Cirilla Fiona Elen Riannon. The most powerful female characters of video games

Perhaps one of the baldest decisions taken by the writers from CD Projekt RED was keeping Ciri in the closet for two entire games. She only appeared in the series in 2015, along with Yennefer. But when she did, she showed us all what it means to be a child of elder blood. Too bad we only controlled her a few times in the game.

Andrzej Sapkowski managed to create a slew of extraordinary characters. Of course, CD Projekt came really close with figures like Thaler or Vernon Roche, but it's obviously nowhere near the character depth that Ciri enjoys as the subjects of no less than seven books. The game simply depicts Cirilla according to the books – determined and devoted, but still very emotional. And, of course, deadly. She's not only as dangerous a swordswoman as the witchers, but she's also a mighty witch. Almost divine.

Traveling between dimensions, Ciri even found herself briefly in a cyberpunk-like world, which she mentioned as she recounted her adventures at a campfire. In truth, it was definitely the Night City of Cyberpunk 2077. Too bad she wasn't involved in CDPR's newest game, but then considering the technical pitfalls it ran into, maybe it's for the best.

Viconia

Viconia is such an iconic character that when we think of drows as a race, we usually imagine her first. Jokes aside, though – at the time of Baldur's Gate's release, the dark elves were mostly only familiar to pen-and-paper RPG aficionados, and veterans of pulp fantasy. They entered mainstream pop-culture exactly because of the priestess Shara, exiled from her homeland, the Underdark.

As befits a member of her race, Viconia despises the weak, appreciates brutality, and takes pride in her killings. In the past, she worshipped Lolth, but abandoned her in favor of Shara. This has given her some pretty good abilities – as a priestess, she's kind of unrivaled in both games. However, due to her neutral-evil nature, joining her into the team may result in conflicts and breakup of the entire group. But even then – it's worth it. Because of romance, great voice acting, and some really witty and sharp remarks she casts at the members of the party.

In a world of knights in shining armors, tossing around platitudes about saving the world, she seems the most intriguing character. Depending on the player's choices, the priestess may change her ways to some extent, but her definition of earthly ethics is still far from ours. Besides, humanity was unlikely to earn her respect anyway – she treated humans coldly at best, and buried them alive at worst. There sure isn't a heroine on the BGII party who would be more afflicted by fate than her. And at the same time more passionate, both in anger (usually) and joy (but only sometimes).

Commander Shepard

At first, BioWare's marketing campaign was focused on the male Shepard. Until a few years after the release of the original, 80% of players played male. Over time, however, the Canadian studio begun to recognize fem Shepard's potential, increasing her presence in promo materials. This visibly boosted the femshep lot of players.

Shepard saves the Citadel, assembles a killer crew aboard SR2 Normandy, dies, is resurrected, and saves the Milky Way from an invasion of machine-like creatures straight out of Lovecraftian nightmares. That would be the shortest way to describe the plot of Mass Effect, starred by commander Shepard. We could later see inAndromeda, which, although decent in terms of story, lacked the distinct protagonist that used to be provided by Shepard.

One has to applaud the stellar work done by Jennifer Hale, the voice actor cast as the female Commander. She didn't perform the role, she was Sheppard. Male Shepard, on the other hand, sounds kind of more basic, though this is possibly the only flaw one could find in Mark Meer's performance. The male protagonist seems a bit less fleshed out in terms of vocal performance, so it's a tad more difficult to really make him your own character. The male Shepard is better suited for a more generic RPG, while Jane is definitely better for a story-focused adventure. While both have great moments in their own ways, I prefer female Shepard. And when I think of the ultimate triumph over the Reapers, I can see only that great gal there in the rubble.