10 Best Giant Women in Video Games

Resident Evil Village has created quite a stir online in recent weeks, with the character of Lady Dimitrescu sparking a wildfire of interest across social media. What is it about the apparently 9’6” vampire that has so thoroughly charmed her audience? Is it her sense of fashion? Her striking manners contrasting her violent actions in the game’s demo? Or is it the way she has to kneel down to walk through doors?

Whatever the case may be, Lady Dimitrescu is following in the custom-sized footsteps of many giant ladies that came before her. In the spirit of preserving video gaming history, we’re going to take a deep dive into these towering figures and ranking the ten that measure up the best.*

*By best, we don’t necessarily mean tallest — rather, these ten women are ranked in the order of how well they use their extreme height and how memorable they are to players.

 

10. Riho Futaba — Demolition Girl

Demolition Girl is a PS2 game released in 2005, in which model Riho Futaba, while minding her own business on a fashion shoot, is zapped by an alien being and grows to a gigantic size to wreak havoc on the city. You then have to shoot her with various military aircraft in an attempt to shrink her down.

Riho is an early example of giant woman representation in gaming, and while her skyscraper-size makes for a dynamic visual, the premise of the game — trying to shrink her back down, means that Demolition Girl views kaiju-sized women as something to discourage, rather than something to celebrate. Therefore, we have to relegate this game to the number 10 spot. There’s also the fact that this is a pretty leery game in the way it ogles Riho’s body, which has aged particularly poorly in the 16 years since its release.

 

9. Female Titan — Attack on Titan video games

A main antagonist of the Attack on Titan anime’s first season, the Female Titan is an imposing presence, especially when you have to go toe-to-giant-toe with her in the Attack on Titan video games. The female titan’s height is approximately 14 meters, or 45 feet — a height that proves her potential as a threat.

Unlike Riho, the Female Titan is also not designed to be pure eye candy (unless you have very specific tastes). Her exposed bone, muscle and tissue show her for the threat she is, before she actually gets close enough to squish you. She’s only this low on the list because, as a character from an anime, her existence in video games are sort of conditional to the source material.

 

8. Urbosa — The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

While Urbosa is the shortest tall woman on the list, measuring up at a (relatively) measly 6’7”, her stage presence and six pack abs more than make up for her more realistic stature. Urbosa towers over Link, who is supposedly the hero of legend. She’s also ruthlessly good at everything we see her do in flashbacks, making her a fan favorite character.

Urbosa is the leader of the Gerudo, a race of women who are almost all gigantic, with some reaching heights of 8 feet. As a monarch of these vertically-gifted warriors, Urbosa is a guiding light among giant women, even if she’s relatively low to the ground.

 

7. Crossbreed Priscilla — Dark Souls

One of the rare gentle giants of the Soulsborne family, Crossbreed Priscilla is an optional boss that stands at roughly 2.5x the height of the player character, clocking in at approximately 4 meters/13 feet.

A half-dragon hanging out in the painted world Ariamis, Priscilla is more than willing to just let you pass on your journey if you don’t bother her — a giant who knows her worth and knows what respect she deserves. She’ll also give you what you deserve if you attack her, fighting with a scythe, blizzard magic, and turning invisible — the harshest trick a giant woman can pull is to deprive us of seeing them at all.

(Some fans may be wondering why Priscilla made the list over Gwynevere. The reason is because Gwynevere is, sadly, an illusion cast by her brother Gwyndolin who, while taller than the average soul, is dependent on his snake legs for height, and also felt the need to hide behind a giant woman facade. We cannot accept such artificial giantness and therefore cannot include Gwynevere.)

 

6. Queen Bee / Honey Queen — Super Mario Galaxy

Super Mario Galaxy’s Queen Bee (who would later be renamed Honey Queen in Mario Kart 7, where she was tragically scaled down to fit in the same cars as all the other characters), is a gigantic bee overseeing the Honey Hive Galaxy. She speaks using the royal “we” and is a kind, welcoming presence to Mario during his interstellar journey.

She’s also absolutely enormous, easily 10 times Mario’s size. It makes sense that all the bees around her worship the ground she hovers over. The concept of bees and their queens is nothing new, but this Queen has a clear gravity all her own.

 

5. Phaedra — Shadow of the Colossus

So none of the colossi in Shadow of the Colossus technically have a gender, but as a game about the beauty and grandeur of really big beings, someone deserved a spot on this list. Phaedra is the fourth Colossus you encounter, where protagonist Wander has to lure them to lower their majestic head so he can climb on their rock column earrings (a giant has to know how to accessorize). Their graceful movement and baleful wail when struck all suggest the deeper personality behind those glowing eyes.

While the core gameplay of Shadow of the Colossus is about fighting and slaying these mythical beasts so Wander can resurrect his (pitifully regular sized) love, the game does treat this action as uncomfortable and cruel, even when it’s thrilling. Phaedra and the other Colossi are treated with respect and reverence, even as they are framed as your enemies. Also, Shadow of the Colossus was released in the same year as Demolition Girl, but had the good sense to understand that when you see a giant, interfering with her is morally dubious.

 

4. Vicar Amelia — Bloodborne

In contrast with Crossbreed Priscilla, we have Bloodborne’s Vicar Amelia. An ordinary human whom you witness transform into a wicked fox-deer-lady, Vic Amelia is one of Bloodborne’s major chokepoints. She has a ton of health, barely takes damage from your attacks, and has the magical wherewithal to be able to heal herself, making her stand head and shoulders (and antlers) above the rest.

She’s also a vicar, a high-ranking position in Bloodborne’s Healing Church, meaning this is a giant woman with ambition toward her career and conviction in her faith. She may not have the cultural refinement of Lady Dimitescu, but Vicar Amelia still clearly has a great heart underneath all the fur and claws.

 

3. Simone — Nier: Automata

Simone is a self-made woman, literally. A robot who fell madly in love with another robot, without really understanding what love is because she’s a robot in the wreckage of a ruined world, Simone sought out answers for her strange infatuation and discovered the human concept of beauty. To try and win her crush’s affection, Simone cobbled together a new body out of enemy androids and her own fellow robots, all in the hope of making a form that would be irresistible.

While things might not work out for Simone within Nier: Automata, she’s definitely successful in making an unforgettable form. In her new body, crafted to look reminiscent of an opera singer, Simone sticks out as one of the most memorable boss fights in the whole game, made better by the fact you get to do it twice.

Simone de Beauvoir, after whom Simone was named, famously said “one is not born, but rather becomes, a woman.” Robot Simone, not to be outdone, became a super cool giant woman.

 

2. Cala Maria — Cuphead

One of the many super-sized opponents in the boss rush extravaganza of 2017’s Cuphead, Cala Maria is a giant mermaid, and later gorgon, because there’s no reason giants can’t reinvent themselves.

Cala Maria is a great giant woman because of how active she is, as most Cuphead bosses are loath to give you a moment of time to breathe and make a plan. Maria also has an active social circle, with the snakes in her hair, eels, sea turtles, and other fish that help her during the boss fight.

Cala Maria appears friendly and approachable at first, giving an easy-going “yoohoo” at the start of the fight even as she’s preparing to murder you. Even when her head detaches for the last phase of her fight, she dwarfs protagonist Cuphead in size. Cala Maria is indicative of the duality of giant women — both enticing in their scale and daunting in the pure power they wield.

 

1. Great Fairies — The Legend of Zelda Series

Across all of gaming history, one lineage of giant women has to be revered as the best in the business. The Great Fairies, as seen in multiple installments in the Legend of Zelda series’ 3D installments, are the undisputed queens of the hill.

From the first time one appears, laughing/screaming at the top of her lungs in Ocarina of Time, the Great Fairies have exemplified the traits of giant women. First, they are of course giant. The Ocarina of Time fairies are at least four times Link’s height, and their most recent iteration, in Breath of the Wild and Hyrule Warriors: Age of Calamity, are too big to even appear in full — hanging out in their fairy fountains, they can pick Link up in one hand.

The Great Fairies exude confidence, kindness, and charisma. They are the crowned champions of giant women in video games.

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