As far as lasting success goes, Grand Theft Auto 5 can be considered one of the most evergreen games under the sun. The game has maintained a consistent presence on top sales charts since launch, with GTA 5 sales seeing massive boosts after recently leaving Xbox Game Pass. However, it's often criticized for featuring only men as playable protagonists despite being host to three playable characters. Tomb Raider writer Rhianna Pratchett recently chimed in on the issue.
Speaking to Wired, Pratchet stated that she was "interested in what the developers that tend to do hypermasculine worlds would do with more female-lead stuff." Pratchett went on to state that she was "really disappointed" that Grand Theft Auto 5 only featured men as playable protagonists, elaborating that while the series has explored masculinity as a theme many times, "masculinity is not just the domain of men and femininity is not just the domain of women."
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For comparison, Pratchett brought up The Wire, which featured women navigating the traditionally masculine criminal underworld. She also drew comparisons to Orange Is the New Black, which features women's stories in prison, a setting that could be deemed traditionally masculine. Pratchett said that she would like to see developers that tackle hypermasculine narratives "take a stab at female-led stories," and highlighted that there had been few mature first-person and third-person action games with females in the lead role.
Pratchett, however, isn't necessarily interested in working a game like Call of Duty to rectify the issue. Instead, she says that she would want to work on something like Red Dead Redemption. There have been calls for Sadie Adler, one of the main characters of Red Dead Redemption 2, to get her own game or DLC expansion, which could be a great fit for Pratchett considering her prior work on franchises like Tomb Raider and Mirror's Edge.
Grand Theft Auto's failure to portray women has been a hot-button topic for years now, especially as the games industry begins to recognize the disparity between how women have been treated compared to men. Recent months have shed light on the issue in important ways, with the ongoing lawsuit at Activision Blizzard coming in the wake of Ubisoft being criticized for downplaying the role of women in its games and harboring a toxic work environment.
Rumors have circulated that Grand Theft Auto 6 will feature a female protagonist, but nothing has been confirmed quite yet, as reliable news about the project has been virtually non-existent. It would be a departure for the franchise, but that departure might just be a necessary one.
Grand Theft Auto 5 is available now for PC, PS4, and Xbox One.
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Source: Wired