Why Aloy is the Character Female Gamers Need

Jen Sullivan
6 min readApr 8, 2022

Yes, I am an adult female gamer — a growing crowd over the last several years. I have been gaming since I was a little girl during the age of the ColecoVision and the Atari 2600. In a previous article titled “ The Evolution of a Female Gamer,” I shared my experiences as the gaming industry progressed, mainly playing online during the early days of Xbox Live. There is an area of gaming that has drawn the attention of the female gamer that I touched on a bit in that article: female lead characters.

I never really minded playing as a male character. It did not affect how I viewed myself and never made me feel that women could not be heroes. I have no doubt this was partly because I grew up watching re-runs of Wonder Woman with Lynda Carter, who, although she was scantily dressed, showed that women can be strong and save the day. Years later, Xena: Warrior Princess would show us the same, but the world was already changing to accept more women in leadership roles when Xena came around.

In the gaming world, the increase in female gamers created a shift in characters until we finally…

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Jen Sullivan
Jen Sullivan

Written by Jen Sullivan

I am a gamer, a geek, and a gardener, among many things. I enjoy writing as a way to share with others. You'll find no AI content here--I am a real writer.

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