Women come to the fore in video games
Print Edition
IT seems the Electronic Entertainment Expo is no longer a man’s world.
During this year’s video game extravaganza, a variety of women — virtual and otherwise — have been featured more prominently than in past years of the annual trade show where game makers highlight their forthcoming creations. In presentations and on the expo floor, a sizeable number of women have appeared on stages, within games and in crowds.
Microsoft, for instance, kicked off its E3 presentation with 343 Industries head Bonnie Ross introducing a “Halo 5: Guardians” cooperative gameplay demo that featured men and women playing together as male and female members of Spartan Locke’s squad. The company later hyped “ReCore” and “Rise of the Tomb Raider,” which both feature female heroines.
“We’re about everybody playing games, and we want to represent that in the content that we put on screen,” Phil Spencer, Microsoft’s head of Xbox, said at the show, which ended on Thursday. “We opened the show with Bonnie. She’s got such authenticity as someone who has been with Xbox a long time, running our biggest franchise and being a spokesperson for the platform, the industry and ‘Halo.’”
Ubisoft, which came under fire at last year’s E3 for revealing that female avatars wouldn’t be an option in “Assassin’s Creed: Unity,” reversed course on Monday by focusing on female “Assassin’s Creed: Syndicate” co-star Evie. The publisher also brought Angela Bassett on stage to announce she was portraying the first-ever female boss in “Tom Clancy’s Rainbow Six: Siege.”
Others introduced all-new female protagonists, including bow-wielding huntress Aloy of “Horizon Zero Dawn” and 10-year-old blind girl Rae of “Beyond Eyes.” Bethesda Softworks announced that stealth sequel “Dishonored 2” would feature a female co-star and post-apocalyptic “Fallout 4” would allow players to create male or female avatars of different races.
“We’ve always believed that this is not a boys’ club and should never be a boys’ club,” said Reggie Fils-Aime, CEO of Nintendo of America, who is Haitian-American. “That mentality permeates our games and our corporate environment. We believe in a full range of diversity.”
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