 1 and 2, Wo Lung: Fallen Dynasty, and the upcoming Phantom Blade Zero being prime examples. Now, Wuchang: Fallen Feathers can be added to that list. This one takes place in the later years of Ming Dynasty China (probably somewhere around the late 16th or early 17th century) and mixes history with fantasy.

The trailer hints at supernatural monsters that will presumably be bosses, but it also puts a lot of emphasis on an unidentified warrior woman who seems to be the protagonist. Not much is revealed about her, but she is shown to be proficient with a greatsword and appears to have supernatural abilities. She refers to it as "the gift," though her description of how it corrupts its wielder and the shot of ominous purple eyes at the end suggest it might actually be a curse.

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