You must log in or register to comment.
This
Also when people complain about a game protag being a normal looking woman
Never liked this lumping of everyone into oversimplified “gamers” as if it’s anything different besides conservatives who happen to play games.
It is always conservatives. In any hobby.
There’s a reason that particular cohort is mockingly referred to as capital-G GamersTM.
Exactly.
Not just any hobby, any country. You think this country still uses fax machines and are a bunch of racists? You think that country doesn’t believe in vaccines and elected a moron? You think that country is committing a genocide?
That’s nothing, I was forced to play a snake that was eating small dots and getting longer and longer.
What’s a straight character?
In Skyrim you can romance any of a wide variety of characters marked as “marriageable” in the game’s files. That really just means the voice actor was willing to record the marriage ceremony lines. Since voice actors were reused, if a voice actor recorded their lines, most if not all of their characters would be marriageable. To marry a character, you complete a task for them that makes them call you a friend (typically a quest they give you when you first meet them). You then wear an amulet of Mara (the game’s goddess of love) and speak to them. They ask if you fancy them, you say yes. They propose marriage, you go to the temple of Mara and be there the next day. During the ceremony you can say yes or no. And the game does not give two shits what your gender is. If you’re a male character, you can freely marry any marriageable male character, and vice versa for females. I play female characters because I like to look at them. I’d rather look at a female than a male. And I always marry Mjoll the Lioness because she’s trying to tear down the most fun guild in the game, so I move her out of town and make her a housewife. (Her quest is a lot of fun, too.)
In Fallout 4 you can romance maybe half a dozen characters? All of your companions who are not robotic or animal. One of the robots can be converted into an android you can hook up with. You can’t marry any of them, and you can romance all of them. None of them care what your gender is. Many have quests you have to do, but even beyond that, you have to push up their approval rating of you, by doing things they approve of (e.g. Matt Mercer’s character loves when you pick locks and steal) and by not doing things they don’t like (e.g. there’s a junkie girl who loves when you do drugs, until you cure her addiction, then she hates when you do drugs). Once they’re romanced, you can take them to any bed for a fade-to-black sex scene (neither heard nor seen).
In Cyberpunk 2077, there are four characters you can romance and hook up with, but no marriage. Each one has a genital preference and a voice preference. So you can absolutely be trans in the game. You choose a body type (fem or masc) and a voice type (fem or masc). Depending on your choice, you get 2 people you can romance. The other two will not reach the romance stage with you no matter what.
I guess the characters in GTA are straight? I don’t play bro shooters and such. Not my thing. Tomb Raider? Up in the air what Lara Croft prefers. You could take that either way. I love the Life is Strange games and those lean gay/lesbian. In the first one, Max can kiss both a girl and a guy, and it seems equal, but if you read her diary, she has no attraction to the guy, but she absolutely crushes on the girl. In the second one, the guy is absolutely gay, but the focus is on his little brother who is too young to have a sexual orientation (I think he’s 8?). It’s less obvious in the third one, but that girl definitely has lesbian vibes. And the fourth one is Max again.
What you are describing is a concept of the mechanically bisexual. The options as given often allow players to choose in a sandbox game whether they experience the game as a completely non-queer experience or not. It sometimes creates queerness as an option rather than a core part of an experience which rep wise is considered a step better than when all romance options in games were mandatorily heterosexual but also kind of a cop out where player choice means all characters are often Shrodinger’s bi. If you want to experience say Skyrim as an almost entirely queer free experience - you can. Your choices flip that representation on and off like a lightswitch so if you have queerphobic tendencies the game doth not offend much. No one ever hits on you first.
Rep wise Gay characters are ones specifically ones where the queerness isn’t optional, it’s a part of the canon of the character. Straight characters often are so in fixed story narratives where they have hetero relationships and if they have brushes that look like same sex romance it’s played for laughs and treated as not really an option. Since culture still sort of assumes straightness as a default if the character only ever is coded romantically by the frame of the game to be attracted to the opposite sex they can be termed a “straight character” because as a player the game’s interfacing with that character’s sexuality is mandatory. An example is the Prince of Persia games or the Final Fantasy series which have a romantically coded opposite sex paramours that you don’t have an option not to interface with the character’s sexuallity.
This is way more common in older games and fixed story franchises.
So outside of visual novels, are there good queer games where you get hit on first? I’m in if the story is good and the gameplay is engaging. I am straight but not narrow, and games are fictional.
By making the player make the first move, they empower the player to choose.
By making the player make the first move, they empower the player to choose.
The problem often becomes that the entire sexuallity of mechanically bi characters or all characters in the game are often under player control. In a some circumstances games with this mechanism will have the characters who are not chosen as romantic options pair with no one ever or defer to straight behaviour. This is in deference to games wanting to have it’s cake and eat it too.
Examples of this in action :
Stardew Valley where if you don’t choose a same sex option to romance - no other characters ever have any romances ever. The one exception is Leah who has an ex who shows up late in the romance pursuit who tries to win her back. However, the ex is whatever gender the PC is so if it’s a hetero relationship, it still appears to be a hetero relationship.
Harvest Moon Mineral Town (later editions) give the player to options to romance same sex options… But everyone you don’t choose pairs up in hetero relationships and no other characters.
In both games there is no other queer rep so the player essentially opts in or out to all queer representation in the game. Blanket Heterosexuallity or bi-invisibility until given player approval is the default.
Indy games are generally the leaders for actual queer rep that isn’t optional to the game’s plot where characters sexuallities are not revealed by the player opt in.
Okay, I definitely agree with you on the player being the only romance option for NPCs… for the most part. Looking at it, I do see plenty of existing romances in Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Cyberpunk 2077 — the examples I gave — and I think they’re mostly straight. In Cyberpunk, Judy Alvarez, an established lesbian character who will only romance you if you’re female, has a female ex who is a main character. You meet her before you meet Judy. She’s the one who gets you the heist gig, sort of. The one who hires Dex, who hires you and Jackie. It may not be obvious at first, but if you follow Judy’s story, even as a male character, it will be obvious. And Fallout 4 had a romance with two robots, but that’s mainly played for laughs and most people will never see it. (You have to go to the school in Diamond City and speak with the female robot, who will ask you about love. Give the most heartfelt answer and, the next night, you will see her wed a male robot outside the all-faith chapel, if you’re there for it — you could be elsewhere and you will miss it.) But that’s a robot relationship, and it’s hetero.
I do want to say one or two of them had a couple gay/lesbian romances.
Going a bit off-topic, Animal Crossing — largely considered a kids’ game — actually has a bunch of stuff just beneath the surface that most people will overlook. Flick, the bug collector, is considered by many fans to be FTM trans. He identifies as male but appears to be AFAB. There’s a peacock who identifies as female — peacocks are specifically the male of the peafowl species. Peahens are the females, and they don’t have the big feathery thing. So that’s a female character who was AMAB. Plenty of other characters rock the trans flag as well. Kids would never notice this, and being a Japanese game, they have to be very careful as that country is super conservative. (There’s actually a pretty deep rabbit hole on that game’s lore. Some characters hint toward the game being a game, breaking the fourth wall. There are also hints the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world and you’re the last human.)
I’m with you though, in that I would like to see more same-sex relationships and LGBTQ+ representation in my games.
It sometimes creates queerness as an option rather than a core part of an experience
Because, surprise surprise, most non-romance games don’t have romance as significant part of the game. You don’t get straight tailored experience in Skyrim either. Unless you believe killing bandits or mammoths is how you romance a straight person.
kind of a cop out
This mentality is why so many gamers outside the homophobic conservative circles are pissed at game developers and groups like Sweet Baby Inc. Not cramming gender politics into a game that has nothing to do with them is not a cop out. It is good game design. Skyrim is not a romance simulator and it shouldn’t be turned into one just to “be more inclusive”.
Hey, just a heads up assuming “gender politics” don’t matter and being upset if a character is noticeably queer - makes you a part of the homophobic conservative circles. People, irl are queer, omitting queer people from settings where they would just exist as part of the world because “they shouldn’t be there” is a little queerphobic.
Conservative circles have been screaming about woke games forever just when options to have non-binary people exist at character creation or when there is one gay side character. A lot of folks in the arts, including in game development, are queer and like to make stories that didn’t exist when they were growing up. Your opinion is your own but assuming it’s universally considered “good game design” to force developers to exclude the things they are passionate to put in their games to appease a howling mob that is never happy even when they get what they say they want is a bit rich.
No. Not wanting to have your car stolen by a gay person does not make you a homophobe. It just makes you a normal person that doesn’t want to be stolen from. Equally, wanting a game to be entertainment, not political messaging does not make you conservative.
Most people had no issue with diverse characters that are part of a game, see Life is Strange. They do when you turn a game into political PSA at the expense of the rest of the game, see Valeguard.
Ah yes, the two sexualities - political and non-political. You really aren’t as far along as you think.
I can accept that you are unhappy and want your games to not make you feel uncomfortable. Gods forbid they ever be like every other form of media and actually have a message they want to convey or try anything new. I can say having something tailored specifically for you is quite nice - now that more of us actually get to experience that.
and want your games to not make you feel uncomfortable.
You are missing the point entirely. Playing as a homosexual character did not make me feel uncomfortable, even though I understand if it did for some people. Even so, not every game is for everyone. It is fine to have games focused at different audiences.
But when you hand over writing your game characters and story to groups like SBI, whose only qualification is “inclusive writing”, than it destroys games for everyone and you get entirely justified backlash from gamers.
Same if you take an established franchise and change the target audience.
Unfortunately, just like you don’t make distinction between the actual homophobes and people who just want good writing and game design, a lot of gamers once pissed of don’t distinguish between good inclusion and forced, badly executed one. And than you get the polarized BS of today.
There’s no “actual homophobes” vs " not homophobic but still unhappy that queer people and ‘forced inclusion’ are in a game people" - that’s just different degrees of homophobia.
Games changed a bit so that they aren’t all made for you specifically. Those franchises didn’t belong to you and for some people those ‘ruined games’ are their favorite games. Everyone has studios they don’t like. Not all representation is gunna be great because not all writing is going to be great but when inclusion “ruins it for everyone” in your veiw look around and ask if the people around you who are discussing it is actually a good cross section of “everyone”.
Would be nice if you could play a gay dude. It feels like most lbgtq representation is only women
Yes! It’s that whole disgusting “two chicks at the same time” trope that allows them to get away with it more, I assume.
Also sexism. Women can do it because they’re silly creatures who don’t know what they’re doing without a man controlling them so obviously being a lesbian is acceptable. But a man choosing to do those things? He should know better
To me it also kinda rhymes with the way bisexual men vs bisexual women are often regarded in wider society. “Bisexual men are actually gay” while “bisexual women are actually straight”. So only the part of their attraction that relates to men is taken seriously 😐
Sexism for sure, in all sorts of permutations.
Women with a sex drive must be bi. Therefore bi women are hot.
Of course women can mess around with women, it’s not “real sex”.
She just needs a “real man”.
It’s so gross, and makes no sense to me. Guys seem much more situationally indiscriminate, sailors, people in jail, and honestly who cares if their guy is bi? Either you are monogamous and it’s a non-issue, or you aren’t, and your opportunity is wider for fun stuff than with a straight guy. No downside I can see.
I remember when I actually met Nazi’s in Kotakuinaction over on Reddit. And the mods banned me for pointing it out.
Anytime I see anything from that sub in Google results I immediately skip it.
I mean they worship Asmongold as some hero of masculinity, among others.
I mean. They are all losers. You can smell it in the way they talk. None of them have ever had their dicks touched without over paying.
Honest question, can anyone actually name a mainstream game where the main playable character is canonically and explicitly portrayed as gay?
I honestly can’t even think of one.
Yes, Life is Strange and The Last of Us. Pretty major games
Last of Us.
Life is Strange games.
Guild Wars 2
last of us?
Life is Strange series, Before the Storm. Not sure about the others.
That’s what makes it even more pathetic, literally just being given the option of a gay subplot is having it shoved down their throats.
It’s so ridiculous that I question how many of the complaints we see online are even sincere, because surely people aren’t that dumb.
In baldurs gate 3 people of the same gender certainly hit on you. Basically all romancible characters have player characters as their sexual orientation
A bunch of characters in Apex Legends are canonically gay, trans, nonbinary, bi, pansexual, and Mirage. As a hero shooter, I guess there’s no real “main” character as such.
Aloy in Horizon is pretty much there if the Burning Shores DLC is any indication, although she seems to be a work in progress as a fully developed person.
I remember when dinoflask did YTPs of Overwatch’s lead designer, he poked fun at how, whenever the game needed a progressive image boost, they would retcon a character to be gay at random. He sentence-mixed something like “Our fans are always wondering who’s going to be gay on our next update.”
Mainstream? No, but my character decided he was gay in Disco Elysium.
FFXIV. Like the whole raid tier for Gia and Rynne.
The MISSING: J J Macfield and the Island of Memories is a great one.
Ending
Psyche. Though much of the dialog and written messages could lead you, like myself, to believe Macfield is a closeted lesbian undergoing community/family abuse for her quiet obsessions with a girl…it’s actually the less common form of LGBT. Macfield is a closet trans woman; much of the game’s horrific bodily mutilation themes take a stand-in for the dysphoria of being uncomfortable in her own masculine body. Of course, many of the same types who’d retch at a gay protagonist would throw up at the idea of being someone they didn’t identify with - which ironically is exactly what the game is teaching you.
I have an example that’s not gay, but trans - one of the two protagonists of Tell Me Why is a trans guy. (The other protagonist is his cisgender twin sister.)
Yuji Naka once said that NiGHTs gender was “up for interpretation”, which I think makes them nonbinary. That’s a pretty deep cut though.
I remember reading about that because I went on a SA2 Chao Garden binge at one point and really got into trying to get a perfect flying one, I even went and played a bit of Into Dreams and read the wiki.
It’s because they’re “dream beings” and don’t really truly exist so they have no gender.
I will ask a different question. In how many mainstream games can you actually confirm the main character is straight? Sure it may be more than the two examples of gay main characters, but still very few compared to where it just doesn’t come up.
Pretty much every GTA, Duke Nukem, the Witcher series, the God of War series, Yakuza, Unchartered, the Final Fantasy games, the Super Mario games (including Donkey Kong), even Pac-man… and that’s just the ones I’ve played. Then you’ve got virtually everything featuring Disney characters, Star Wars, as well as most other TV and movie tie-in games (of which there are many).
That’s the thing about defaultism, is you can play a straight character and not even remember you’ve done it because it’s just the default. I’ll bet you didn’t even notice that Pac-man was canonically straight, and yet if Ms. Pac-man was instead called “Pacman’s Husband Steve”, suddenly Pac-man’s one defining trait would be his sexuality.
If nothing else, you’ve provided an object lesson in just how true OP’s meme is.
I’ll bet you didn’t even notice that Pac-man was canonically straight
Well, I never played the official Pac-man so yeah, had no way to notice.
But while you do have a point about defaultism, I still believe large majority of games just doesn’t say one way or another, which is as it should be.
Most games don’t bring the characters sexuality into it at all so I wouldn’t consider 99.99% to be particularly accurate. That said I’d prefer if they left romance out of it all together. I’m equally annoyed by having to deal with it in a game regardless of which end of the spectrum it is. Just let me fight/build/solve puzzles/whatever. If I wanted to date someone I’d be doing it in real life.
Bloodborne has the greatest romance story, even a lovely wedding ceremony.
I’m dissapointed because video game romances are dull as fuck. You hit the correct dialogue choices, have sex, and then they’re just nice to you for the rest of the game. Give me romances that go sideways - maybe they’re so disgusted by you hitting on them they leave the party and re-emerge as a minor antagonist later on, maybe another party member gets jealous and straight on challenges you to a duel, maybe they’re already boinking another party member, anything but the pansexual protagonist that everyone wants to fuck.
I’m even less interested in dealing with “interesting” relationship stuff in a video game. Had more than enough of that in real life. I want escapism, not reminders of trauma.
This is why games should allow modding.
I do love modding games.
with the state of the gaming industry rn, that’s gotta be the one stupidest things chuds complain about in games.
I want to be something else when I play games. I don’t understand this need to be the same thing I am every fucking day. Bring on other genders, sexes, races, species, colors, limbs, all of it. Let’s be different. It’s a fucking video game.
Given the choice I’m almost never playing a human. The fuck would I want to be me for lmao
Argonian or Dark Elf, almost literally every time.
Looking at my game library, I seem to prefer blank slate player characters.
In Factorio, you play as a humanoid in a jumpsuit. In Satisfactory, you play as a humanoid in a jumpsuit. Infinifactory you play as a humanoid in a space suit. Antichamber you play as some being that can hold a gun-like tool. Buckshot Roulette you play as…something that can fire a shotgun. In all Half-Life and Portal games you play as a series of named but barely characterized people. Return of the Obra Dinn you play as an investigator, each time you start the game it randomly chooses a male or female voice for the player character. In Subnautica, you play as a stuffed wetsuit.
Get so weird slimey tentacled dozen limbed furry scaley shit going.
Feel like dudes who refuse to ever play as women or in simulated gay relationships are just depriving themselves of some quality content. I haven’t gotten to this BG3 playthrough yet, but you can’t tell me Ascended Astarion and Ambition Gale won’t be the most toxic codependent enabling shit ever, and it is gonna be enthralling to watch that heat up and burn down.
Stay away from Gale. The mechanics of romancing him are more toxic than the character themself. There is no indication of when he locks you out of other options. It’s like playing “Set a Boundary Simulator”. Least fulfilling romance imo. What a fucking weirdo.
Definitely go full in, “I can fix him” with Astarion.
Talking from many patches ago fwiw, maybe some of the mechanics were fixed.
there are surprising amount of incels in many games, and its the one that are trumpers or at least suppor tthem.
they do the same thing with movies and shows, constant complaining about race swapping, genders swapping, “traditional roles” not being adhered to.
Some of the negative reviews for Eternal Strands over on Steam are hilarious. Because the guys that don’t outright hate being forced to play as a woman take issue with the lack of het romance options. Specifically with having to choose between the “bishie elf” or a “giant blue walrus-bear”.
And they also feel that the walrus-bear romance is less emotionally impactful than the other options.
I’m not even gay, but the first time I played Life is Strange (the first one) and when the option to…
Massive Life is Strange 1 Spoilers
Spoilers ahead…
Be Warned…
…
…
…the option for Max to kiss Chloe showed up, I immediatly went for the kiss (well… the first time was a dare and that was barely even a kiss)
Their relationship is just so sweet.
I chose to sacrifice Arcadia Bay cuz fuck the dumb corrupt town. Max&Chloe is the canon ending to me. (The butterfly killed Arcadia Bay, #notmax’sfault)
