15 of the best video games made by women, for women
You’d be forgiven for thinking video games are the reprieve of rowdy lads playing Fifa or antisocial teenagers hidden away in their bedrooms on Fortnite. But while the gaming industry is certainly dominated by men, female gamers are closing the gender gap - and there are some epic games for women on the market. In fact, the number of females playing games online in the UK rose from 23% in 2018 to 43% in 2021 – a rise largely believed to be an result of the pandemic. Data firm Nielsen reported the total number of people playing video games reached an all-time high during the first COVID-19 lockdown. And 50% of Nintendo Switch owners are women, too.
While more and more women are picking up gaming controllers, there’s also change occurring behind the scenes. Women have long been involved in making video games, from creating the initial gameplay idea, to designing the character models, and directing the narrative. And initiatives like Women In Games that aims to free the games industry from gender discrimination, and Black Girl Gamers, a collective elevating black women's voices in gaming, are placing women firmly at the forefront.
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It’s also the games themselves that are placing women front and centre with strong, female protagonists for gamers to play as. If it’s social simulation, adventure, or role play games you’re after, there’s a game out there that a woman has had a part in creating, for other women to play. But what makes a game ‘for’ women? Whether there’s a female protagonist or not, women should be able to play any game they like, and everyone should have the freedom to play as a female character in a game.
So, whether you’d describe yourself as a gamer or you’ve never even picked up a PlayStation controller, now is the perfect time to discover some of the best games made by women, for women - or anyone else who wants to play them.
The best games for women at a glance:
- Best battle game for women: Child of Light, £14.99, Game
- Best classic game for women: Tomb Raider, £21.95, Amazon
- Best PlayStation4 game for women: Cities Skylines, £39.78, Amazon
- Best XBox 360 game for women: Portal, £27.99, Amazon
- Best inclusive game for women: Animal Crossing, £36.99, John Lewis
- Best virtual reality game for women: Earthlight Spacewalk, £3.74, Viveport
- Best Nintendo Switch game for women: Niche, £16.19, Nintendo Shop
"What had once been a teenage pastime became a serious career that meant I could financially support my family."
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Keep scrolling to find our full edit of the best video games for women – designed, created, and made by women.
Best Games Made By Women
Set in 1895, the plot of Child of Light centres around Aurora, a Princess who is believed to have died in her sleep one night. She awakens in the Kingdom of Lemuria, an alternate world connected to her own through a mirror that was stolen by Umbra, Queen of the Night. The only way for Aurora to return home is by recovering Lemuria’s light to be able to use the mirror. This role-playing video game sees players travel on an adventure and battle enemies to complete Aurora’s mission. The lead designers on Child of Light were Mélissa Cazzaro and Aurélie Débant, this was their first published game for both designers.
Available on: PlayStation3, PlayStation4, PlayStation Vita, Xbox 360, Xbox One, Nintendo, Windows, Wii U.
Best Games Made By Women
You’re likely familiar with the character of Lara Croft, who has been brought to life on the big screen by both Angelina Jolie and Alicia Vikander. However, she first started out as the titular character on the PSOne game, Tomb Raider in 1996. Fast forward seventeen years and Tomb Raider was rebooted to much critical acclaim. Lead writer Rhianna Pratchett played a key role in Tomb Raider (2013) that elevated Lara Croft to a whole new level. Formerly portrayed with comically large breasts and miniscule shorts, the reboot not only reconstructed Lara’s origin story but reintroduced her as a tough, physically stronger woman able to tackle bigger challenges. This new depiction helped inform the cultural icon Lara Croft went on to become. The game sold 4 million copies worldwide and was the sixth best selling game of 2013.
Available on: PlayStation3, PlayStation4, Xbox 360, XboxOne, Windows, MacOS, Linux
Best Games Made By Women
Cities Skylines, £39.78, Amazon
Inspired by the popular classic game SimCity, Cities Skylines tasks players with building a city. As the city grows bigger, the game increases in complexity by adding new buildings, zones, policies and requiring players to manage their taxes, cash reserves and the happiness of their citizens in order to keep the city thriving, and avoid sending it into collapse. Karoliina Korppoo was one of the lead designers of Cities Skylines, and is credited as being the first female Finn to publish a role-playing game. Currently, Korppoo is leading her own company called 10th Muse, which published an app called Sana Stories, a series of interactive text-only stories that celebrate equality and diversity.
Available on: PlayStation4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, MacOS, Linux
Best Games Made By Women
Having won Game of The Year in 2011, Portal centres on a woman named Chell who is forced to undergo a series of tests by a malicious artificial intelligence named GLaDOS, voiced by the games designer, Kim Swift. Gamers play as Chell - a silent protagonist whose appearance can be seen in reflections in the game - and try to solve a number of puzzles by using the character’s portal gun to create, as the game suggests, portals. This game was designed by Kim Swift and her team and Kim is a big deal in the video game industry. She was named on Forbes 30 under 30 in the games and apps industry in 2012 and Portal was one of 14 games selected by the Museum of Modern Art for inclusion in their permanent collection.
Available on: PlayStation3, Xbox 360, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, Linux, MacOS, Android
Best Games Made By Women
Animal Crossing, £36.99, John Lewis
The Animal Crossing game series has developed quite the fan base, and it’s a largely female fan base. A survey from NME of 1000 female gamers said they found Animal Crossing New Horizons was the most inclusive game to play. The director behind the series is Aya Kyogoku. She oversees development for the Splatoon and Wii Sports series under Nintendo, however she is most well-known for leading the efforts behind Animal Crossing New Horizons and Animal Crossing New Leaf, of which just under 50% of the development team were women.
Available on: Nintendo Switch.
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Best Games Made By Women
Earthlight Spacewalk, £3.74, Viveport
Created by Opaque Space in collaboration with NASA, Earthlight Spacewalk is a virtual reality game of a realistic recreation of a spacewalk. The spacewalk is conducted by gamers playing as Ana, an astronaut on the International Space Station. Produced by Danielle Hindi and with Jennifer Scheurle as Game Design Lead, the game won multiple awards including Australia’s Game of the Year 2017. The focus of women in space is something that is reflected in the real world, as in 2021 the European Space Agency (ESA) launched their first recruitment drive for new astronauts in 11 years, with particular emphasis on encouraging women and people with disabilities to join missions to the Moon and, eventually, Mars. NASA also recently proclaimed it is aiming to put the first woman on the Moon by 2024.
Available on: Oculus Rift and most VR headsets
Best Games Made By Women
Gravity Ghost, £10.99, Steam Store
From indie game label Ivy Games, founded by independent video game developer Erin Robinson, Gravity Ghost allows the player to control the ghost of a young girl named Iona. As Iona, players fly through a fantasised version of space using gravity to glide through the air and soar around planets, exploring a shattered galaxy and rescuing its survivors. First released in 2015, Erin had been named as one of the most influential women in technology by Fast Company four years prior.
Available on: PlayStation4, MacOS, Linux
Best Games Made By Women
Spartan Fist, £11.99, PlayStation Store
Spartan Fist introduces us to Emma Jones, a down-and-out detective working to retrieve the fabled Spartan Fist and achieve fame, fortune, and glory. From Glass Bottom Games, a studio founded by Megan Fox (no, not that Megan Fox), this first-person puncher game will see you play as Emma, punching dudes so hard they explode. Once you’ve mastered this game, check out the sequel - Hot Tin Roof.
Available on: PlayStation4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Microsoft Windows, MacOS, Linux.
Best Games Made By Women
Think Pokémon Go meets Tamagotchi and you’ve got the premise for Niche, a video game all about evolving creatures. Create your own species of cat, fox, bear, or dog-like animals - or a combination of all four - based on real genetics. The challenge is to keep them alive despite predators, climate change and sickness. If a species goes extinct, the game is over and the player has lost. This simple, fun, and educational game was designed by Philomena Schwab after it raised $72,000 on Kickstarter. Philomena, a Swiss game designer, also founded Playful Oasis, a collective of 25 international developers that promotes nature and biology-related games.
Available on: PlayStation4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch, Windows, MacOS, Linux
Best Games Made By Women
Fran Bow, £1.79, Apple App Store
Made by husband and wife duo Natalia Figueroa and Isak Martinsson, this is ultimately an indie-horror game that includes autobiographical elements from Natalia's life in the storyline. The player follows the character of Fran, a ten-year-old girl struggling with mental illness after witnessing the murder of her parents. A lot of adventure and challenges follow for the player to explore as they work to solve puzzles in the game and help Fran.
Available on: Android and iOS
Best Games Made By Women
Butterfly Soup, free, Apple App Store
Created by Brianna Lei, Butterfly Soup is a visual novel game that follows four young, queer Asian-American girls as they attend their first year of high school and bond as members of a baseball club. Although its gameplay has a low level of interactivity there are sections that require gameplay and sees players make choices in the narrative, however these do not influence the outcome of the story. Named the "best visual novel" of 2017 by PC Gamer, Butterfly Soup was also the subject of an exhibition at the Game Developers Conference. In 2019, Brianna Lei was named on Forbes 30 Under 30 list for games.
Available on: Android and iOS
Best Games Made By Women
The Sims was so popular, it earned four iterations of the life simulation game that allowed players to create unique characters, their homes, families, and more. It’s arguably one of the more accessible video games and according to a recent job listing for a Senior Game Designer, 60% of players of The Sims 4 are women between the ages of 18 and 24. Lisette Titre-Montgomery is a video game artist and designer who was lead character artist on The Sims 4. She went on to become Art Manager at Ubisoft and then Art Director at Double Fine Productions.
Available on: PlayStation4, Xbox One, Windows, MacOS
Best Games Made By Women
Uncharted Collection, £15.99, Argos
Created and directed by Amy Hennig, Uncharted was first released in 2007 and follows Nathan Drake, a treasure hunter who travels across the world to uncover various historical mysteries. Numerous sequels and spin offs were later released, including the standalone game, Uncharted: The Lost Legacy. Released in 2017, this game saw Chloe Frazer - a fellow treasure hunter and former love interest of Nathan’s introduced in the second game - as the playable protagonist. The series has become one of the best-selling video game franchises of all time, and has been made into a film starring Tom Holland and Mark Whalberg that has just been released.
Available on: PlayStation3, PlayStation4, PlayStation5, Windows
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Best Games Made By Women
Produced by Robin Hunicke, a female American video game designer and producer, and made by Thatgamecompany which was founded by Kellee Santiago, Journey received many accolades when it was released in 2012 and continues to be incredibly popular amongst gamers. Playing as a non-verbal robed character, the game sees players travel through a desert towards a mountain in the distance. Other players playing in real-time can be encountered during gameplay, however characters can only communicate via music notes. Journey was praised for its breathtaking musical score and was nominated for best soundtrack at the 2013 Grammy Awards. It won game of the year, best audio, best downloadable game, best game design, and best visual arts at the Game Developer Choice Awards in 2013.
Available on: PlayStation3, PlayStation4, Windows, iOS
Best Games Made By Women
Celeste, £15.99, Microsoft Store
Designed, directed and written by Maddy Thorson, a Canadian trans female video game developer, Celeste follows a young woman named Madeline who attempts to climb a mountain and must face her inner demons in her quest to reach the summit. The platform game was launched in 2018 and is set on a fictional version of Mount Celeste, the unofficial name for a mountain located on Vancouver Island. The game has been interpreted by many players as a metaphorical challenge to overcoming depression - something creator Maddy was dealing with at the time she made the game. Developed by Maddy and Noel Berry, Celeste won Best Independent Game and Games for Impact awards at The Game Awards in its year of launch. It was also nominated for Game of the Year and sold over a million copies by the end of 2019.
Available on: PlayStation4, Xbox One, Nintendo Switch
