8 Iconic Moments From Each Era Of Games

Thankfully video games have come far enough that "the badass is actually a woman!" is no longer a plot twist, but all the same, there's little denying the triumphant climactic reveal that Metroid's alien-wrecking protagonist is, in fact, a lady.

In several of the game's endings, Samus Aran will remove their helmet to reveal that they're in fact a woman, which per regrettable gender norms of ass-kicking video game protagonists in the 1980s, made it a huge shock for players.

Given that Metroid was heavily influenced by Ridley Scott's film Alien, it certainly tracks that its action hero would be female, and over four decades later, it's probably fair to say that Samus is every bit the statuesque sci-fi heroine that Sigourney Weaver's Ellen Ripley is.

The forward-thinking nature of this reveal (for the time) is undercut slightly, however, by an additional ending in which Samus strips down to a bikini. 

All the same, Samus nevertheless broke down barriers for gaming heroines and broadened players' horizons of what a digital action hero could look like.