Let's talk about women being portrayed in Video Games

So for a long time woman in video games were more of sexy place holders. Woman always seemed to fit in as the fan service, by either being scandalous outfits, or fitting some sort of stereotypical personality type that doesn't do women justice.
I'm not going to talk about that. Those things represent the past, and I am not going to claim it doesn't still happen, it totally does, but I want talk about the road we are going down. I want to reiterate that I am not claiming we're very far down his road, but we are going a good direction when it comes to this topic.
Lets hit up some companies that have done or are doing woman some justice.
Naughty Dog
These folks make some strong girls, from Jak and Daxter to The Last of Us, these guys flush out their female characters into strong story carrying folks. They aren't the damsel is distress, and even though situations like that happen in the game these females prove they can handle themselves, but appreciate the help.
Looking specifically at Elli in the Last of Us, she is a young girl, and she alone is immune to an infection that has crippled humanity, and needs to traverse a broken world to reach a facility to develop a cure. In this game you play as Joel, a grown man who through some events I wont disclose is now escorting Elli across the country to the facility. One one hand you have his father daughter relationship developing between the two, but Elli proves that even though she's young she can handle all of these intense situations. She has her faults, but she is a true character, she has depth and a personality that reflects a person, not just a place holder.
















Irrational Games
This is another example of a company that is throwing woman into the games mix without abusing shallow stereotypes. These folks made Bioshock. Many of you probably played this legendary game. What makes them special in this game is to introduce secondary and tertiary characters that are uniquely not sexy or stereotypical. I'm talking the doctor who interacts and guides the main character at times, but especially the female enemy. In this abstract city of Ayn Rand's Atlas Shrugged, The city fell into chaos after body enhancements and political power structures collapsed society, and now you have a bunch of crazy gene junkies running around. The female enemy are just as crazy and messed up as the male enemy. I find it wonderful that these enemy types aren't exploited into some cheesy or shallow version of enemys that many companies fall into.
Those are just some small examples of Companys portraying woman in a better light. There are tons and tons of other companys and games that are driving this is good directions and escaping fan servicy bland female characters.