WayForward fought hard to keep Shantae as a lead character

It’s not too often that you see a female protagonist in a video game. When Shantae was in development over a decade ago, this was even no prominent.

And so it shouldn’t be too surprising to hear that for the first Shantae, WayForward was asked – likely by publishers – to put the character on the back-burner in favor for a male hero. According to the studio’s Matt Bozon, even though WayForward lost “many, many battles early on”, the team didn’t budge “and never made Shantae the 2nd playable character”.

“We had many, many battles early on and lost. But we stuck to our guns and never made Shantae the 2nd playable character next to a male hero (it was suggested many times). So I like to think we softened the game biz up a bit.”

Source, Via