Video game protagonists can be anything.
All I care about is whether the character is consistent and well developed. Mass Effect had literal jellyfish people that were compelling because of their background, society and religious beliefs.
The truth of it is, just make good, well written characters!
Edit:
To expand a bit. Features such as sex and race are not mere checkboxes to hit on the way to scoring some sweet ESG bux. They need to be logically consistent with what's being presented within the game. A lot of the frustration with "modern" diversity is that it feels unnatural and forced for the sake of it. Make a character compelling enough and I am sure Blackrock will have a field day with forced behaviours.
The nature of the industry seems to be that gamers are now looking at anything with "diversity" with skepticism.
Am I really getting a new Alan Wake game or is it Alan Woke? Is the new Spider-Man game gonna star Peter Parker and a Smokin Hot MJ or am I gonna play as Miles Morales and Diabetic MJ helping little gay boys ask each other to prom?
Is the next immersive fantasy RPG I have to spend 80 bucks on going to get straight down to business with dragons and swords and shit or am I looking at double mastectomy scars and lectures about pronouns.
That's where things are in the gaming industry right now.
This is all on developers as they are the ones bringing games to the market while allowing their "community mangers" to mouth off on social media and while jumping into bed with journalists to trash talk the potential audience.
It's at the point now where a developer coming out with a game led by a masculine straight white bloke or a sexy woman with bouncy tits is almost a form of "virtue signalling" that they don't give a fuck about games journalists and DEI criteria and they are on the side of the gamers.
The game journo fuckers even went after Black Myth Wu Kong because the devs wouldn't bend the knee.
It's almost like this can't be fixed. Nobody knows anything really about Naughty Dog's new game but the reaction is 100% different if that cutscene opens with a rugged looking bloke in the ship maybe pushing off the attention of a hot woman because he needs to take a call.
There's an issue of trust between people making the games and the people buying them. Unfortunately, the gender or race of characters in a game has become the first impression that lets people know what might be going on at the studio.
Confidently send a game trailer out at the game awards with a white male protagonist and you might as well call the game "we don't give a fuck what Resetera and Kotaku thinks".
Hide Sweet Baby involvement in your game, have a lead actor with "I hate white gamers" tweets in her background and lead your game trailer with a black female protagonist and you might as well call the game "keep your money in your wallet for this one".
Thats what the industry is now.