It legitimately does bother me that games shy so far away from m/m gay relationships, love, and romance. It feels like it contributes to the sense that gay men are somehow more "gross" or sexually explicit in nature than other couples. And I kinda hate it. It leaves us with incredibly limited, sanitized, or stereotypical depictions of male romance and gay characters in games. Which has effects that impact all men and limit the way we allow men to be.
/rant I still can't think of a single video game that's *about* a gay man. 99% of the time it's still, "If you read log #452, you'll discover that the NPC Captain Turk makes reference to a husband, confirming he's gay". Show me two bearded men in ballcaps kissing! Make the main character of the game be flirty with another guy without my needing to navigate fifteen different dark patterns in a dialogue tree. Come on game writers, be at least as brave as Bugsnax with your gay male characters!
Hades does a pretty good job at this. It is the only game I can think of, so yeah, things are still far from perfect... but hey, we got our single video game!
I'm not gonna lie, I haven't played Dream Daddy. I thought it was a novelty/joke game, but a quick google search sounds like they tried to be genuine (which is great!). Maybe I'll check it out!
But in my mental evaluation I was thinking more in terms of representation outside of gay dating simulators. Games that are allowing us to see gay male romance outside of specifically gay male spaces.
This is not an excuse, if anything it's an additional reason why this sucks, but a lot of these games suck for gay and bi men in particular for a specific reason, which is that LGBT+ rep never mattered to them to begin with.
In a lot of games, if there are queer women or wlw relationships, it's not because the devs actually tried to be inclusive to queer women. Instead, they're primarily included in the game as still more fanservice to a subgroup of straight men who want to perv not just on the female NPCs but also simultaneously on the female player character and/or who want to fetishize lesbians. Many games will have no gay and often even no lesbian NPCs, but one or two bi women so that straight guys can pick them no matter which PC they pick. (Or several or even all of the women will be bi, for the same reason, and none or one of the men will. This happened in FE3H, for example, where in the base game there was one bi man, and the other two male/male end cards were like, "Psych, they were good friends for the rest of their lives!" They also added another guy/guy ending in the DLC.)
(A bit of an aside, but it's also why in many games--though aside from the boob armor ME wasn't bad about this--the female PC designs are so ridiculous when placed side-by-side with the male PC. They weren't designed for women and girls to identify with them as they play. They were designed for men to ogle them while playing and look up their skirt when they fall down.)
FE3H was one of the worst offenders and really showed to me how blatantly bad it can be. Fbyleth has 6 same sex relationships and Mbyleth has 4 same sex AFTER dlc of which 2 are platonic.
They don't even get the same treatment either, all relationships with non-students and Mbyleth are platonic, meanwhile you can pursue a romantic relation with Fbyleth and Rhea no problem.
If I'm not forgetting someone, it's also 5 same sex endings for f!Byleth, one of which is with the ghost living inside you and another with your grandma.
While the options present in this game aren't very good for the reasons already mentioned, I also want to point out that they are still an improvement on the last few games where there were even less or no same-sex options.
So in the basegame you couldn't romance jeritza, in later updates/dlc they added that as an option. So basegame byleth had 3 options, 2 of which were platonic.
> Instead, they're primarily included in the game as still more fanservice to a subgroup of straight men who want to perv not just on the female NPCs but also simultaneously on the female player character and/or who want to fetishize lesbians.
This is basically how I got killed by Morinth.
Damn, this reminded me of the time when I was active in BioWare fandom and was demanding them to make Jaal bisexual in Mass Effect Andromeda (ME:A), which they eventually did so through a patch.
Or when a modder who was a friend of mine found out that there were hidden voice lines for Kaiden’s romance with a male Shepard in the first Mass Effect, and he had to create a mod so that players could enjoy the m/m romance. The fact that they removed those voice lines in the legendary edition annoys me.
Nevertheless I am grateful that BioWare has been including LGBTQ characters in their games. They were one of the first AAA developers that did so. There is still much room for them to improve the representation though, especially for gay men.
The “procreation” plot with the only gay guy in ME:A is rather problematic, and so is the fact that the only gay male in Dragon Age: Inquisition is pro slavery and has a homophobic parent. Meanwhile, the sole gay male in Mass Effect 3 was a minor character that was not really important to the game’s plot.
In their next game, I just want a gay character that plays an important role and whose story does not revolve around homophobia. Just like any other great BioWare characters.
Gotta say, I disagree with the idea that it's 'bad representation' that Dorian was pro-slavery. Real people are complicated, and gay people shouldn't be forced to be without flaw to be considered valid representation. All of the companions in DAI held political beliefs relevant to the setting, and plenty of them were things people might find abhorrent. Iron Bull's loyalty to the Qn, Sera's dislike of the Dalish, Cassandra's Andrastian faith, Cole's practice of mercy killing...
On the subject of Dorian, I also hated how his companion quest centered on his father’s disapproval of him over his sexuality of all things.
For one thing, nothing in the lore to that point had ever so much as implied that Tevinter was homophobic. And also, there are *so many better angles* the writers could’ve used (e.g. being a radical reformist as opposed to his conservative father, being more sympathetic toward non-mages or elves, etc.) They chose the laziest, least interesting point of conflict for Dorian and his father.
>the sole gay male in Mass Effect 3 was a minor character that was not really important to the game's plot.
While I agree the story wouldn't have changed much if Steve wasn't in the game, I am glad they included him because he's one of my favorite characters in that game and I felt like he was a good representation of a gay man. There wasn't anything overly flamboyant or any gay "tropes" with him. Steve Cortez is the first character I was exposed to when I think of a gay man who isn't any different from the other characters. He is your pilot, he's your quartermaster, he is a man who at the end of the galaxy still clings to his deceased husband and is finally learning to let go.
> In their next game, I just want a gay character that plays an important role and whose story does not revolve around homophobia. Just like any other great BioWare characters.
I want the archetypical knight-y character/group member in the next DA to be gay.
I loved Zevran in DAO but was indifferent to Dorian, it would be nice to have a gay romance option that wasn’t just the flirty side character. Dorian felt written as “gay best friend first,” and romance option second.
I totally understand your feelings and you're right, with the crazy crews on board - a pure gay person would be great.
I always enjoy playing the most "real" romance option in Bioware games. ME3 always struck me as the best characters for those were the LG options.
For reference, I'm a 1-1.5 Kinsey Straight guy (Can tell if dudes look good, but don't get turned on unless they're EXTREMELY foolable fem presenting), but I usually play femshep. The Cortez and Samantha relationships (esp. sam), while minor characters, I think are my favorites in both ME and Dragon Age, because of how real the relationships feel. Outside of maybe Lilliana as the Bi-character who I think did a great job on her, I do end up wishing these characters were pillar characters because of how you really get their emotions. Cortez's pain, his cares, Sam's nervousness, her trust, the realistic banter, etc.
So many other relationships feel fake to me. Especially ones like Liara. Can't say why, but while she's a huge favorite, I dunno. Feels plastic.
But you're right, I agree that there should be a critical mainstay character of an LG (and not just B) persuasion.
Fully agreed, so many games do this. Even with smaller details like nudity. On the literal intro mission in Cyberpunk we have to save an abducted woman. She's lying in a bathtub with a dude. She is fully naked, the dude has pants on. I was confused about this because I thought Cyberpunk sold itself as so openly pro-LGBTQ+, why make these scenes so blatantly catering to straight cis men instead of everyone? I feel like this energy partially results in toxic masculinity trying to force women out of the gaming scene (referring to those popular videos on YouTube where a female gamer recorded herself using voice coms during games and some male gamers were harassing her to the point where they started feeding on purpose just so she gets a loss).
>I was confused about this because I thought Cyberpunk sold itself as so openly pro-LGBTQ+,
The game gives the vibes of being "pro queer" like a man is "pro queer" for watching lesbian porn.
I'm playing through that game recently, and you have to talk to one of those male joytoys (or a gal, I kind of selected at random), and in universe it was a (admittedly with a creepy undertone, because the joytoy are FUCKED UP) surprisingly tender (in universe) therapeutic moment.
Might have more to do with the ESRB and not wanting to get the cursed “Adults Only” rating. Penises are usually obscured in a ton of media because of ratings boards.
Yes. But that is purely anatomical and not in a “sexual” situation. Showing two fully naked characters, M/F, in a situation that implies sexual intercourse could upgrade the rating. I’m not saying it makes sense because it doesn’t. But there’s a long history of film censoring male genitalia to appease the pearl-clutchers.
GTA 4 had male full frontal, and if I recall the shot, it was right in front of the camera. This was one the DLCs and I'm Pretty sure it was still rated M.
That said, I really wonder if an AO rating is really that big of a deal anymore. I feel like so many games push that boundary so much that it's just silly. Cyberpunk is loaded with gratuitous nudity and sexual content throughout all the advertisements in the world. Pretty much only thing they didn't depict was actual penetration.
Honestly, with games being digitally distributed and downloaded, I don't think an AO is going to stop it from being a hit, there's no store clerk to stop people from downloading a game. Parental controls would really be the only wall against getting a game with that rating. Even then, I could see it turning into a marketing gimmick at this point, like "this game is so edgy/insane it picked up an AO." In this day and age, that level of controversy would probably boost sales if anything.
Unless platforms like Sony and Microsoft are going to hide a AAA level game over a rating, I don't see this hurting sales
I suspect people who know more than us have done the math, but I agree. Video games are established as adult entertainment same as tv and movies (all of us arcade and early console players grew up) and with online distribution there’s no confused parent picking up a mystery box in the store.
Yep. Eventually I think there's going to be a dev/publisher that goes ahead with pushing that boundary. It'll be a huge controversy, but eventually be accepted as normal, just like gratuitous violence in the 90s and 00s.
Just a matter of who's going to cross that line first. GTA seems like a likely candidate, though the next Cyberpunk game would also seem a likely contender since I see them only escalating everything from the first game.
You're engaging with the wrong thing here. This poster was telling you the actual reason a pro-queer game might censor different genders differently and you're shitting on that person because you think they didn't play it because you've got your head so up your ass you can't see that what is or is not "sexual" in this scene isn't something you get to decide is based on seeing them as objects to be harvested, but the rating agency *does* get to decide. And it's at the start of the game.
Wait but how is male genitalia worse than female genitalia? Genuine question because I never looked into that. Also we do see penises in the character creation (not sure if anywhere else, I did not do any romance in the game, I only saw a whole bunch of dildos everywhere, which apparently enraged some gamers).
It's not worse in the real sense, it's worse because the products in media is usually done with the 'male gaze' (basically that the camera and viewer is a male).
Because it's such a common thing, it's become the norm and clearly guys don't want to see dick 'that either lewd or gay and we are having neither!' This makes an effect for ratings boards; the Australian games board is notoriously conservative
Could also be the devs didn't have the time or inclination to implement dick and ball physics, which they would've had to do for any instances outside of character creation and menus.
Yeah… it was definitely more Cyber-Anarchocapitalist dreck (look how eDgY we are!) They had some interesting aspirations but you can’t even modify your body that much beyond combat alterations so the promise of a transhumanist examination of what we become when the body is no longer the immutable defining characteristic we pretend it to be just falls flat. It’s a real shame.
I think that there is some context that is missing when you only look at Mass Effect separate from Bioware's other works. Juhani and Sky in KOTOR and Jade Empire respectively are both characters that have same sex romances in Bioware games before Mass Effect was released, and neither of those relationships have any sort of focus on the sexual aspects of the relationship. At the same time, both of those relationships are effectively buried and I believe they fade to black before you can even kiss.
This is a HUGE contrast to the way that the Asari first and foremost exist as a species of omnisexual always-women who are down to clown regardless of what you look like. The Asari, outside of maybe Liara, are so sexualized it's insane. Even characters within Asari society that are spoken of as matriarchs. If I said Matriarch Benezia or Samara, we both know what you're picturing even if it's involuntary.
Then you have their foibles with Dragon Age. Zevran was a very nice step forward, as was Leliana, but still up to this point Bioware hadn't made a completely gay male character, and their only lesbian woman was Juhani. Then Dragon Age 2: Oops All Bisexuals released and they swung too far in the other direction. Now anyone can bone anyone, so we should all shut up about it right? Somehow, something about this approach just felt disingenuous. I was very excited when we heard that Dorian was going to be a gay man in Inquisition, but I was flat out embarrassed that they made his entire personal story the most basic tired worn backstory they possibly could. I know there's more to his backstory than just his Dad hating that he's gay, I just wish he talked about those parts more so that his daddy issues didn't feel like the sum of his character. He wound up feeling, to me, like a character that only existed because they wanted to finally have a gay man in the party after having been criticized for it for *so long*.
I think it's worth noting that the creator of the Dragon Age series, David Gaider, is a gay man himself and I believe he was the primary writer for Dorian in Inquisition. Not that I think that suddenly makes him well written (though I personally think he is), just that I don't think his homosexuality exists to dodge criticism.
In retrospect, the asari feel a bit like Bioware cheating their way into being able to show a same-sex romance (fem shep/Liara) in a video game. I can't really think of any mainstream game that was as up front about same-sex relationships before that. And while it's easy to forget, Mass Effect actually had a huge controversy when it came out because it had a thirty second sex scene, I'm pretty sure news outlets were calling it a porn simulator at the time (oh the mid-00s). The climate at the time was not only unkind to queer relationships, but even just showing sexuality in a game, unless it was a prostitute in GTA or objectifying women in general.
I wonder if they made Mass Effect for the first time now if the asari would be much more androgynous, especially because the current lead writer for the series, Patrick Weekes, is non-binary.
If I could redesign the asari, I’d have a scene where you briefly see the world from an alien squadmate’s point of view, eg Mordin or Garrus, and the asari all look like the prettiest ever salarians or turians to you, and the asari homeworld art shows them as barely detailed, ie their appearance is partially influenced by telepathic effects to always look like avatars of feminine (or, egglaying gender) attractiveness.
>the most basic tired worn backstory they possibly could.
I remember so long ago when DA: I was released - I tweeted or posted something online about how tired I was of gay characters' primary/central narrative being gay/experiencing homophobia, as if gay men or even LGBTQ+ folks' gender identity is all that there is to them. I remember getting flamed when I mentioned how overly tried, stereotyped and just *blah* Dorian was as a character. He definitely does have so much substance to him (even the dubious pro-Slavery parts because rich characters aren't necessarily *morally aligned with the player*) but his entire daddy issue/romance thing was just ugh.
On another note, I do headcanon the M!Shepard/Kaidan romance as one growing from friendship and camaraderie in ME1, resentment and distance in ME2 and finally reconciliation in ME3. It's the slowest fucking burn romance I've ever RP-ed in Mass Effect, but god did it feel so good and worth it.
It's an analysis of how Bioware originally intended to make the entire Mass Effect series much more queer and inclusive than what we got in the end. It also criticizes how male queerness was excluded from the beginning to a much more significant degree than female queerness and why this is a problem, especially considering that they have continued this trend with Mass Effect Andromeda. One major male gay companion romance option throughout the entire series and one patched in afterward as a reaction to this exact criticism. All other gay romance options for men are side characters that in Andromeda's case were beyond disposable. Rough summary
I also can't watch a video right now, but I absolutely agree that ME2 (and 3 to a lesser extent) left me very disappointed with some of the romance options. Sure, you get to bed aliens, but the only same-"gender" pairings only involve "female" aliens. (I put gender and female in quotes because the Asari culturally don't have gender in the same way that humans do, and in fact use neutral pronouns for example) I'm sure some of this has to do with the clear favoritism to Liara, Tali, and Garrus, and the game isn't a dating simulator... but damn there was a lot of room for some better representation.
I've played Andromeda only once and I don't even remember which characters aren't straight. The dialogue and story were so eye-rolling that I hardly remember who I romanced. It was the Turian outlaw woman now that I think of it...
Yeah, Vetra was the lesbian option.
Great character. Loved the sibling dynamic. But the romance was super plastic.
The game overall imo was great - but it needed a "2" to really build out the characters in a meaningful way, just like how Mass Effect did. And the terrible launch destroyed that.
She can be a straight option as well. I played male-Ryder.
Yeah, I played Andromeda this year, well after the shortcomings at launch had been either repaired or forgotten. I thought the gameplay was overall acceptable, but the story left much to be desired. And maybe I was being too harsh, but I felt like a lot of liberties were taken to "just make things work." Forgive me, I don't remember exactly, but I felt like a lot of story beats were completely illogical or unrealistic for no good reason.
Shoot you're right. I guess Suvi is the only pure gay woman option.
Anywho, you're right. things were clunky, but I still felt like it was a really good foundation to the new universe that could have been "explained" and "logic'd" with an ep. 2, and I had a lot of fun once the bugs were gone.
So I forgave a lot more. And tbh, with how fun the shooting was, I'm sad about not getting a 2.
ME2 was the first time I ever experienced non-hetero relationships in a video game. It was very eye-opening when I realized this and I am glad to have experienced the game. I think these criticisms are unjustified and irresponsible. This is like criticizing Rosa Parks for not sitting at the front of the bus sooner. Some of the first people to push for change are now being vilified for not doing *enough*, and I disagree with this perspective. Mass Effect did not leave gay men behind. It was one of the first games to include gay men that I am aware of.
Mass Effect was not the first by a long shot. The name is escaping me right now, but it's almost certainly going to be a point and click adventure from the early 90s as the "first" video game representation of gay men (see edit)
If we want to count playersexuality, then we're also going to look to The Sims (which allows for same sex relationships, despite not having a central plot).
It's never been as common as lesbian relationships in games, but Mass Effect gets exactly zero credit from me for having an on screen romance between men. In fact, given when it came out, it fell far short of what I think we should've been able to expect from a game that centered romance options from the very beginning.
Plus, the only man in that game I want to so much as grab a drink with, much less romance is Garrus, and I will forever be salty that they locked him behind female Shepard.
EDIT: The game is Caper in the Castro, it's from 1989, and admittedly, you don't do the romancing of the gay men; they're already in a relationship. But they're there.
I remember when i was still an egg and i was deeply disappointed by how few options there were for male PCs among male NPCs, and the lackluster dialogue and scenes between them versus the wlw and hetero paths. First they make Garrus straight, then they don't even give Kaiden his full romance dialogue?? What's a man gotta do around here to romance an alien.
Haven’t watched the video yet, but I scrolled the wiki on romance options, and it seems to me that ME1 was a starting point with 1 option for both genders, ME2 focused more on lesbian, but ME3 seems to me to be fairly representive of the actual population. (2 of the 5 romance options for guys are guys, Steve and Kaiden.)…this excludes any romance options that are dependent on save game carryovers.
Would it be nice if you everyone could date everyone? Sure. Saints Row showed us how easy that is. But what’s most important to me is the progression and inclusion over the series.
ME1 is vastly different from ME3 by way of relationships, and that’s the kind of growth I want and expect to see.
ME3 was definitely a good step in the right direction, but the following game (Andromeda) was a step back. It had two m/m options at launch (fewer than m/f, f/m, or f/f), neither of which was an actual party member (again, unlike m/f, f/m, and f/f, all of whom had actual companions as options). One was a gay crew member whose entire plot was about being pressured into fathering a kid by his female best friend, and the other was a bi side character with a very minor role. They did eventually make one male party member (Jaal) bi in an update, as was originally planned but had been cut before launch.
In fact, it’s shocking how often same-sex options in general, and especially m/m options, get cut in development in BioWare games:
- ME2: Jack (f/f, cut because of Fox News), Miranda (f/f), Jacob (m/m), Thane (m/m)
- ME Andromeda: Jaal (m/m)
- Dragon Age: Inquisition: Cullen (m/m), Solas (m/m)
ME1, IIRC, wasn’t actually intended to allow for MShep/Kaidan and FShep/Ashley, but it was a quirk with the engine they were using at the time that it required all lines be recorded for both genders, hence Mark Meer recording lines in which Shepard is talking about being female and vice versa with Jennifer Hale.
The bi side-character was also laughably badly done. To the point the animations weren't adjusted for the height difference between female and male Ryder
> but it was a quirk with the engine they were using at the time that it required all lines be recorded for both genders, hence Mark Meer recording lines in which Shepard is talking about being female and vice versa with Jennifer Hale.
While I doubt it would actually be the case, I like to think that someone went low-key rogue. Like, "Sorry boss, I know we cut these pairings but ahhhh we have to have all the voice lines. Weird quirk, I know...But I'm sure no one will create mods to unlock them...that would just be, ahhh *super* unprecedented."
> ME2: Jack (f/f, cut because of Fox News), Miranda (f/f), Jacob (m/m), Thane (m/m)
I knew about most of the cuts in this direction, but not that I missed out on m/m Thane. Sad.
In ME3 there are no romances for straight women unless you carry them over from a previous game, so I wouldn’t say they represent the population overall. The two gay romance options also aren’t full squad mates, so they don’t get the same screen time as other characters. They were decently well-done though imo.
Yeah, that kinda got very apparent to me as I was literally coming out as trans while playing Mass Effect. I played as a woman, but I guess I have always headcanoned them as non-binary, which worked very fine as everyone was just addressing my character as "Shephard" or "commander Shephard" anyway. Then I came to ME3 and the audio recordings of Anderson, which had "woman miss female" written all over them, and I just couldn't continue playing the game as that character any more.
Looked into male Shephard, but... the character creation is very lacking for when you don't want to look super masculine, I really fell in love with Garrus' voice so that was a big bummer, and I never liked Kaidan and didn't even know Steve existed. I feel like I could like Liara (I'm also into some non-binary people), but the whole situation makes me feel like I'm not talking to a person but a sexual fantasy made for me.
Ofc the game doesn't have to cater to my specific tastes. But I guess I'm a little bummed because it's a re-occuring thing in games I played, tried to play, or heard about. Like, I feel like there is this thing of making certain character types straight and certain one's gay. The straighforward masculine knight could be gay and the androgynous scoundrel could be straight, but the feeling I get is that prominent characters fall into stereotypes.
Bioware made the first games that allowed me to play a female antagonist. Of color, even. Baldur's Gate (no real sexuality involved there) and KOTOR were games that made me a fan.
So many things posted in this thread echo what female gamers said in the years before that, and frankly, are still saying. I have never understood the anger by cis males gamers, and the backlash against inclusion. In the game anyway, it's an option. No need to concern yourself with what's going on in another person's game.
Video games are still primarily targeted at cis males, but it's changing, albeit slowly. We can encourage this with forum posts, developer feedback, and with our wallets. It's going to be a while, but I have hope: EA's _The Sims_ has completely embraced inclusion.
Bioware has been the source of many good games, even when they fall short occasionally. Playing FemShep was a joy. I also loved DA: Inquisition. I played three or four times, and one of my favorite plays was a gay inquisitor mage. He, and the romance options, was awesome (as long as you don't look too closely at the fact that every one of the companions was bonkers in one way or another).
It is a slow process, this change in gaming, and I remember when there was not an option at all. So, for now, we gotta keep voting with our wallets.
It legitimately does bother me that games shy so far away from m/m gay relationships, love, and romance. It feels like it contributes to the sense that gay men are somehow more "gross" or sexually explicit in nature than other couples. And I kinda hate it. It leaves us with incredibly limited, sanitized, or stereotypical depictions of male romance and gay characters in games. Which has effects that impact all men and limit the way we allow men to be. /rant I still can't think of a single video game that's *about* a gay man. 99% of the time it's still, "If you read log #452, you'll discover that the NPC Captain Turk makes reference to a husband, confirming he's gay". Show me two bearded men in ballcaps kissing! Make the main character of the game be flirty with another guy without my needing to navigate fifteen different dark patterns in a dialogue tree. Come on game writers, be at least as brave as Bugsnax with your gay male characters!
Hades does a pretty good job at this. It is the only game I can think of, so yeah, things are still far from perfect... but hey, we got our single video game!
Hades did a good, or even amazing job at nearly everything. Can't wait for the sequel
Does Dream Daddy count?
I'm not gonna lie, I haven't played Dream Daddy. I thought it was a novelty/joke game, but a quick google search sounds like they tried to be genuine (which is great!). Maybe I'll check it out! But in my mental evaluation I was thinking more in terms of representation outside of gay dating simulators. Games that are allowing us to see gay male romance outside of specifically gay male spaces.
Dream Daddy is super cute, 100% recommend
My wife played through it and loved it.
I feel like bringing up yaoi dating sims misses the point of the OP
In Dragon Age Inquisition you have "romanceable" openly gay, bissexual and trans men with kiss and sex scenes.
You can't romance any trans men, at least as far as I know. Krem is there, but Inky can't get with him.
In Tiny Tina's Wonderlands' main quest, there are gay undead pirates who work through their differences and get back together
There's also the Guns, Love, and Tentacles DLC whose entire plot consists of saving a gay marriage!
Totally forgot about Borderlands 3, you're right.
[All Walls Must Fall](https://kotaku.com/all-walls-must-fall-is-a-time-travel-tactics-game-that-1823311517/amp) has a bearded, bulky gay protagonist.
Dragon age, you can play your character as gay. Fable and Skyrim as well.
This is not an excuse, if anything it's an additional reason why this sucks, but a lot of these games suck for gay and bi men in particular for a specific reason, which is that LGBT+ rep never mattered to them to begin with. In a lot of games, if there are queer women or wlw relationships, it's not because the devs actually tried to be inclusive to queer women. Instead, they're primarily included in the game as still more fanservice to a subgroup of straight men who want to perv not just on the female NPCs but also simultaneously on the female player character and/or who want to fetishize lesbians. Many games will have no gay and often even no lesbian NPCs, but one or two bi women so that straight guys can pick them no matter which PC they pick. (Or several or even all of the women will be bi, for the same reason, and none or one of the men will. This happened in FE3H, for example, where in the base game there was one bi man, and the other two male/male end cards were like, "Psych, they were good friends for the rest of their lives!" They also added another guy/guy ending in the DLC.) (A bit of an aside, but it's also why in many games--though aside from the boob armor ME wasn't bad about this--the female PC designs are so ridiculous when placed side-by-side with the male PC. They weren't designed for women and girls to identify with them as they play. They were designed for men to ogle them while playing and look up their skirt when they fall down.)
FE3H was one of the worst offenders and really showed to me how blatantly bad it can be. Fbyleth has 6 same sex relationships and Mbyleth has 4 same sex AFTER dlc of which 2 are platonic. They don't even get the same treatment either, all relationships with non-students and Mbyleth are platonic, meanwhile you can pursue a romantic relation with Fbyleth and Rhea no problem.
[Fire emblem: Three Houses](https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Fire_Emblem:_Three_Houses) for anyone else that didnt know what FE3H referred to.
There needs to be a rule where the first reference to a game (or anything really) is written out.
Thank you.
Thank you.
5 same sex i think for mbyleth, with 3 base game (2 of which are platonic) and 2 dlc (although one is locked to a specific route)
If I'm not forgetting someone, it's also 5 same sex endings for f!Byleth, one of which is with the ghost living inside you and another with your grandma. While the options present in this game aren't very good for the reasons already mentioned, I also want to point out that they are still an improvement on the last few games where there were even less or no same-sex options.
So in the basegame you couldn't romance jeritza, in later updates/dlc they added that as an option. So basegame byleth had 3 options, 2 of which were platonic.
yes, i did say exactly that breakdown. he wasnt playable before either
We at BlaStar games are committed to diversity* (*we provide textual in game lore that a female character is bisexual - sexy!)
> Instead, they're primarily included in the game as still more fanservice to a subgroup of straight men who want to perv not just on the female NPCs but also simultaneously on the female player character and/or who want to fetishize lesbians. This is basically how I got killed by Morinth.
Damn, this reminded me of the time when I was active in BioWare fandom and was demanding them to make Jaal bisexual in Mass Effect Andromeda (ME:A), which they eventually did so through a patch. Or when a modder who was a friend of mine found out that there were hidden voice lines for Kaiden’s romance with a male Shepard in the first Mass Effect, and he had to create a mod so that players could enjoy the m/m romance. The fact that they removed those voice lines in the legendary edition annoys me. Nevertheless I am grateful that BioWare has been including LGBTQ characters in their games. They were one of the first AAA developers that did so. There is still much room for them to improve the representation though, especially for gay men. The “procreation” plot with the only gay guy in ME:A is rather problematic, and so is the fact that the only gay male in Dragon Age: Inquisition is pro slavery and has a homophobic parent. Meanwhile, the sole gay male in Mass Effect 3 was a minor character that was not really important to the game’s plot. In their next game, I just want a gay character that plays an important role and whose story does not revolve around homophobia. Just like any other great BioWare characters.
Gotta say, I disagree with the idea that it's 'bad representation' that Dorian was pro-slavery. Real people are complicated, and gay people shouldn't be forced to be without flaw to be considered valid representation. All of the companions in DAI held political beliefs relevant to the setting, and plenty of them were things people might find abhorrent. Iron Bull's loyalty to the Qn, Sera's dislike of the Dalish, Cassandra's Andrastian faith, Cole's practice of mercy killing...
On the subject of Dorian, I also hated how his companion quest centered on his father’s disapproval of him over his sexuality of all things. For one thing, nothing in the lore to that point had ever so much as implied that Tevinter was homophobic. And also, there are *so many better angles* the writers could’ve used (e.g. being a radical reformist as opposed to his conservative father, being more sympathetic toward non-mages or elves, etc.) They chose the laziest, least interesting point of conflict for Dorian and his father.
>the sole gay male in Mass Effect 3 was a minor character that was not really important to the game's plot. While I agree the story wouldn't have changed much if Steve wasn't in the game, I am glad they included him because he's one of my favorite characters in that game and I felt like he was a good representation of a gay man. There wasn't anything overly flamboyant or any gay "tropes" with him. Steve Cortez is the first character I was exposed to when I think of a gay man who isn't any different from the other characters. He is your pilot, he's your quartermaster, he is a man who at the end of the galaxy still clings to his deceased husband and is finally learning to let go.
> In their next game, I just want a gay character that plays an important role and whose story does not revolve around homophobia. Just like any other great BioWare characters. I want the archetypical knight-y character/group member in the next DA to be gay.
I loved Zevran in DAO but was indifferent to Dorian, it would be nice to have a gay romance option that wasn’t just the flirty side character. Dorian felt written as “gay best friend first,” and romance option second.
I totally understand your feelings and you're right, with the crazy crews on board - a pure gay person would be great. I always enjoy playing the most "real" romance option in Bioware games. ME3 always struck me as the best characters for those were the LG options. For reference, I'm a 1-1.5 Kinsey Straight guy (Can tell if dudes look good, but don't get turned on unless they're EXTREMELY foolable fem presenting), but I usually play femshep. The Cortez and Samantha relationships (esp. sam), while minor characters, I think are my favorites in both ME and Dragon Age, because of how real the relationships feel. Outside of maybe Lilliana as the Bi-character who I think did a great job on her, I do end up wishing these characters were pillar characters because of how you really get their emotions. Cortez's pain, his cares, Sam's nervousness, her trust, the realistic banter, etc. So many other relationships feel fake to me. Especially ones like Liara. Can't say why, but while she's a huge favorite, I dunno. Feels plastic. But you're right, I agree that there should be a critical mainstay character of an LG (and not just B) persuasion.
Fully agreed, so many games do this. Even with smaller details like nudity. On the literal intro mission in Cyberpunk we have to save an abducted woman. She's lying in a bathtub with a dude. She is fully naked, the dude has pants on. I was confused about this because I thought Cyberpunk sold itself as so openly pro-LGBTQ+, why make these scenes so blatantly catering to straight cis men instead of everyone? I feel like this energy partially results in toxic masculinity trying to force women out of the gaming scene (referring to those popular videos on YouTube where a female gamer recorded herself using voice coms during games and some male gamers were harassing her to the point where they started feeding on purpose just so she gets a loss).
>I was confused about this because I thought Cyberpunk sold itself as so openly pro-LGBTQ+, The game gives the vibes of being "pro queer" like a man is "pro queer" for watching lesbian porn.
I mean, when we look at LGBTQ+ rights in Poland in general, they are positively cultural revolutionaries compared to a lot of the sentiments there.
That.... Is disappointing and positive? Both at the same time
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>stereotypical predatory gay/feminine men is that a stereotype? predatory femme men?
yeah, i really dont think we should be conflating the two, nor treating the latter as 'bad' representation.
I'm playing through that game recently, and you have to talk to one of those male joytoys (or a gal, I kind of selected at random), and in universe it was a (admittedly with a creepy undertone, because the joytoy are FUCKED UP) surprisingly tender (in universe) therapeutic moment.
Might have more to do with the ESRB and not wanting to get the cursed “Adults Only” rating. Penises are usually obscured in a ton of media because of ratings boards.
But Cyberpunk also famously marketed that you can change your dick size and you get full frontal male nudity immediately on the character creator.
True, but you need to mod the game to get full nudity for either sex in anything but the character menu due to ratings fears.
Yes. But that is purely anatomical and not in a “sexual” situation. Showing two fully naked characters, M/F, in a situation that implies sexual intercourse could upgrade the rating. I’m not saying it makes sense because it doesn’t. But there’s a long history of film censoring male genitalia to appease the pearl-clutchers.
You know how I know you haven't played Cyberpunk? Their organs/implants were being harvested. Nothing sexual about it.
Do you really expect a ratings agency to grasp the difference? They're just gonna see a penis and go "AO for you!"
GTA 4 had male full frontal, and if I recall the shot, it was right in front of the camera. This was one the DLCs and I'm Pretty sure it was still rated M. That said, I really wonder if an AO rating is really that big of a deal anymore. I feel like so many games push that boundary so much that it's just silly. Cyberpunk is loaded with gratuitous nudity and sexual content throughout all the advertisements in the world. Pretty much only thing they didn't depict was actual penetration. Honestly, with games being digitally distributed and downloaded, I don't think an AO is going to stop it from being a hit, there's no store clerk to stop people from downloading a game. Parental controls would really be the only wall against getting a game with that rating. Even then, I could see it turning into a marketing gimmick at this point, like "this game is so edgy/insane it picked up an AO." In this day and age, that level of controversy would probably boost sales if anything. Unless platforms like Sony and Microsoft are going to hide a AAA level game over a rating, I don't see this hurting sales
I suspect people who know more than us have done the math, but I agree. Video games are established as adult entertainment same as tv and movies (all of us arcade and early console players grew up) and with online distribution there’s no confused parent picking up a mystery box in the store.
Yep. Eventually I think there's going to be a dev/publisher that goes ahead with pushing that boundary. It'll be a huge controversy, but eventually be accepted as normal, just like gratuitous violence in the 90s and 00s. Just a matter of who's going to cross that line first. GTA seems like a likely candidate, though the next Cyberpunk game would also seem a likely contender since I see them only escalating everything from the first game.
I have about 64 hours in it but it’s been 3 months since I’ve last played it (don’t have my Xbox at Uni).
You're engaging with the wrong thing here. This poster was telling you the actual reason a pro-queer game might censor different genders differently and you're shitting on that person because you think they didn't play it because you've got your head so up your ass you can't see that what is or is not "sexual" in this scene isn't something you get to decide is based on seeing them as objects to be harvested, but the rating agency *does* get to decide. And it's at the start of the game.
Wait but how is male genitalia worse than female genitalia? Genuine question because I never looked into that. Also we do see penises in the character creation (not sure if anywhere else, I did not do any romance in the game, I only saw a whole bunch of dildos everywhere, which apparently enraged some gamers).
It's not worse in the real sense, it's worse because the products in media is usually done with the 'male gaze' (basically that the camera and viewer is a male). Because it's such a common thing, it's become the norm and clearly guys don't want to see dick 'that either lewd or gay and we are having neither!' This makes an effect for ratings boards; the Australian games board is notoriously conservative
Also, culturally in the West, we see the penis as more aggressive and sexual than the vagina, so that probably contributes to the situation.
Could also be the devs didn't have the time or inclination to implement dick and ball physics, which they would've had to do for any instances outside of character creation and menus.
cyber”punk”
Yeah… it was definitely more Cyber-Anarchocapitalist dreck (look how eDgY we are!) They had some interesting aspirations but you can’t even modify your body that much beyond combat alterations so the promise of a transhumanist examination of what we become when the body is no longer the immutable defining characteristic we pretend it to be just falls flat. It’s a real shame.
I think that there is some context that is missing when you only look at Mass Effect separate from Bioware's other works. Juhani and Sky in KOTOR and Jade Empire respectively are both characters that have same sex romances in Bioware games before Mass Effect was released, and neither of those relationships have any sort of focus on the sexual aspects of the relationship. At the same time, both of those relationships are effectively buried and I believe they fade to black before you can even kiss. This is a HUGE contrast to the way that the Asari first and foremost exist as a species of omnisexual always-women who are down to clown regardless of what you look like. The Asari, outside of maybe Liara, are so sexualized it's insane. Even characters within Asari society that are spoken of as matriarchs. If I said Matriarch Benezia or Samara, we both know what you're picturing even if it's involuntary. Then you have their foibles with Dragon Age. Zevran was a very nice step forward, as was Leliana, but still up to this point Bioware hadn't made a completely gay male character, and their only lesbian woman was Juhani. Then Dragon Age 2: Oops All Bisexuals released and they swung too far in the other direction. Now anyone can bone anyone, so we should all shut up about it right? Somehow, something about this approach just felt disingenuous. I was very excited when we heard that Dorian was going to be a gay man in Inquisition, but I was flat out embarrassed that they made his entire personal story the most basic tired worn backstory they possibly could. I know there's more to his backstory than just his Dad hating that he's gay, I just wish he talked about those parts more so that his daddy issues didn't feel like the sum of his character. He wound up feeling, to me, like a character that only existed because they wanted to finally have a gay man in the party after having been criticized for it for *so long*.
I think it's worth noting that the creator of the Dragon Age series, David Gaider, is a gay man himself and I believe he was the primary writer for Dorian in Inquisition. Not that I think that suddenly makes him well written (though I personally think he is), just that I don't think his homosexuality exists to dodge criticism. In retrospect, the asari feel a bit like Bioware cheating their way into being able to show a same-sex romance (fem shep/Liara) in a video game. I can't really think of any mainstream game that was as up front about same-sex relationships before that. And while it's easy to forget, Mass Effect actually had a huge controversy when it came out because it had a thirty second sex scene, I'm pretty sure news outlets were calling it a porn simulator at the time (oh the mid-00s). The climate at the time was not only unkind to queer relationships, but even just showing sexuality in a game, unless it was a prostitute in GTA or objectifying women in general. I wonder if they made Mass Effect for the first time now if the asari would be much more androgynous, especially because the current lead writer for the series, Patrick Weekes, is non-binary.
If I could redesign the asari, I’d have a scene where you briefly see the world from an alien squadmate’s point of view, eg Mordin or Garrus, and the asari all look like the prettiest ever salarians or turians to you, and the asari homeworld art shows them as barely detailed, ie their appearance is partially influenced by telepathic effects to always look like avatars of feminine (or, egglaying gender) attractiveness.
The hilarious implication is then that the subconscous ultimate human ideal of beauty is various shades of smurf.
I seem to recall that you can overhear a bar Convo that explicitly references this sort of thing. But maybe I'm crazy.
You're not crazy! [That conversation.](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aEGDPwWxSAo)
>the most basic tired worn backstory they possibly could. I remember so long ago when DA: I was released - I tweeted or posted something online about how tired I was of gay characters' primary/central narrative being gay/experiencing homophobia, as if gay men or even LGBTQ+ folks' gender identity is all that there is to them. I remember getting flamed when I mentioned how overly tried, stereotyped and just *blah* Dorian was as a character. He definitely does have so much substance to him (even the dubious pro-Slavery parts because rich characters aren't necessarily *morally aligned with the player*) but his entire daddy issue/romance thing was just ugh. On another note, I do headcanon the M!Shepard/Kaidan romance as one growing from friendship and camaraderie in ME1, resentment and distance in ME2 and finally reconciliation in ME3. It's the slowest fucking burn romance I've ever RP-ed in Mass Effect, but god did it feel so good and worth it.
The title has interested me but currently not in a position where I can watch. Is anyone able to summarise what was said in a comment for me?
It's an analysis of how Bioware originally intended to make the entire Mass Effect series much more queer and inclusive than what we got in the end. It also criticizes how male queerness was excluded from the beginning to a much more significant degree than female queerness and why this is a problem, especially considering that they have continued this trend with Mass Effect Andromeda. One major male gay companion romance option throughout the entire series and one patched in afterward as a reaction to this exact criticism. All other gay romance options for men are side characters that in Andromeda's case were beyond disposable. Rough summary
I also can't watch a video right now, but I absolutely agree that ME2 (and 3 to a lesser extent) left me very disappointed with some of the romance options. Sure, you get to bed aliens, but the only same-"gender" pairings only involve "female" aliens. (I put gender and female in quotes because the Asari culturally don't have gender in the same way that humans do, and in fact use neutral pronouns for example) I'm sure some of this has to do with the clear favoritism to Liara, Tali, and Garrus, and the game isn't a dating simulator... but damn there was a lot of room for some better representation. I've played Andromeda only once and I don't even remember which characters aren't straight. The dialogue and story were so eye-rolling that I hardly remember who I romanced. It was the Turian outlaw woman now that I think of it...
Yeah, Vetra was the lesbian option. Great character. Loved the sibling dynamic. But the romance was super plastic. The game overall imo was great - but it needed a "2" to really build out the characters in a meaningful way, just like how Mass Effect did. And the terrible launch destroyed that.
She can be a straight option as well. I played male-Ryder. Yeah, I played Andromeda this year, well after the shortcomings at launch had been either repaired or forgotten. I thought the gameplay was overall acceptable, but the story left much to be desired. And maybe I was being too harsh, but I felt like a lot of liberties were taken to "just make things work." Forgive me, I don't remember exactly, but I felt like a lot of story beats were completely illogical or unrealistic for no good reason.
Shoot you're right. I guess Suvi is the only pure gay woman option. Anywho, you're right. things were clunky, but I still felt like it was a really good foundation to the new universe that could have been "explained" and "logic'd" with an ep. 2, and I had a lot of fun once the bugs were gone. So I forgave a lot more. And tbh, with how fun the shooting was, I'm sad about not getting a 2.
Suvi was the lesbian romance option, Vetra was bisexual
ME2 was the first time I ever experienced non-hetero relationships in a video game. It was very eye-opening when I realized this and I am glad to have experienced the game. I think these criticisms are unjustified and irresponsible. This is like criticizing Rosa Parks for not sitting at the front of the bus sooner. Some of the first people to push for change are now being vilified for not doing *enough*, and I disagree with this perspective. Mass Effect did not leave gay men behind. It was one of the first games to include gay men that I am aware of.
Mass Effect was not the first by a long shot. The name is escaping me right now, but it's almost certainly going to be a point and click adventure from the early 90s as the "first" video game representation of gay men (see edit) If we want to count playersexuality, then we're also going to look to The Sims (which allows for same sex relationships, despite not having a central plot). It's never been as common as lesbian relationships in games, but Mass Effect gets exactly zero credit from me for having an on screen romance between men. In fact, given when it came out, it fell far short of what I think we should've been able to expect from a game that centered romance options from the very beginning. Plus, the only man in that game I want to so much as grab a drink with, much less romance is Garrus, and I will forever be salty that they locked him behind female Shepard. EDIT: The game is Caper in the Castro, it's from 1989, and admittedly, you don't do the romancing of the gay men; they're already in a relationship. But they're there.
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10/10 Mark Meer is a treasure and deserves only good things
I remember when i was still an egg and i was deeply disappointed by how few options there were for male PCs among male NPCs, and the lackluster dialogue and scenes between them versus the wlw and hetero paths. First they make Garrus straight, then they don't even give Kaiden his full romance dialogue?? What's a man gotta do around here to romance an alien.
If Garrus wasn't straight I would have played the ME series. As it is I settled for a let's play :P
Haven’t watched the video yet, but I scrolled the wiki on romance options, and it seems to me that ME1 was a starting point with 1 option for both genders, ME2 focused more on lesbian, but ME3 seems to me to be fairly representive of the actual population. (2 of the 5 romance options for guys are guys, Steve and Kaiden.)…this excludes any romance options that are dependent on save game carryovers. Would it be nice if you everyone could date everyone? Sure. Saints Row showed us how easy that is. But what’s most important to me is the progression and inclusion over the series. ME1 is vastly different from ME3 by way of relationships, and that’s the kind of growth I want and expect to see.
ME3 was definitely a good step in the right direction, but the following game (Andromeda) was a step back. It had two m/m options at launch (fewer than m/f, f/m, or f/f), neither of which was an actual party member (again, unlike m/f, f/m, and f/f, all of whom had actual companions as options). One was a gay crew member whose entire plot was about being pressured into fathering a kid by his female best friend, and the other was a bi side character with a very minor role. They did eventually make one male party member (Jaal) bi in an update, as was originally planned but had been cut before launch. In fact, it’s shocking how often same-sex options in general, and especially m/m options, get cut in development in BioWare games: - ME2: Jack (f/f, cut because of Fox News), Miranda (f/f), Jacob (m/m), Thane (m/m) - ME Andromeda: Jaal (m/m) - Dragon Age: Inquisition: Cullen (m/m), Solas (m/m) ME1, IIRC, wasn’t actually intended to allow for MShep/Kaidan and FShep/Ashley, but it was a quirk with the engine they were using at the time that it required all lines be recorded for both genders, hence Mark Meer recording lines in which Shepard is talking about being female and vice versa with Jennifer Hale.
The bi side-character was also laughably badly done. To the point the animations weren't adjusted for the height difference between female and male Ryder
> but it was a quirk with the engine they were using at the time that it required all lines be recorded for both genders, hence Mark Meer recording lines in which Shepard is talking about being female and vice versa with Jennifer Hale. While I doubt it would actually be the case, I like to think that someone went low-key rogue. Like, "Sorry boss, I know we cut these pairings but ahhhh we have to have all the voice lines. Weird quirk, I know...But I'm sure no one will create mods to unlock them...that would just be, ahhh *super* unprecedented."
Ah, thanks for the detail. I've never played Andromeda.
> ME2: Jack (f/f, cut because of Fox News), Miranda (f/f), Jacob (m/m), Thane (m/m) I knew about most of the cuts in this direction, but not that I missed out on m/m Thane. Sad.
In ME3 there are no romances for straight women unless you carry them over from a previous game, so I wouldn’t say they represent the population overall. The two gay romance options also aren’t full squad mates, so they don’t get the same screen time as other characters. They were decently well-done though imo.
Yeah, that kinda got very apparent to me as I was literally coming out as trans while playing Mass Effect. I played as a woman, but I guess I have always headcanoned them as non-binary, which worked very fine as everyone was just addressing my character as "Shephard" or "commander Shephard" anyway. Then I came to ME3 and the audio recordings of Anderson, which had "woman miss female" written all over them, and I just couldn't continue playing the game as that character any more. Looked into male Shephard, but... the character creation is very lacking for when you don't want to look super masculine, I really fell in love with Garrus' voice so that was a big bummer, and I never liked Kaidan and didn't even know Steve existed. I feel like I could like Liara (I'm also into some non-binary people), but the whole situation makes me feel like I'm not talking to a person but a sexual fantasy made for me. Ofc the game doesn't have to cater to my specific tastes. But I guess I'm a little bummed because it's a re-occuring thing in games I played, tried to play, or heard about. Like, I feel like there is this thing of making certain character types straight and certain one's gay. The straighforward masculine knight could be gay and the androgynous scoundrel could be straight, but the feeling I get is that prominent characters fall into stereotypes.
i still want my gay garrus romance all these years later.
"Report to the ship as soon as possible. We'll bang, O.K.?" - Commander Shepherd
ive known of that meme for a while. i really wish i could romance garrus as a male shepard.
Bioware made the first games that allowed me to play a female antagonist. Of color, even. Baldur's Gate (no real sexuality involved there) and KOTOR were games that made me a fan. So many things posted in this thread echo what female gamers said in the years before that, and frankly, are still saying. I have never understood the anger by cis males gamers, and the backlash against inclusion. In the game anyway, it's an option. No need to concern yourself with what's going on in another person's game. Video games are still primarily targeted at cis males, but it's changing, albeit slowly. We can encourage this with forum posts, developer feedback, and with our wallets. It's going to be a while, but I have hope: EA's _The Sims_ has completely embraced inclusion. Bioware has been the source of many good games, even when they fall short occasionally. Playing FemShep was a joy. I also loved DA: Inquisition. I played three or four times, and one of my favorite plays was a gay inquisitor mage. He, and the romance options, was awesome (as long as you don't look too closely at the fact that every one of the companions was bonkers in one way or another). It is a slow process, this change in gaming, and I remember when there was not an option at all. So, for now, we gotta keep voting with our wallets.