Will Grand Theft Auto ever have a female protagonist?

[Belaam]

I'd kinda like one. Lots of potential lead ins in popular media already.

Nancy Botwin from Weeds - Crime to support family
Marta Walraven from Red Widow - Fill in for deceased criminal husband
Corky from Bound - Ex-con finding a big score
Violet from Bound - Mafia moll who decides to get out by ripping off husband
O-Ren Ishi from Kill Bill - Yakusa leader with something to prove
Samantha Caine from Long Kiss Goodnight - Assassin protecting daughter
Sparrow from Bone Dance - Courier who gets caught up in something bigger
or a Nikita type origin story - Government agent recruit gone rogue

Any of those could be a compelling GTA type protagonist that wouldn't be any more absurd than the ones we're already seen.

 

[mad825]

Most had problems with CJ being Black...So modders made him white. Never seen a black Tommy Vercetti though.

Besides, what's with I WANTZ GULZS I MY GAMES!!! *ahem* First colonial Marines now this, it seems like the latest gimmick for gaming.

 

[LadyMint]

I'd be surprised if they did go that route but I'd enjoy playing a strong female character climbing her way up the criminal ladder of the GTA universe. I think it would be an especially interesting challenge for Rockstar to make one that players could respect and/or take seriously.

Might be fun to see the rise of a matriarch. For example, if they wanted to revisit the idea of a Haitian gang and had a younger version of Auntie Poulet working her way up the proverbial food chain. Maybe a distant relative or next-in-line successor who has to earn her seat.

 

[Maevine]

Do you know how much I would love to play as some scummy criminal woman who runs around cursing at cops and groping sexy men? Do you know how long I've waited to do that!?!

I've done the opposite. I've done it SO many times. And I'm tired of it. Just once I wanna be that funny-looking chick who takes what she wants and doesn't care what anyone thinks instead of that one funny-looking guy. *Sniff* Just... once...

I don't think it'll happen in my lifetime, but if it did, I would buy it twice. Just because.

 

[thebobmaster_v1legacy]

I'd like to see it. However, I don't want to see Rockstar make a game around a female character. In other words, if a female main character were to become part of the series, I wouldn't want her gender to define her role. I'd like to her as a GTA character who happens to be female, not a female who happens to be a GTA character. Know what I mean?

To make it a bit more clear, if it were about, let's just make up a name, Helen Talgetti, making her name in the crime world and becoming mafiasa of a powerful crime family, that would be pretty interesting. But a game about Jacqueline Smith getting revenge on her pimp who sold her off to a cruel abuser would seem a little like pandering, saying "She's a woman, with woman reasons for revenge!"

 

[Calibanbutcher]

Most had problems with CJ being Black...So modders made him white. Never seen a black Tommy Vercetti though.

Besides, what's with I WANTZ GULZS I MY GAMES!!! *ahem* First colonial Marines now this, it seems like the latest gimmick for gaming.

Now, to be fair, Aliens: Colonial Marines was based on a franchise that exclusively featured female protagonists, so asking if we could maybe get a female player character in a game based on that franchise hardly seems like any kind of stretch.
It's most certainly not a gimmick either in that case....


On Topic:
I don't think that a "proper" GTA will have a female lead any time soon. If they decide to go for it, they'll go for the DLC option.

 

[Yuuki]

Having an OPTION to play as a female protagonist might work.

But if the female protagonist was forced into the series at this point (i.e. no option but to play only her), that would be one great way to shoot sales in the goddamn foot. No, I'm serious.
The target audience has become accustomed to a male protagonist, the whole setting of the game revolves around male protagonists, and changing to female would feel as smooth and natural as having a korean guy acting in the next Batman. You don't have to be racist (or sexist) to see how that will fall flat on it's face and piss off the fans.

How does a female become a gang leader and survive fist fights with brawly men exactly? How does a female become the leader of organized crime by climbing over endless violence, dead bodies, illegal activities and gunfights? And what sort of activities does she do, visit male strip clubs? How the hell is that shit going to be even remotely believable in a game that is at least trying to be a little bit immersive/realistic? My face is already breaking into a giggle just thinking about a female running around doing all that, hehe.

A game DOES exist for such a female, but GTA is not that game - that's my point.

This isn't as easy as gender-swapping is in Mass Effect...the story and activities will have to be re-done to fit the female lead and I just don't see such a thing paying off in big returns.

Leave GTA alone, but feel free to make a game LIKE GTA with a female lead and see how well that goes.

 

[Snotnarok]

What are you talking about? It's had one the past two gam- oh wait I was thinking of Saints Row 2 & 3 my bad.

In all seriousness: No probably not, Marketing says girls don't sell, only guys with grumpy looks toward the cover, and whether that's right or not that's who the Devs have to cater to, marketing and the pubs.

Want a female protagonist? Go play Saints Row 2 or 3, they're about 400x more fun I had with the last 2 GTA games.

 

[BanicRhys]

Frankly, I'd be happy to see anything that isn't a single, young male.

I'd prefer a Walter White-esque character, but a woman, if handled tastefully, would be just as good.

 

[elvor0]

Having an OPTION to play as a female protagonist might work.

But if the female protagonist was forced into the series at this point (i.e. no option but to play only her), that would be one great way to shoot sales in the goddamn foot. No, I'm serious.
The target audience has become accustomed to a male protagonist, the whole setting of the game revolves around male protagonists, and changing to female would feel as smooth and natural as having a korean guy acting in the next Batman. You don't have to be racist (or sexist) to see how that will fall flat on it's face and piss off the fans.

How does a female become a gang leader and survive fist fights with brawly men exactly? How does a female become the leader of organized crime by climbing over endless violence, dead bodies, illegal activities and gunfights? And what sort of activities does she do, visit male strip clubs? How the hell is that shit going to be even remotely believable in a game that is at least trying to be a little bit immersive/realistic? My face is already breaking into a giggle just thinking about a female running around doing all that, hehe.

A game DOES exist for such a female, but GTA is not that game - that's my point.

This isn't as easy as gender-swapping is in Mass Effect...the story and activities will have to be re-done to fit the female lead and I just don't see such a thing paying off in big returns.

Leave GTA alone, but feel free to make a game LIKE GTA with a female lead and see how well that goes.

I dunno, I think in their current state Rockstar are quite capable of pulling it off, I know a lot of people seem to hate the "realistic" vibe they're going for, but I think while GTA 4 stumbled a bit(though the DLC was all stellar), Red Dead Redemption was a blast from start to finish and I'd rank it as one of my favourite stories in gaming, LA Noire, again had a good story, there were some elements that I felt needed improvement, and I would've liked to have seen Cole /out/ of work, but it was still good fun.

Maybe they could take /some/ of the realism out of it. Change the story up a bit, something like O-Ren Ishiis story in Kill Bill could work nicely. She doesn't need to go to strip clubs or hire hookers (Jiggalos?), John Marston didn't and he was a grizzled package of awesome. If we're going for a serious story and she's straight, she doesn't need to go to those sort of places because there's no call for her to do so. But I don't think making it optional gender change is good, because it can make the character feel less lifelike. There's only so many lines of dialogue you can rerecord to account for the PC being a different gender, and instead of her being her own character, her and him would pretty much be the same character.

But you're right, people are stupid and they wouldn't buy it because dudeBros would freak about having to play a girl in case they get the cooties.

 

[Headbiter]

Could a GTA with a female protagonist work? Sure.

Is it likely? I don't think so. The typical well-known issues with executives not wanting a girl in their tree-house aside, the GTA-series appeal largely stems from the wide-spread clichées about organized crime-groups from different backgrounds and time-periods. These stem partially from real observations and a lot from popular movie.
Here's the thing: These clichées rarely treat women as anything other than eye-candy or secretaries at best. True, there's the occasional Dragon-lady in Triad-settings but even if they are truly self-reliant (not always the case) they're typically portraied as the schemer, not so much the girl who goes out there and blows stuff up herself.

Last but not least I have to say though that the GTA-series at this point merely does his best not to die, content-wise. Pretty much another very tired franchise that could use a break and changing the gender of the protagonist at this point is pretty much in line with selling me a skin-set for full price.

 

[Casual Shinji]

No.

The GTA games deal with the underbelly of crime type scenarios, and the people you find within. You generally play the muscle or some ex con forced to do the bidding of a crime lord or corrupt cop. And this is typically a man's world.

Not that there aren't plenty of women in the crime circuit, but no role I think that would make for a "realistic" jumping off point for a GTA game.

 

[Amaror]

I don't think they will, because of reasons allready said, but i don't think that's such a bad thing.
GTA is a game that's aimed at men and while we have a real lot of that, it's not wrong to have games who are aimed towards one gender. It would be nice to have more games that aren't aimed towards a gender, but you can't really expect that kind of thing in an ongoing franchise.
Besides GTA does have some good female characters in them, if you don't count "generic date girl number 31". Pretty much all women in the story were good characters. They were stereotypes, sure, but all gta characters are somewhat stereotypical.

 

[Alfador_VII]

I'd like to play a female character, even if only in a DLC expansion.

It was a missed opportunity not having one of the 3 main characters in GTAV be female though

 

[RicoADF]

Or even in one of the dlcs.

If it ever happens - and I hope it will - it will only happen in an expansion. Too much of GTA's audience is the stupid "dude bro!" group who'd think it's "gay" to play as a "chick". Rockstar are still a company, and potentially losing such a large number of sales is something they will never do for a main release. It's a shame, but so very true.

I think it'd work great if they did. A female protagonist in a game about vice gives a unique perspective that we so rarely in any media, let alone games. It's an area dominated by men and where the outside world can barely even picture a woman fulfilling the same roles as you see from any of the other GTA leads. I think there is a ton of potential for a decent writer to create an interesting story.

It's less to do about it being gay and more to do with the particular world their generally portraying (gangs/mafia etc) are very much a male dominated errr.... profession? That's not to say women can't be portrayed, but it wont be as believable without touching on sensitive topics. Simply put its easier for Rockstar to just go with a man, since society considers us as monsters and expendable anyway most of the time (quite depressing really) compared to the opposite gender.

 

[Cookiegerard]

Would it be great?

Yes.

Will it happen?

No.

Even if it did, people would most likely complain about it. Remember the Whole Arkham City "*****" thing? In GTA, the character gets sweared out of the room a lot of times, and if it was a female character this being done to, there would be that small percentage who would complain, etc etc.

I would love to see it happen, but the people making it would have to be very careful not to fall into the usual traps you'd expect with the whole tough girl thing you'd need for that kind of game.

 

[josemlopes]

They've already done the Italian Mafia though. Notice how Rockstar doesn't re-tread old ground?

GTA III from what I remember was mainly about the Yakuza and Drug Cartels (it's been years since I played it)

Vice City was...the Mafia and 80's ethnic gangs from what I recall?

San Andreas was typical suburban American street gangs from the 90's. Heavily influenced by the Bloods and Crips wasn't it?

IV and it's expansions had the Russian Mob, family of Irish criminals, Bikers and Club owners trying to double cross eachother.

This is why I think someday there will be a possibility to play as a female in a GTA game, probably the next one since now we may get 3 characters per game. Rockstar likes to make things different, thats why GTA SA was all fun and games while GTA IV was very serious and gritty, some may have not liked it but it was a nice change of pace and let us see how a GTA game would look like if it was done like that (not the best, in my opinion).

It might not happen for a variety of gender-based reasons. Women are usually portrayed as not as willing to engage in vice, especially violent vice, as men. Also, a female protagonist who does all the same things as Belic or CJ would probably come off as shockingly tough or butch to the usual audience of male gamers, thus making her theoretically unappealing.

You are forgetting Catalina, she really tore shit apart in the other games and was just as crazy as the other male characters. She can be compared with the crazy dude from GTA V