From Lara Croft to Lucía Caminos: Why does a female lead in a video game still provoke backlash?

The trailer for GTA VI, the latest installment in the acclaimed Grand Theft Auto video game series, introduces Lucía Caminos, a Latina woman, as one of the protagonists alongside her partner, Jason Duval. Criticism from some fans of the franchise quickly surfaced online. Beyond comments about Caminos’s appearance, some users have labelled her “too dominant” because of her personality and questioned her weapons skills, which they deem “unrealistic for a woman,” even comparing them to those of a U.S. Marine.

These reactions highlight the sexist attitudes that persist within parts of the gaming community. Resistance to women playing prominent roles, however, is not unique to GTA VI. Similar backlash has accompanied other games, such as World of Warcraft, The Last of Us and Horizon.

Content creator and streamer Enya Aguado Martín, 31, better known as EnyusTV on Twitch, where she broadcasts gaming content, first got into video games at the age of five, as soon as she had the “physical ability to hold a controller.” It was only two years ago, however, that she began playing GTA V’s online roleplay mode.

She went viral thanks to a character she created, La Chusti, a former drug addict who caught the attention of internet users for breaking with the beauty standards typically found in the game. “In roleplay, bodies tend to be highly stereotyped: big breasts, big curves, a tiny waist. The typical normative body,” Aguado explains.

Chusti, by contrast, is a “small woman with a petite frame. She’s very realistic: very long, thin arms, very large hands, a noticeably misshapen face and a lazy eye. Her face and body show the consequences of what she’s lived through,” says the content creator.

Aguado says the difference between playing a female character and a male one is striking. When she logs into a game as La Chusti, it is common for other players to call her “ugly” or tell her that she “would look better with makeup.” The reactions change, however, when she uses a male character she also created, whom she describes as looking like “a complete loser.”

“They don’t make those comments with the male character,” she says. “They make other kinds of remarks, like ‘Virgin, loser,’ but no one’s called him ugly. There are no allusions to his appearance, not one.”

‘Secondary, rescued, submissive and sexualized’

What Aguado says about La Chusti is just one more example of the hostility that some members of the gaming community display toward certain female characters. Not all female protagonists, however, have provoked the same reaction. Lara Croft, from the Tomb Raider series, became one of the most iconic women in video games, but she also embodied a very specific beauty ideal: “pretty, very voluptuous, large-breasted and highly sexualized,” in Aguado’s words.

The streamer recalls that boys also enjoyed playing as Lara Croft, but argues that they did so “with different connotations.” By contrast, she says that complaints tend to emerge when contemporary games feature women who “deviate too far from that ideal.”

Ellie and Abby, the protagonists of The Last of Us, as well as Aloy, from Horizon, have likewise faced criticism over their appearance. Aguado recalls comments aimed at Abby such as: “She’s got bigger arms than you. She looks like a man,” while some players went so far as to describe Aloy as “ugly.”

Gisela Vaquero, a video game developer at Jellyworld Interactive and co-founder of Women in Games, an organization established in 2017 to raise the profile of women in the industry, sums up in four words the stereotypes that have historically shaped the portrayal of women in video games: “secondary, rescued, submissive and sexualized.”

This depiction mirrors the patterns identified in a study by Spain’s Institute for Women, published in February 2025, which cites research on the hypersexualization of female characters, their portrayal as perpetual adolescents and the tendency for their dialogue to carry a greater emotional burden than that of male characters.

For Vaquero, the problem is that part of the audience has become used to “the protagonist being a man who makes decisions, takes actions and is above the rest.” When that dynamic changes and a woman takes center stage, she explains, “some people don’t see it as normal.”

Vaquero stresses that it would be wrong to generalize, since many players have welcomed the fact that Lucía Caminos shares the spotlight in GTA VI with Jason Duval. The game will allow players to control both characters and switch between them in certain situations, although the ability to do so will depend on the mission and the progression of the story. Players will also be able to decide whether to develop the romantic relationship between the two, though they will remain partners in crime.

“Each character will have their own storyline and will continue doing things when you’re not controlling them,” says Vaquero. “It’s not about taking space away from one to give it to the other. Rockstar wanted to show something different, and I think it’s a powerful and beneficial change. Why shouldn’t we be able to play as more characters, including women?”

For Elisa Peña, a 28-year-old streamer and voice actress from Madrid better known as Elisa Waves, the most extreme negative comments about female video game protagonists are enabled by the anonymity of social media. “Being on a forum where you can feel backed by others who share your views is not the same as talking about it in real life. The polarized opinions on the internet do not represent all players,” she explains.

Enya Aguado shares this view: “They’re all anonymous comments, usually with the typical Cristiano Ronaldo profile picture. They rarely show their faces, and when they do, the kind of profile you find is usually quite surprising.”

Aguado also points to the contradiction between some sexist remarks and the family-oriented image their authors project online: “They appear with two small children, whom you assume are their kids, and you think: ‘You’re supposed to be someone who should set a certain example.’”

Aguado attributes some players’ negative reactions to women in leading roles to a mix of polarization and frustration. “They’re people with frustrations or hate that they need to externalize and who, generally, do it on social media. We’ve already seen this in other areas, not only against women,” she says.

Although women account for 48.5% of video game players in Spain — out of a total of 22.8 million gamers in 2025, according to the Spanish Video Game Association (AEVI) — Vaquero argues that many do not feel represented in the medium.

The developer believes that Lucía Caminos could encourage more women to engage with gaming: “Probably some will play GTA VI, even if they never have before, precisely because Lucía is there,” she says.

Both the game developer and the streamers from Madrid and Alicante agree that the day a woman starring in a video game ceases to be news will be a sign that her presence has become normalized.

Aguado believes representation is key to dismantling prejudices: “When you realize the story is good, that it really doesn’t bother you that the character is different from what you expected and you keep playing, that prejudice disappears.”

She continues: “For that to happen, representation has to continue, despite the pressure exerted by people who express their rejection through sexist comments online. That way, that segment of players will become smaller and smaller.”

Vaquero acknowledges there will always be controversy but trusts that GTA VI will help change that dynamic. “It’s one of the most important franchises in history, and it has a lot of clout. That’s why I find it positive that there are female characters who take the initiative and that Lucía has a leading role in the next installment,” she says.

For the developer, progress also means moving away from female characters built around hypersexualization and passivity. The fact that a franchise of this scale places a woman at the center of its story, she concludes, could mark a step forward.

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