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1UP COVER STORY
1UP COVER STORY | WEEK OF JUNE 18 | GENDER, SEXUALITY, AND VIDEO GAMES
Women In Disguise
Cover Story: How games handle heroines posing as heroes.
I
t happens sometimes in video games. A fully armored warrior joins a quest, a villain looms imposingly at a level’s end, or an annoying sidekick chirps unwanted tutorials in the player’s ear. They’re all apparently male characters. Then comes the revelation: the anonymous hero, the fearsome boss, or the boyish tagalong is, in fact, a woman.
It’s a thoroughly worn plot device, and it was already frayed well before video games even existed. When it comes to women posing as men, the games industry portrays them with the same scattered, often misguided treatment it shows for women in general. Some are mere gimmicks, some are plot twists, and some are downright offensive. On occasion, a game takes the cliché in a relatively intriguing direction, perhaps without even trying. For the most part, games take one of three major paths when women disguise as men. In fact, some aren’t even disguised.
