Happy International Women’s Day to all our readers. 

To celebrate the occasion, we thought we’d highlight some amazingly talented and truly inspirational women working in game development.

This list in no particular order and is by no means an exhaustive list. This is barely the tip of the iceberg. 

That being said, let’s begin.

Amy Hennig

Amy Hennig is an American games industry veteran who started her career in the industry in the 1980’s. 

Some of her notable works include Legacy of Kain, Jak and Daxter, and the Uncharted series. 

She is currently the writer for Square Enix’s upcoming Forspoken. 

Hennig has won several awards for her work on the Uncharted series and continues to be a force in the industry to this day.

Yoko Shimomura 

Yoko Shimomura is a Japanese composer and pianist whose musical stylings have served as the soundtrack to many of our childhoods. 

Some of her notable work includes the soundtracks of Final Fight, Street Fighter II, “Trade City” from the original Breath of Fire, Front Mission, Super Mario RPG, Parasite Eve, Legend of Mana, several games in the Kingdom Hearts series, Xenoblade Chronicles, Final Fantasy XV, and Streets of Rage 4, just to name a few.

Shimomura is undoubtedly one of the biggest names in the video game music industry and has been described as one of the most famous video game music composers in the world. 

Jen Zee

Jen Zee is the Art Director for Supergiant Games and is a big reason why their games look as gorgeous as they do.

She has worked with them since the days of their first game Bastion, through Transistor, Pyre, and all the way to Hades. 

Each of these games garnered a positive reaction with Hades setting the games industry ablaze for a brief stint back when it was released.

Her creative and gorgeous art elevates every one of Supergiant Games’ hits to the next level and serves as inspiration for fans everywhere.

Kim Swift

Kim Swift is an American game designer who is best known for helping create famous games such as Portal, Left4Dead, and Star Wars: Battlefront. 

She joined Valve after she graduated from college. This came about when she and her team presented the company with a game called Narbacular Drop. 

This game impressed Valve so much that they hired her as soon as she graduated and made her team leader and level designer for the “Portal” project. 

Swift is currently working at Xbox Game Studios in Seattle as the senior director of cloud gaming.

Corrine Yu

Corrine Yu is an American game programmer who has programmed several of the industry’s top 3D rendering engines.

Her engine work includes Quickdraw 3D, the Quake 2 engine, Direct 3D, and the Unreal Engine 3. 

Yu’s work has contributed to the creation of hundreds, if not thousands of your favorite games. 

The Unreal Engine 3 alone has been used for an incredibly wide variety of games ranging from 50 Cent: Blood on the Sand to the Batman: Arkham series, to Goat Simulator to Mortal Kombat to XCOM.