Whether you’re searching through your PlayStation library or hunting down a new gem on the fan-favourite console, now is the perfect time to bring out the girl power. Almost half of Australian gamers are women, but women account for just 15 percent of the local game development industry — and similar statistics show up around the world. Despite that, women have been involved in writing, developing and publishing some of the best games of the last few years.
From AAA hits to indie gems, here are five PS4 and PS5 games that were made by women:
Uncharted — Amy Hennig
With the new Tom Holland movie now in cinemas, there’s going to be many new gamers wanting to check out the Uncharted franchise. The action-adventure series was created by Amy Hennig, who also directed the first three games.
Hennig first started working in the gaming industry in the late 1980s, primarily focusing on the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) for industry heavyweights like Electronic Arts. She later moved to Naughty Dog to act as their creative director, first working on the Jak and Daxter series before creating the Uncharted franchise.
Hennig is a strong advocate for plot-centric games that focus on creative expression and character development. This can definitely be seen in the evolution of Uncharted’s hero Nathan Drake over the years.
Journey — Kellee Santiago
Venezuelan-American game designer Kellee Santiago co-founded ThatGamingCompany in 2006 with Jenova Chen, developing stunning indie PS3 and PS4 games like Journey and Flower.
Journey launched on in 2012 and won numerous BAFTA and VGX awards that year. The multiplayer indie-adventure was highly acclaimed by the industry and the public alike for its innovative style, which conveyed emotion and story through stunning landscapes and minimalistic gameplay rather than dialogue.
Oxenfree — Heather Gross
While Journey was widely celebrated for its emotive gameplay without words, the indie supernatural mystery adventure Oxenfree is renowned for its clever dialogue.
The dialogue isn’t presented as just words at the bottom of the screen, but rather integrated into the spooky artistic vision through speech bubbles. Lead artist Heather Gross can be thanked for the game’s inventive and hauntingly beautiful design.
Many fans and critics cite classic ‘80s teen horror films as the overarching inspiration, which results in the game acting as much as a visual novel as it does an adventure game. However, Gross revealed in a 2019 interview that she was encouraged to watch the ‘90s sitcom Freaks and Geeks before starting to work on the creative vision.
The sequel, OXENFREE II: Lost Signals, is set to release later this year. Set five years after the entrancing events of the first game, the player is tasked with investigating mysterious radio signals in a small town.
Tomb Raider — Rhianna Pratchett
Tomb Raider has come a long way since its 1990s roots, both in visual design and core gameplay.
The franchise’s 2013 reboot brought the classic game to a modern audience, catering to new and established fans alike. Much of this can be credited to the award-winning writing team, led by Rhianna Pratchett.
Pratchett, who grew up playing the Tomb Raider games, had a vision for Lara Croft, wanting to develop her past her cyber-fantasy origins.
“The classic games are great; she’s self-assured, quippy, confident and she’s got everything she needs to solve whatever problems were thrown at her — but we wanted to explore the vulnerability and fear behind the great bravery … on the road toward becoming a tomb raider,” Prachett told Entertainment Weekly.
The reboot’s sequel, Rise of the Tomb Raider, won the Writers Guild of America Award for Achievement in Video Game Writing.
Assassin’s Creed — Jade Raymond
Assassin’s Creed is arguably one of the most recognisable game series of the past 15 years. Having started out as a programmer for Sony and The Sims Online, Jade Raymond moved to Ubisoft Montreal in 2004, soon making a name for herself by co-developing and producing the highly successful franchise.
Assassin’s Creed certainly isn’t the only AAA title under her belt — Raymond also developed the Watch Dogs games and worked on Tom Clancy’s Splinter Cell and Far Cry 4. After leaving Ubisoft in 2015, Raymond worked with Amy Henning as a game designer and writer for Star Wars Battlefront II.
Raymond has been widely recognised as a trailblazer in the gaming industry and was awarded the Vanguard Award and Pioneer Award in 2018 by Develop and Fun & Series Game Festival, respectively. She was also listed as an influential business leader shaping global entertainment by Variety Magazine.
While she had a brief stint trying to pilot Google’s poorly received Stadia project, last year Raymond launched her independent company Haven Studios, which has been backed by Sony.
