Games

Portal! Chell may be silent, but it's directly stated that she got as far as she had due to sheer tenacity and resourcefulness

Also, Silksong, if you're willing to wait for its release in 2377 AD

I scrolled until I gave up shame on all of you. Play Portal, solve puzzles, there is multiplayer songs and cake.

Ooo ooo I’ve got one.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits. It’s like a Pixar souls like adventure game. Lots of foresty magic, very beautiful, and challenging enough to give you a run for your money while she laughs at your many failures.

It’s a good game.

Celeste. It’s a platformer with a nice story about anxiety and overcoming one’s fears.

Idk if this counts as it's not visually obvious, but Amaterasu from Ōkami is a fun female protangonist, on account of her being straight up Amaterasu Ōmikami, the sun goddess (and all around top dog) from Japanese mythology. Graceful and elegant and also she's a big ol' wolf who does doggy things, which I imagine would delight a 5 year old.

The game's artstyle is really stylised and pretty, the story is based on Japanese mythology and legends which I'd think would also interest a kid, it's kinda zelda-like with puzzles and whatnot, and there's a dedicated woof button. It came out way back in 2006 but at the same time it's been remastered pretty recently (it's in capcom's summer steam sale if you're going down that route) so you've got some choice about which route to go down trying to find it. Try and stick to European versions if you can because apparently the American localisations removed most of the mentions of the fact that Ammy is a girl which imo is a really weird choice because like, that's a whole ass mythological figure?

Honestly, Spiritfarer would be perfect. You can play local co-op, it's quite easy. You will understand what's going on but your daughter will just think it's cute. One of you can play as a cat. It's absolutely gorgeous and a very poignant story.

My partner and I have played it all the way through 3 times now.

https://youtu.be/4pKJ-NuSjNE

any Metroid

Satisfactory.

She's fearless

She conquers a planet

She's an engineer

• Sayonara Wild Hearts
• Celeste
• Sable
• Night in the Woods (female, but also an anthropomorphosised cat. Maybe too boring-adulty conversational for a kid to enjoy watching)
• ~~Assassin's Creed: Odyssee~~
• Shantae: Half-Genie Hero
• Gris
• Transistor
• Ori and the Blind Forest

A Short Hike. Lead character is called Claire. No combat, no death, no resets. Just exploring, puzzles and story.

A hat in time is a wonderful mario style game with a young female protagonist.

Eventually she should play Horizon Zero Dawn 😁

Check out En Garde, it releases on the 16th. Swaggy protag, the fighting is comedy based and sanitized, and it looks like it'll be a blast.

I have to recommend CrossCode, since it is so damn underrated.

It's a beautifully crafted 2D / sprite based 16bit / SNES era inspired RPG with a fast paced action combat system and puzzle filled dungeons, as well as big boss fights. Although the trailers do not do it justice imo. It contains one of my favorite protagonists, which is sort of mute, which is also part of the story and cause of some hilarious but also sad moments. Pretty wholesome friendship based storytelling for the most part, although it does contain one suicide towards the end, which gets a little darker too. It's not graphic though and will topically probably fly over her head anyway. The spoiler free premise is that you play in sort of a MMORPG, which is located physically on another planet where they build something akin to a Westworld theme park out of something similar to nanobots, in which you control your avatar remotely made out of the same material. It has tons of accessibility options to adjust the difficulty too, in case something isn't quite your cup of tea.

Kena: Bridge of Spirits is a wonderful game.

Shovel Knight allows you to gender swap all major characters.

Alba and Monument Valley

Mirror's Edge

Ratchet and Clank: Rift Apart has you play at least half the game as a lady Lombax.

Stardew Valley. They might find that a bit dull though.

Endling if you want to see your child in floods of tears.

Probably be a few years before you can play It Takes Two together. I think my niece is 8 or so, and she played that with her mum. Also tried with her dad, but was less successful because he doesn't listen.

Beyond Good & Evil should be amazing. Strong female lead, your companion is a pig and you get to take pictures of pretty things.

What about ROM hacks with Zelda replacing link?

Aside from Portal, maybe Mirrors Edge? There's bullets and fighting, but I don't remember too much violence. Maybe Tales Of Berseria?

Once she's older, that opens the door to The Walking Dead telltale series, Resident Evil, Assassins Creed (one of them anyway), Silent Hill, and (the new) Tomb Raiders.

Tomb Raider might not be too bad either considering the focus on stealth and puzzle solving

Mario Bros 2 and choose Peach on every level

My first thought was Never Alone

It is a puzzle platform adventure and the main character is a little girl probably around your daughter's age who befriends an arctic fox. It's an educational game about the Iñupiat people and their culture.

I dont know if there's any scary scenes but since the main character is a child and the main focus of the game is to be educational, I doubt there will be anything too inappropriate. There will probably be things that she won't understand but just about everything will have things here and there she wont understand - she's 5.

wandersong is a super simple game that she might be able to play. You play a pacifist bard who just is naive, friendly to a fault. The bard is a male, but the villain, supporting cast, it's quite diverse with some strong females cast in. It's got a pretty good story and a lot of sesame street level lessons on life in there too. Even starts a conversation on what strength truly is. Totally something you should look at.

Slime rancher is another super chill, might actually be able to play herself, game where you do play as a female protaganist, but much lighter on plot than wandersong. You basically farm cute adorable slimes and it's genuinely pretty addictive and super relaxing after a shitty day.

Mirror's Edge you play as a female protagonist. Plot might be a bit steep for her.

If you haven't played through portal 1 or 2 yet, I bet it could be fun. Glados is silly, Chell (who you play but doesn't talk) is female and she can help you with the puzzles a bit.

This wasn't mentioned and it's ideal: https://store.steampowered.com/app/1337010/Alba_A_Wildlife_Adventure/

It's an older game but Beyond Good and Evil is a classic.

Mirrors edge is fun to watch with a badass woman, with mild violence

I liked horizon zero dawn a lot. It's mild violence, but mostly with mech dinosaurs.

My daughter just turned 6!

She loves watching, in no particular order:

• Horizon Zero Dawn (when I let her)
• Ratchet and Clank Rift Apart (rivet is a strong female co-lead)
• Bugsnax (lots of characters of various genders)
• Tears of the Kingdom (Zelda is her favorite)
• Metroid (she's watched Prime Remastered and Dread and loves that Samus is a girl)
• Mario Kart 8 (so she can be peach or Rosalina)
• Kena Bridge of Spirits

She also likes playing Pokemon and Drawn to Life now that she can read.

Horizon: Zero Dawn would be an excellent choice.

A Hat in Time. It’s like those classic platformers for N64.

Metroid dread

New Super Mario Bros. U Deluxe has Toadette and Peachette.

Super Mario 3D World has Peach / Cat Peach.

My daughter beat them both at 5 years old. There's also Mario Kart 8 which also has Peach. You may be noticing a theme here.

There's also the Lego games where you get to choose your character and she always picks the girls.

Miitopia is great because you create your own characters. She makes the entire team girls.

My Friend Peppa is kinda entertaining, but she didn't really care for it all that much.

Kirby is pretty great and both games Return to Dreamland and Forgotten Land are accessible, though both ramp up difficulty later. (Kirby is gender neutral)

There are more games out there, like Kena, Metroid, Celeste, Shantae, but not for her age yet.

Terraria has a bunch of options for gender PLUS it's the best game ever made.