Video games are likely to follow Pentagon's lead on women in combat

While video games aren't totally devoid of strong female protagonists, the interactive medium has typically only cast ladies in support roles when it comes to such popular military shoot-'em-up franchises as “Call of Duty” and “Battlefield.” Yet could the recent announcement that the Pentagon is ending its long-standing ban on women serving in combat roles in real-world battlegrounds extend to virtual ones, too?

“I wouldn't be surprised if the developers working on these shooters incorporated it as a story point in their games,” said game designer and “Sex in Video Games” author Brenda Romero. “It could make for an amazing narrative: ‘It's her first role in combat and she's determined to make a difference!' Who wouldn't want to pursue something like that and have a bad-(expletive) female soldier in a game?”

Deeper personalization

Romero's husband, John Romero, who worked on such landmark first-person shooters as “Doom” and “Quake,” agrees with his wife. As games have evolved beyond rescuing princesses from gorillas, players have come to expect deeper levels of personalization, evidenced by the popularity of such be-whatever-the-heck-you-wannabe role-playing games as “Skyrim,” “Mass Effect” and “World of Warcraft.”