She’s The Main Character

What makes a great video game protagonist? Jeff from End of a Species sits down with Ari 4 Education and SocratesLastStudent to break down why female leads in gaming consistently deliver richer, more emotionally complete storytelling than their male counterparts -- and what that says about the industry, patriarchy, and the way we design characters.

From Ghost of Tsushima to Silent Hill F, The Last of Us to The Witcher 3, the crew goes game by game examining what happens when developers actually let a character be a full human being versus what happens when they just slap a revenge arc on her and call it representation. They also get into why so many "woke" gaming studios keep masculinizing their female leads, why the male gaze is still running the show, and what a truly whole male protagonist would even look like -- if the industry ever had the courage to make one.

Topics covered: female protagonists in gaming, Assassin's Creed Shadows, Ghost of Yotei, The Last of Us Part II, Silent Hill F, Hades, Life is Strange, Telltale's Walking Dead, gender and storytelling, patriarchy in game design, LGBTQ representation in games, what makes a good video game character.