My favorite example of an otherwise good game being unnecessarily dragged down by a deliberately unappealing protagonist is Returnal. AAA production values, intense shooter gameplay, roguelite difficulty - everything screams target audience of 15-35yo males. So why is the main character a scowling, homely, middle-aged woman?

Well the studio behind Returnal has a new game coming soon. Same genre, same production values, a sequel in all but name. And the protagonist is a gruff masculine dude?

Another modern girl boss game was Control (from Remedy, the makers of the supremely retarded Alan Wake 2, a game that replaced the literal title character with a black female diversity hire). Famously, Remedy deliberately uglified the female protagonist of Control with a manjaw. She looks way worse than real life model.

The direct sequel to Control features a white male protagonist.

Now maybe these characters are gay. I'm sure they'll be thoroughly soy and leftist. But it's interesting to see big new sequel games from obviously woke developers begrudgingly turning to male main characters. As a rule, these swaps generally only go one way.