It is no secret that in general the representation of women in games has been consistently poor, if not downright terrible. Having well-created, well-rounded female characters in games is something that will benefit everyone – developers and gamers alike – by creating, as feminist media critic and creator of the YouTube series ‘Feminist Frequency’ Anita Sarkeesian puts it, ‘richer, healthier, more complex  and inclusive gaming universes for people of all genders.’

As such we at zavvi.com wanted to at least celebrate those female characters that have been important in moving forward female characters – either in their first appearance or subsequent development. We created this awesome infographic to chart a timeline of 5 great female game characters and provoke some debate!

Who have we missed out? Who would you have chosen instead? Let us know in the comments below, and feel free to share the image using the code below!

To embed this image into your site, copy and pate the code below and paste it into your web page.

<p style="text-align: center;"> <a href="https://www.zavvi.com/blog/"> <img src="http://d4wwkqksjlvo4.cloudfront.net/wp-content/uploads/sites/39/2014/02/20140210-z-gr-tombraider-info.jpg" alt="An infographic of Zavvi's Top 5 Female Game Characters" style="text-align: center;"/> </a> <p style="text-align: center;">Infographic by <a href="http://www.zavvi.com/games.dept">Zavvi.com</a></p>