Subversive game mechanics in the Fatal Frame and Portal franchises: Having your cake and eating it too

Game mechanics, as much as representation, can reinforce or subvert gender stereotypes. This chapter examines how games in the Fatal Frame and Portal franchises, noted for their thematic attention to gender and inclusion of female heroines, engage the link between first-person-shooter (FPS) mechanics, violent combat, and masculine identity. At the level of representation, Fatal Frame and Portal appear to subvert common tropes. In both games, active female player-characters ‘shoot’, but not to kill. The act of shooting is divorced from its typically violent context (in Portal the player’s gun produces doorways, in Fatal Frame the player shoots pictures with a camera). However, this chapter posits that Fatal Frame associates the female protagonist Miku with lesser forms of violence, reifying the notion that women are physically weaker than men. Conversely, Portal uses unconventional mechanics to craft an empowering, yet non-violent, female protagonist.