Invisible Female Support Figures

This article analyses the representation of female agency in Wolfenstein: The New Order (2014) and Call of Duty: Black Ops Cold War (2020), two influential military-themed interactive narratives in contemporary Anglophone digital culture. From a qualitative-interpretative perspective and a close-reading approach, the article identifies narrative and mechanical patterns that naturalise male centrality as a structuring principle of socio-political organisation. Within this framework, female figures are positioned as subordinate agents who care for, assist and validate male protagonists. The apparent modernisation of the imagery of military video game narratives by including female characters in military plots operates as a superficial gesture of inclusion. As observed in the confinement of Anya Oliwa, Caroline Becker, and Helen Park to private and combat-free environments, US top-selling military interactive texts reproduce the ideals of Western Anglophone patriarchies. The salvific mission as the male hero’s providential task and women’s voluntary alignment with male heroic agency displace female characters from victory, recognition, and the legitimation of power.