Video games' rocky road

Diverse representation in games is on the rise, but some players are not on board

- Jamal Michel

The intergalactic bounty hunter in the 1986 sci-fi video game Metroid was outfitted with a sleek helmet, red and orange armour, and a deadly arm cannon.

What lay underneath it all was emblematic of the late 1980s.

If a player defeated the game in less than an hour, the character Samus Aran would flash until that armoured suit was suddenly gone, replaced by a blonde woman in a pink bikini.

The industry's hyper-sexualisation of women continued through the 1990s with characters such as Lara Croft, the Tomb Raider archaeologist with short shorts, prominent breasts and an often bare midriff; and Morrigan Aensland, the bat-like succubus of the Darkstalkers series.

As the audience for video games has become increasingly diverse over the past two decades, developers have intentionally worked to better represent a spectrum of women who do not conform to 20th-century sexual stereotypes, either in what they do - some characters are resistance fighters and photojournalists - or how they look.

Yet, not everyone is on board.

Online influencers such as Jeremy Hambly, whose YouTube channel has nearly 1.8 million subscribers, have attracted audiences with reactionary videos about social issues.

He is known for divisive commentary on video game culture, posting daily videos with titles such as "Woke video game massively flops" and "Internet fixes ugly female video game character and leftists explode with rage".