Gaming

Assassin's Creed Odyssey female lead is canon, although you have the choice to play the male as well.

Can I suggest some great novel games?

**VA-11 HALL-A: Cyberpunk Bartender Action **

• play as a bartender and change outcomes of stories by providing different drinks

Fatal Twelve

• death game, mystery, lesbian couple as main character, one of the best

Whoa whoa whats wrong with Senua?

Besides me wanting to immediately say things like Metroid, Celeste, Tomb Raider, Life is Strange and such.

Games I enjoyed

• Cat Lady / Lorelai
• DOS2 (technically you can just play Sebille and Lohse stories)
• fault milestone (incomplete)
• anything by Christine Love (visual novels)
• Transistor

Then other random games I can think of that I didn't see listed

• Fatal Frame
• Bleed
• They Bleed Pixels
• Franbow
• Beyond Good and Evil
• Beyond Two Souls
• Indivisible
• Hatsune Miku games? (lol)
• Potionomics
• Alice Madness Returns
• Tandem: A Tale of Shadows
• Gris
• Little Misfortune
• Crypt of the Necrodancer
• Neptunia series
• Saintmaker

And I should stop before I am here all day thinking... lol

Mirror's Edge is a good one I haven't seen mentioned yet. A bit older by this point but it was a fun one.
Transistor is another great one. The gameplay was fine but the art and sound is incredible.

beyond good and evil is great

Great list from @mint@beehaw.org, just a few more:
Gris is an absolute gem.
The A Plague Tale duology is also up there (with Requiem being my favourite game of all time, so I'm extremely biased, sorry / not sorry :D).

Trying to find some that haven't been talked about yet:

Echo. It's a fantastic experimental infiltration game with an AI that adapts to your way of playing. The setup is very impressive.

Pathologic: one of the three playable characters (the Changeling). It's a bizarre russian game, with an unique world, and messy gameplay. Can't recommend it enough.

Va11 Hall-A: chill bartending game in a cyberpunk setup.

The Blackwell series: comfy, kind of amateurish point and clicks by Wadjet Eye. I like them very much.

Transistor: weirdest game by Supergiant. You play as a redhead with a talking sword. I don't remember much about it except that it was good.

The Fall: (pushing it a little bit, since the protagonist is an AI, but I've always seen here as female.) Criminally underrated puzzle games, disguised as metroidvanias.

Eliza (by Zachtronics): the only visual novel I enjoyed. It's hard to explain, it's about AI, burnout, whether tech dehumanizes people, and solitaire.

Hedon Duology: for something completely different, it's a slightly kinky retroshooter, with amazon Orcs fighting demons.
It may sound a bit dumb, but it's excellent. Huge levels, interesting worldbuilding, and a gameplay based on exploration, puzzles as well as shooting.

There's probably a ton more, but that's all I can think about at the moment.

Cyberpunk!

Ms Pac Man obviously

Forspoken isn't bad.... As long as it's played completely dubbed in Japanese with subs on. Obviously last of us 2 was really great, horizon is also very well acted, and very well done. I think it also is inclusive in a way that matters where some games just replace the protag with a woman, these games build it into narrative as well. In the same vein, I really liked life is strange (even colors to be honest)

Jade from Beyond Good and Evil.

Surprised no one has mentioned Tomb Raider yet. Others not yet mentioned:

• Assassin's Creed: Liberation, and Chronicles: China
• Beyond: Two Souls
• The Last of Us Part II
• inFamous: First Light

Returnal is a great game if you like roguelite mechanics. Great gameplay, art design, and sound. The haptics on the PS5 are excellent too.

Night in the Woods is objectively the best game ever made by any measure. Tacoma and Gone Home are amazing too.

I mean I dunno, it depends on what kind of games you like, surely?

I'm having a great time finally getting into What Remains of Edith Finch.

Control is excellent

Not female, but the protagonist of Outer Wilds is nonbinary, as is their entire species.

A few more that may not be mentioned:

Dandara - fun platformer

Ion Fury - throwback to 90s shooters, good if you can handle some juvenile humor.

Knights and Bikes - played through with my daughter and we loved it.

(Edit: runekn mentioned this already) Spiritfarer - low pressure gameplay, story and exploration focused

Plague Tale:Innocence and Requiem

A group of developers have created a version of the game and it's sequels that runs on modern machines: http://nolfrevival.tk/

Silent Hill 3 has a great female protagonist imo, but you have to play Silent Hill 1 to get the gist of the story in 3.

Don't see it mentioned yet, it's an older game but Remember Me is pretty good

The Mass Effect series is still my favorite, you can choose your protagonist to be female and the game will adapt accordingly. Or Dragon Age if you are more into fantasy.

It Takes Two has a great protagonist

Dreamfall: The Longest Journey. After playing it for a while I couldn't stop until I reached the end. It looks aged now but controls are generally nice and the story is amazing. And I think the character feels feminine, it's not just a neutral character with a female skin.

There's this weird game from a while back that didn't get much hype.

You'll find it either as "The Experiment" or "Experience112". Got some interesting mechanics, which later influenced another niche game I just realized has a female protagonist: Republique.

Technically, you don't play as a female protagonist. But you're essentially not the main character and you have no discernible physical features anyway, so you could just apply whatever gender you want to whoever you think "your character" is.

It's kind of like... "Female protagonist by proxy". I feel like that's a decent description. The point is that the main character is a (generally) well-written lady protag.

If you're into the anime aesthetic: Nier Automata, Atelier series, and Recettear. I think FFXIII is fun but people would argue otherwise.