Super Mario Bros., The Legend of Zelda, Final Fantasy VII, Minecraft, Uncharted, Watch Dogs, Final Fantasy XV, The Last Guardian, Assassin’s Creed: While this list includes a wide variety of video games, new and old, they all have one very important characteristic in common, and that is that they all feature male characters as the protagonist.

Studies show that just as many girls play video games as boys. Despite this, video game creators make the decision again and again to have a male as their protagonist.

By now video games have been around for several decades, and while it’s easy to stereotype video games as a “boy thing,” in this day and age that really isn’t the case.  

The misrepresentation of gender in video games sparks much debate and questions towards developers and their decisions.

Various excuses have been made by developers: a playable female protagonist is too much extra production work, female combatants aren’t believable, male characters are more approachable, and the list goes on.

But for girls who are gamers, constantly seeing male roles in video games and only seeing females as the damsel in distress just makes it seem like girls can’t do all the same things boys can do, which is an unfair stereotype.

While there is a clear imbalance of female protagonists to male protagonists, there are some honorable mentions that feature an awesome female lead. Games such as Mirror’s Edge, Tomb Raider, Horizon Zero Dawn, Assassin’s Creed III: Liberation, The Last of Us,
The Walking Dead, are among them.

Overall, while there are many more games with male leads right now, some companies and game series are taking steps toward making games more gender equal, such as Assassin’s Creed, and an equal representation of gender in video games might not be so far off.