20 Greatest Female Video Game Characters Of All Time
17. GLaDOS (Portal)
The term "female" could be being applied a bit loosely here, but if we opened the discussion into "can AIs have a gender?" we'd be dredging up a can of worms straight out of Bade Runner or Ex Machina. GLaDOS is by far one of the most iconic aspects of the two Portal games (and that's saying something about a series that's this densely populated with genius moments) with her brutal dark humour and incredible voice-acting cementing the character as a fan-favourite. But it's probably how unique she is compared to the others on this list that makes her stand out the most. While yeah, there's been AI characters in games before this, they've usually just been riffs on the types of films and media mentioned earlier, rather than a play on the archetypes and genre cliches. GLaDOS provided a much needed respite from all that, and the character ended up all the better for it.
Josh has over 11 years of experience as a published writer, having worked nine of those years as a full-time content producer at WhatCulture. In that period he has created hundreds of articles, videos and podcast episodes for multiple WhatCulture channels, specialising in gaming, horror and film & TV. He now primarily works as a senior content producer and presenter on WhatCulture Gaming where he co-hosts the WhatCulture Gaming Podcast, a top 3 UK most listened to gaming podcast that he co-created in 2018. Over the years he has reviewed several high-profile gaming releases, covered industry events with on-site reporting, opined on breaking news, and even kicked off his interviewing career by chatting to childhood hero, Tommy Wiseau.
