Six incredible women who made our favorite games of last year happen

A few of the many women who created the incredible video games we loved over the last 12 months

It’s International Women’s Day, and as all gamers know it’s the time of year when a number of people slap together their lists of the most popular women characters in gaming. There are dozens of amazing women characters, but I hate to break it to you, Tifa Lockhart isn’t real. Also, if Tifa Lockhart was real, I don’t think we would need to remind people of how great she is, given how she saved the world from evil, and images of her in a bikini are filling up our social media feeds.

While paying homage to women characters is nice, what is even nicer is remembering and respecting the real women who make the video games we love so much. It’s easy to make your shrine to just how badass Bayonetta is, but I don’t see many teenage boys with posters of Roberta Williams in their bedrooms. These six amazing women are some of the many who created the incredible video games we loved over the last 12 or so months. If you have enjoyed any of the amazing games on the list, now you know who to thank.

Tilly Steele

Baldur’s Gate 3 is one of the standout games of last year, and among the dozens of accolades it’s been given are several awards for performance. Neil Newbon took home Best Performance for his role as Astarion at gaming’s biggest award show, The Game Awards, and a massive five Baldur’s Gate 3 actors were nominated for their performances at the BAFTAs this year.

Baldur's Gate 3's memorable cast of characters was brought to life by voice and performance director Tilly Steele / Larian Studios

This brings us to the incredible Tilly Steele, the voice and performance director of Baldur’s Gate 3, the woman who made all of those beloved characters come to life. She made Astarion sexy, Shadowheart mysterious, and Lae’zel fierce. If you fell in love with any of Baldur’s Gate 3’s many excellent characters, now you know who made them come to life.

Yoko Shimomura

I hope you all know the name Yoko Shimomura by now, as she is one of the most prolific composers in video games. She is probably best known for her work on the Kingdom Hearts series, which has some of the most iconic soundtracks in all of video games. Last year, the video game industry revived a huge number of classic games, and players were able to fall in love with Shimomura’s music all over again.

Super Mario RPG's remake brought Yoko Shimomura's excellent themes back into the spotlight, elevated by her incredible new arrangements made for the 2023 release / Nintendo

In 2023 alone, the remakes of both Live A Live and Super Mario RPG brought Shimomura’s incredible music back into the limelight. Shimomura’s soundtracks never miss, and those catchy songs remain in our heads long after we’ve rolled the credits. Music is one of the main ways that developers bring their stories to life, and we should be thankful to Shimomura for the endless bangers she has brought to us over the decades.

Brigitta Rena and Galuh Elsa

A Space for the Unbound is one of my favourite games of last year, and by the time I had learned the truth of Atma and Raya’s story I was left a crumpled mess of tears. A Space for the Unbound is firmly set in the supernatural, in a country I have never visited, and yet I could relate to Raya’s kindness, her hardships, her troubled inner world so strongly.

A Space for the Unbound's pixel art is elevated by excellent writing from Brigitta Rena and Galuh Elsa / Toge Productions

Despite all of the things that distanced me from the world of A Space for the Unbound, the universal human experience is what bound me so closely to the characters. It’s the writing that makes the whole story so strong and so knowable, and for that, we have Brigitta Rena and Galuh Elsa to thank. Mojiken Studio has a history of excellent games, and we hope this woman writing duo will bring us so much more.

Abby Howard

Before becoming a game developer, Abby Howard was best known as a comic book artist, and took the leap into games when she co-founded Black Tabby Games with her husband. While small indie studios like this don’t always get the limelight they deserve, Black Tabby Games certainly did, with one of the highest-rated games of the year by both critics and players, Slay the Princess.

Slay the Princess, created by Abby Howard and her husband Tony Howard-Arias, is one of the highest-rated indie games of 2023 / Black Tabby Games

Aside from twisting expected norms on its head, Slay the Princess stood out from the crowd in a number of ways. The comic book-style black and white art style belied the tragic story underneath, and this interesting artistic choice compelled gamers to look deeper. Creating all the art herself, Howard stands out as one of the best women developers of the year, and we can’t wait to play her next project.

Hana Takeda

In Japan, voice actors are as famous as their on-screen counterparts and multitudes more prolific. With that in mind Hana Takeda provided us with a number of performances that made us fall further in love with our favorite games such as providing a number of voices for Starfield, but there is one performance we loved above all others.

Seonhee from Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is Hana Takeda's latest voice role / Sega

It’s a recent release, but Takeda’s performance of Seonhee in Like a Dragon: Infinite Wealth is one of our favorites of all time, and one of the reasons that the leader of the Geomijul and Liumang feels just so powerful. The voice performances in the Yakuza series are known for their excellence, which is why the series forewent an English dub for most of its lifespan. Thank you, Takeda, for bringing us Seonhee; we wouldn’t have her any other way.

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