While a customizable protagonist with gender choice is nice, it's not really in the same discussion category. A static protagonist -- a lead character with a personality, characterization, and growth arc -- is a different thing. And for those to be women, let alone well-written women, is comparatively much rarer. One major reviewer I watch often did a diversity breakdown of recently reviewed games and it's kinda bleak (photo attached, here's the source). Improving, but bleak.

Let alone many of the women we're given fall into some pretty common pitfalls for writing women (here's a good discussion on that subject in the context of a specific show--Arcane--but the advice is pretty damn solid and generally applicable) so even with the examples we have, we're often left wanting. Which is why, despite my inclusion of a pie chart above as quick data to digest the problem, it's important not to look at diversity in games as a checkbox. It's nice to be able to play as Kassandra instead of Alexios, but adding a throwaway line every 15th quest about how some rando isn't sure a woman can handle this job doesn't help make me feel like Kassandra is on my wavelength.

And this isn't even a vital issue for me. I've been playing as Mario since I was 6. As Snake, as Ezio, as Link, as Geralt, as Cloud... a good game is a good game no matter who leads it.

....but it's really nice to feel like a dev gets me sometimes, and it's so rare.