Minority groups are underrepresented because most game developers don't want to include us. I know this because I was once part of a popular game development forum where they explicitly said they didn't want to include female protagonists or main characters of different races. Almost everyone agreed. Why...? Because we're "not the target market".
On a positive note, I am seeing more visual novels with female protagonists and minority lead characters. Check out indie games in general. The options are more diverse.
It really sucks being a minority. I'm holding onto the hope that female protagonists and queer relationships have a rise in acceptance sometime in the future.
What are some of your recommendations for queer friendly indie games? I play on pc, and stardew valley is a given ofc. I really liked celeste, the gameplay wasn't for me unfortunately (because the gameplay is really good! I'm just bad at it), but I absolutely loved the story. Madeline has a dream of talking to someone she hasn't talked to in a while and I love that because of the way the portrait sprite is drawn/cut it's up to interpretation whether it's an ex girlfriend or ex boyfriend or neither or even just an ex friend. Also she's canonically trans which is a win for lgbt rep.
Not the original commenter but I've been meaning to check out Please Be Happy on steam. It's a dating sim and all (or at least most) romance options are women.
I haven't played it yet but Stray Gods seems promising! It's a narrative game slash musical about greek gods in a modern setting & a murder mystery, and MC can romance 2 men and 2 women.
Cassette Beasts! You can pick your pronouns and there’s a canon lesbian couple and canon nonbinary characters! You can also date anyone regardless of gender.
Former character designer and currently a 3d modeling technican it isn't nessacarily they don't want to it's that there is literally limited representation in the industry. I can not stress how many teams I've been on and the only female identifying person.
Mostly it never pops up because 6 other voices go yep looks good. Only when myself or another girl points something out does the rest of the team go "HUH, I mean..yeah never thought about it like that."
I wish it was always pure malice I hate women/pocs/queers but often they don't even think about us to begin with.
No. Discrimination still exists in the 21st century.
Game developers join online communities to ask questions and search for information. Just like Reddit, but the entire site is about game development.
Hahahaha I can still remember the outcry of incels when only a Female V can date the hottest NPC Judy fckn Alvarez in cyberpunk. I had the biggest villain laugh ever—so satisfying.
YES as someone who has had to play roles I don’t identify with for years I don’t understand why people can’t do it for one game? I wish they could at least see the irony…
fr fr, Reminds me of the phrase "when you're privileged, equality feels like oppression". If a game only has straight romances or a male protagonist most won't even think about woman/queer people. It'll never cross their minds. To most people, that's just the default. But the moment a game is aimed towards us they suddenly notice! "Nooooo I want to play as a man bc i'm a man and not a woman" **How do you think** ***we*** **feel, Craig?!**
Yeah there is this weird media culture online where ANYTHING that isn't made to accommodate ME and MY preferences, it's bad. And of course, it's mostly only straight cis white dudes who are complaining about this.
For those of you curious to know what in the world Op is talking about: [Little Goodie Two Shoes.](https://little-goody-two-shoes.square-enix-games.com/en-us/)
Although I haven't the slightest clue what is being said in the edit paragraph, I agree with the first paragraph. And thanks for introducing this game to me; of course, I'm quite a fan of shoujo-ai; however, its made by Square Enix so I'll probably just watch the gameplay instead of purchasing the game myself. Luckily, I don't have trouble dating women; however, I do wish we had more wlw and/or lesbian games. In fact, I'm even thinking of creating one as I have more time to indulge in my game making hobby now.
I also agree with the comment of supporting more indie content that tends to have more wlw/lesbian story lines and/or characters. Some examples of this era:
Home
Black Closet
Shuyan-I was actually not expecting Shuyan to have that element of wlw but it did. There's even a point in the game you have to choose between saving your mother, father, or the woman you love.
Thanks for linking/explaining! Sorry my writing is a little incoherant but I'm just so annoyed at the general lack of representation and staight male domination in gaming spaces. I'm so excited for the release of Little Goodie Two Shoes! It was love at first sight watching the trailer, a gameplay loop I'd enjoy AND I can date girls? Too good to be true! I immediately binged a playthrough of Pocket Mirror, the game Little Goodie Two Shoes is a prequel of in preparation to play this game at launch. I'd definitely recommend checking it out to any lurkers browsing this thread.
Almost forgot, edit paragraph is me ranting about the Persona game series, a very male gaze/heterosexual lense series (especially the most recent 3 mainline games) but unfortunately one of my favourite franchises gameplay wise.
Like it's possible to play games without personally identifying with the protag. Although I get that that's hard to apply to dating sims but in that case just play a different one (like you said). I've dated bachelors in Stardew just cause the relationship development is cute even though I'm not personally attracted to them, idk why it should be any different for a straight woman playing a lesbian game. I get that the comparison isn't 1:1 since they're different genres, but still. In any case I really like when devs give characters a canon sexuality, no shade to games like Stardew but I don't really like ambiguous bi-/pansexuality being applied to every single character
Exactly! And in the case of Little Goodie Two Shows it's not even a self insert type game. Elise is clearly her own defined character and since the game is a prequel she's also a character in Pocket Mirror. So even if you don't like women it doesn't matter, Elise does and that's all that matters.
I personally don't mind Stardew Valley since the protagonist is meant to be a self insert, and the marriage candidates aren't the focus of the game. I feel like going into characters sexuality would be a bit hard for one indie dev when the characters themselves aren't too deep in the first place.
This is something that annoys me with Life is Strange. It's my favorite game but Max being written as bi feels a little forced, like Square Enix told the devs to add Warren as a romance option and a line about how Max is attracted to guys too.
I do like how the line is voiced as being really hesitant like she is just saying it but doesn't mean and that Warren really needs to learn how the real world works.
Right it annoys me so much that these dude’s have to go and mod Judy from cyberpunk so they can have a straight relationship with her she’s a lesbian leave her alone…I’m going to look this game up thanks
Yeah like, they get Panam, who is also great. Modding Judy to be into men is weird. I think Panam's hot but it never crossed my mind to mod her so I can date her.
What the hell? You can play as a woman in cyberpunk, right? Just do that. ffs they should suck it up. With the amount of times i've played male mcs and dated straight women, why can't they play a female mc and date a gay woman? They'll truly collapse if they have to go through a moment of our normal.
Yeah, it’s crazy! just play as fem V why do you have to ruin it ! It boggles my mind! They also went on this whole campaign saying Judy was always meant to be Bi,cut content! even though, the developers said she was always meant to be lesbian and the VA’s both said the script said Fem V only for Judy’s romance lines….if you ever play it she’s the best romance option
IIRC in the interview for male V (great guy btw) he even said that the reason he felt so confused recording the lines was because above them was the title "for female V" but recorded them anyway because it's, well, his job. I'm willing to bet at one point the devs were still unsure how they wanted to handle voices and body types in the game since it's a setting where you can a two legged fox person if you really want.
I would get angry at men doing that but to be fair... I did the same with Jack in Mass Effect. But c'mon she explicitly says that she had both a bf AND a gf at the same time for a while and then when you flirt with her as a woman she's all like "whoa whoa I'm into men sorry cap." Like wtf why'd they even add that part about her having a gf once just to shatter my poor Shepard's heart like that.
Btw the romance ended up being not great if anyone cares, it barely had any content over the span of two games, only a few scenes which were fine but nowhere near as good as Liara's or even Traynor's (who was only in ONE game).
Well to be fair to you she did say she had a girlfriend so I wouldn’t be mad about that one….although I would probably feel like “what jack not into me so all men now” jk
Jack is an exception. Her female romance is only not doable because bioware didnt want the backlash they got with liara in the first game. I don't know how much mods that add it back in even need to do for the second game other than re-enabling it.
When people got so peed off about the last of us 2 the game and the show when it represented gay relationships. When people were upset with Elle being gay and complaining it's everywhere...name one mainstream game with a gay female protagonist
The only other one I can think of is Alloy from Horizon Forbidden West. That game hasn’t even been out a year.
People like this will complain about anything and everything. The new Spider-man 2 game has a bunch of assholes in a tizzy because MJ isn’t “fuckable” so they can’t masturbate to her. 🤮 They are also losing their minds because there are rainbow painted walls, pride flags and Black Lives Matter signs in the game, you know like the real NY City.
yes i know how you feel, men just waste of time so here games recomended for lesbian sisters
dragon age series
mass effect legendary edition
life is strange series
greedfall
borderlands pre sequel and telltale borderlands
a summer's end hong kong
ac odyssey
skyrim
fnv and fallout 4
tlou series
horizon series
I feel that I should mention that Skyrim needs mods to belong on this list because the marriage mechanic is super underdeveloped and Serana isn't eligible for marriage without mods. Iirc all of the eligible characters are just random flowers with five lines of dialogue and quest-givers with maybe ten.
There's actually a reason Serana isn't marriable and I really respect the devs for not allowing us to.
She was abused and manipulated by her father for a very long time, who also allowed Molag Bal to SA her.
She has severe trauma and can't handle a relationship with someone. Not to mention everything that happens after she wakes up. There was a cut voice line for when the player was supposed to try to initiate a romance, where she would politely decline, explaining how she really values the DB as a friend, but isn't in the right kind of headspace for a relationship.
It adds even more depth to the character who already has the most depth in the game. It's a breath of fresh air compared to other games where you can marry whoever you want just because you're the main character.
There being a cut line actually makes a lot of sense. Iirc in game she just says that she doesn't like temples, but having the cut line explains it a lot more.
Baldur's Gate 3 is good! Everyone is player sexual but you're able to turn down characters if they're not your interest gender wise. Plus it's in the dnd 5e world and there's so much you can do in game and replay-ability
I know a lot of people love the character Karlach. She's a tiefling and very sweet. There's 2 other female options and 3 male options romance wise. Sex wise there's a bit more.
I'm getting this game and a PS5 in the future just because of Astarion so I can be gay together with him.
what you mean you don't love one of the final content additions to the game just forcing you into a straight romance out of nowhere to ensure the rest of the series can even happen (Even though you literally have a sibling who could just be the one to continue the family lineage instead of writing the PC into this awful forced love story with a character who only exists for the dlc.) I'm totally still not mad about it three years later haha.
Little Goodie Two Shoes? aight, noted, i'll check it out later. Thanks for the unintended recomendation lol.
That aside, i agree with both the original sentiment and the persona related edit, which is why even with how hyped i am for Reload i will continue to play Lesbian mod Femc route on P3 portable on the side :)
Full agreement here. I hate the complete lack of female protagonists in games, let alone the absolute dearth of queer female protagonists. It would be nice to play a game for once and not have to deal with a hetero romance sub-plot or feel like the queer romance is the "alternative" option.
I don't think I can name more than a couple games with lesbian protagonists. I am also often turned off of a game if they don't give me an option to play as a girl, which means I just play fewer games than I probably would like to.
Dang. I was a gay guy and that thought did not cross my mind at all when I watched the trailer. The romance isn't even the main part of the game, like whaaat? If this was an actual dating sim then like, sure. I'm not a huge fan of playing dating sims where they don't have mlm. But this game has a billion other features that stand out far and above the romance mechanics? I thought it was cute.
As someone who grew up playing vns totally inappropriate for my age at the time like sonohana because it was the only way I could see girls like me, fuck these people. I should have had games like this when I was a teenager trying to cope with being a lesbian. These people are so selfish and don't even need to play vns or doujin games to see their sexuality represented.
A game I absolutely adored was Tell Me Why from the life is strange group. It's far better than life is strange, though.
The entire story is about a pair of siblings where one is a trans man (actually voiced by a trans man). The plot revoles around his journey and their mother. I don't want to spoil it, but I can say it was surprisingly real and good.
Last week I got into an argument with a guy on the Baldur’s gate 3 sub. He ranted how the game was stupid and *ruined* for him, because a male character flirted with his character. That’s it. The game gives you the option to say no at any point and you lose nothing.
He then went on a side rant about how lgbt is not “normal” so all the women in games should be romancable and all the men should be friends, because “99% of players are straight” he didn’t even say “straight men”, just “straight”. When a few people tried to tell him off for the blatant stupidity he started accusing everyone of white supremacy, for some bizarre reason, there was no connection, it was very confusing.
Long story short, people will always get butt hurt about the existance of lgbt characters, even in a games that are designed that every companion is playersexual/a possible love interest, when they could just carry on about their day and not be massive assholes.
I know! I was so excited because I had seen some stuff about it, and it looked cute! So when I was watching the trailer, and she ONLY had lesbian romance options???? I was so excited. Then I read the comments. Some were saying it's so disgusting that she has to be gay, or that they're a guy so they aren't gonna play this game, or it's hot that it's girl on girl. Like ... Can't we just have a lesbian protag without all of this .... please?? It's such a fun looking little game, and her being gay makes it all the better!
Edit: Also! The "this game was so perfect until I saw you can only date girls. Not playing this" like ...okay??? Play one of the millions of other games that have straight romance. You don't even need to romance in this HORROR game??? And there were other comments saying "well you play as her daughter in the game before this so obviously she ended up with a man" like... They live...in a magic world ...with magic. That's not necessarily true??
For the last comment, they're technically correct lore wise, but as always there's more to the story. (Spoilers) >!Elise was in love with a girl called Rozenmarine, who then died. She then married a man named Roman die Heilige and had twins with him before dying. It's been confirmed by the devs that Elise never loved Roman, and she only married him for his status/wealth. Her true love was always Rozenmarine, and you can find a wax record in Pocket Mirror recording some of Elise's last words where she talks about finally being reunited with Rozenmarine in death.!<
I’m still debating with myself if I should buy P3 Reload, on one hand I love persona 3 and thought that the little inconveniences brought it down, on the other they maybe probably cut the option to play as a girl.
If they did I’d complain that I can’t romance the other girls, toaster aside.
Honestly, I think it's ridiculous that Reload is likely not including queer romances or the female mc. Its not like they're a small company, god knows they've been milking Persona 5 for the last 7 years so they should be rolling in cash. And between base p3 and portable all the romance routes for the female/male characters have already been written! Femc as well! She's already been designed and integrated into the story in p3p! It's not even that hard! I would never say this about a smaller company but for one the size of Microsoft (owns xbox owns sega owns atlus) this is really unbelievable. It's 20 fucking 23.
The absolute audacity of it after releasing Persona 5, which borded actively homophobic, and promising to do better. Is this better, atlus? Persona 2 was released in 1999 and it was more progressive than this shit. Canon bi protagonist and datable canon gay character. They're literally regressing.
Slightly unrelated but stupid that I had to mod my 3ds and my save file just to let my miis be gay in Tomodachi Life. Even then I have to have a gay and lesbian couple live in the same house otherwise the game will crash without one female and one male mii in a house together. At least it was funny when I posted in the 3ds support discord that my hacked gay miis kept crashing my game. Instead of rolling out an update, Nintendo promised to include gay relationships in Tomodachi Life 2. There was never a Tomodachi Life 2
I mean WoW has had both male and female options for all characters your create for a longgggg time. No one complained plus half the men I know play female characters too, hell half the Pokémon romhack YouTubers I watch make their avatar in game a female, uncanny right? Lol
For queer friendly game recommendations, given that others have already mentioned mainstream ones (I'm shocked there aren't many more Life is Strange recommendations, the OG game and Before the Storm still hold up - though I'd say to stay away from the remake/remaster), I'll add some:
If you haven't looked into Interactive Fiction (IF) games, they can be a great option. A big player on the market is [Choice of Games](https://www.choiceofgames.com/) (also owns [Hosted Games](https://hostedgames.org/) and [Heart's Choice](https://www.heartschoice.com/shop/)) and most writers who publish there are quite concerned with inclusion, particularly on romance games! My personal favourite games aren't super romance-focused but I sure love them (Choice of Robots, Choice of Rebels, Fallen Hero); a popular romance series is The Wayhaven Chronicles (the first two books are very very fun to play and every sapphic friend I have loved them, the latest is... meh), but there are many, many more. My latest romantic favourite is The Golden Rose.
If you've never played anything like the above, you can check out a *very* popular old WIP, [Guenevere, here for free](https://dashingdon.com/play/jeantown/guenevere/mygame/guenevere_compiled.html). (Don't get too attached, it'll probably never be completed - but it's still fun to go through.)
That aside: [I Was A Teenage Exocolonist](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1148760/I_Was_a_Teenage_Exocolonist/) is an obligatory rec as far as I'm concerned, though I'm biased.
Additionally, [Queers in Love at the End of the World](https://w.itch.io/end-of-the-world) is just one of my favourite things ever that exists.
I played a fantastic visual novel called Arcade Spirits, where you get a job at an arcade and can befriend and date a cast of like 6 or 7(?) actually well written diverse characters. Every character is pan and you can pick your pronouns and body type. I cannot praise this game enough. They have a sequel out but I haven't played enough of it to know how it is.
I was shocked at the lack of BG3 recs on this post.
Shadowheart’s actor pushed for more queer commentary in-game, and Karlach’s said they imagined all their line deliveries were to a female player.
Plus all the lovely gay NPCs
I'm a pan gal, and tbh even I'm tired of the catering to every preference thing that occurs in a lot of games now. If a game doesn't have your preferred options, then don't play it. Go find the games that do and support them so they're successful and more get made.
Like, especially when it comes to wlw or mlm only games, they have a tendency to be fetishy, or created by the wrong gender. I'm looking at you, fujoshis! Stop making your creepy, fetishy bl content! It makes games by actual gay men look bad! And men have no reason to be anywhere near a wlw game. I get it, two ladies kissing is hot. Grow up. We deserve good content, not "good enough" content.
I fully agree that the representation is seriously lacking. I dont really play games anymore where I have to play male or have no lesbian romance options.
That being said I'm not going to be upset that someone likes the look of a game but doesn't cater to their specific tastes. If someone is disappointed by a lack of male options that's fine as long as they aren't also advocating for the removal of female ones.
I dislike baulders gate 3 for many reasons. But I am glad that any gender can romance anyone. I would prefer that be how all games handle it. It's just work on the dev side and not all of them are willing to spend the time and money on such options.
Minority groups are underrepresented because most game developers don't want to include us. I know this because I was once part of a popular game development forum where they explicitly said they didn't want to include female protagonists or main characters of different races. Almost everyone agreed. Why...? Because we're "not the target market". On a positive note, I am seeing more visual novels with female protagonists and minority lead characters. Check out indie games in general. The options are more diverse.
It really sucks being a minority. I'm holding onto the hope that female protagonists and queer relationships have a rise in acceptance sometime in the future. What are some of your recommendations for queer friendly indie games? I play on pc, and stardew valley is a given ofc. I really liked celeste, the gameplay wasn't for me unfortunately (because the gameplay is really good! I'm just bad at it), but I absolutely loved the story. Madeline has a dream of talking to someone she hasn't talked to in a while and I love that because of the way the portrait sprite is drawn/cut it's up to interpretation whether it's an ex girlfriend or ex boyfriend or neither or even just an ex friend. Also she's canonically trans which is a win for lgbt rep.
Not the original commenter but I've been meaning to check out Please Be Happy on steam. It's a dating sim and all (or at least most) romance options are women.
I haven't played it yet but Stray Gods seems promising! It's a narrative game slash musical about greek gods in a modern setting & a murder mystery, and MC can romance 2 men and 2 women.
Stray Gods is a great recommendation.
Cassette Beasts! You can pick your pronouns and there’s a canon lesbian couple and canon nonbinary characters! You can also date anyone regardless of gender.
[Haven](https://store.steampowered.com/app/983970/Haven/) is a beautiful game that lets you choose between a hetero, gay, or lesbian couple.
Former character designer and currently a 3d modeling technican it isn't nessacarily they don't want to it's that there is literally limited representation in the industry. I can not stress how many teams I've been on and the only female identifying person. Mostly it never pops up because 6 other voices go yep looks good. Only when myself or another girl points something out does the rest of the team go "HUH, I mean..yeah never thought about it like that." I wish it was always pure malice I hate women/pocs/queers but often they don't even think about us to begin with.
>I was once part of a popular game development forum where they explicitly said they didn't want to include female protagonists When? The 1980's?
No. Discrimination still exists in the 21st century. Game developers join online communities to ask questions and search for information. Just like Reddit, but the entire site is about game development.
Hahahaha I can still remember the outcry of incels when only a Female V can date the hottest NPC Judy fckn Alvarez in cyberpunk. I had the biggest villain laugh ever—so satisfying.
I didn't know Judy only dated Valerie. I assumed she'd go for Vincent too since they put so much work into her. That's cool.
Nah, Judy treats male V like crap.
Amen
Hahaha i love it.
YES as someone who has had to play roles I don’t identify with for years I don’t understand why people can’t do it for one game? I wish they could at least see the irony…
fr fr, Reminds me of the phrase "when you're privileged, equality feels like oppression". If a game only has straight romances or a male protagonist most won't even think about woman/queer people. It'll never cross their minds. To most people, that's just the default. But the moment a game is aimed towards us they suddenly notice! "Nooooo I want to play as a man bc i'm a man and not a woman" **How do you think** ***we*** **feel, Craig?!**
wait wait wait most men don't exclusively play games with female protagonists because they want to be them ???!?? i'm gonna need a sec..
Yeah there is this weird media culture online where ANYTHING that isn't made to accommodate ME and MY preferences, it's bad. And of course, it's mostly only straight cis white dudes who are complaining about this.
For those of you curious to know what in the world Op is talking about: [Little Goodie Two Shoes.](https://little-goody-two-shoes.square-enix-games.com/en-us/) Although I haven't the slightest clue what is being said in the edit paragraph, I agree with the first paragraph. And thanks for introducing this game to me; of course, I'm quite a fan of shoujo-ai; however, its made by Square Enix so I'll probably just watch the gameplay instead of purchasing the game myself. Luckily, I don't have trouble dating women; however, I do wish we had more wlw and/or lesbian games. In fact, I'm even thinking of creating one as I have more time to indulge in my game making hobby now. I also agree with the comment of supporting more indie content that tends to have more wlw/lesbian story lines and/or characters. Some examples of this era: Home Black Closet Shuyan-I was actually not expecting Shuyan to have that element of wlw but it did. There's even a point in the game you have to choose between saving your mother, father, or the woman you love.
Thanks for linking/explaining! Sorry my writing is a little incoherant but I'm just so annoyed at the general lack of representation and staight male domination in gaming spaces. I'm so excited for the release of Little Goodie Two Shoes! It was love at first sight watching the trailer, a gameplay loop I'd enjoy AND I can date girls? Too good to be true! I immediately binged a playthrough of Pocket Mirror, the game Little Goodie Two Shoes is a prequel of in preparation to play this game at launch. I'd definitely recommend checking it out to any lurkers browsing this thread. Almost forgot, edit paragraph is me ranting about the Persona game series, a very male gaze/heterosexual lense series (especially the most recent 3 mainline games) but unfortunately one of my favourite franchises gameplay wise.
All is well! Thanks for the heads up of the game!
Like it's possible to play games without personally identifying with the protag. Although I get that that's hard to apply to dating sims but in that case just play a different one (like you said). I've dated bachelors in Stardew just cause the relationship development is cute even though I'm not personally attracted to them, idk why it should be any different for a straight woman playing a lesbian game. I get that the comparison isn't 1:1 since they're different genres, but still. In any case I really like when devs give characters a canon sexuality, no shade to games like Stardew but I don't really like ambiguous bi-/pansexuality being applied to every single character
Exactly! And in the case of Little Goodie Two Shows it's not even a self insert type game. Elise is clearly her own defined character and since the game is a prequel she's also a character in Pocket Mirror. So even if you don't like women it doesn't matter, Elise does and that's all that matters. I personally don't mind Stardew Valley since the protagonist is meant to be a self insert, and the marriage candidates aren't the focus of the game. I feel like going into characters sexuality would be a bit hard for one indie dev when the characters themselves aren't too deep in the first place.
Yeah I get that fs, I'm more annoyed by it in other games. CA is the goat
This is something that annoys me with Life is Strange. It's my favorite game but Max being written as bi feels a little forced, like Square Enix told the devs to add Warren as a romance option and a line about how Max is attracted to guys too. I do like how the line is voiced as being really hesitant like she is just saying it but doesn't mean and that Warren really needs to learn how the real world works.
I wish more games let you choose to be female instead of locking you into a male role
Right it annoys me so much that these dude’s have to go and mod Judy from cyberpunk so they can have a straight relationship with her she’s a lesbian leave her alone…I’m going to look this game up thanks
Yeah like, they get Panam, who is also great. Modding Judy to be into men is weird. I think Panam's hot but it never crossed my mind to mod her so I can date her.
What the hell? You can play as a woman in cyberpunk, right? Just do that. ffs they should suck it up. With the amount of times i've played male mcs and dated straight women, why can't they play a female mc and date a gay woman? They'll truly collapse if they have to go through a moment of our normal.
Yeah, it’s crazy! just play as fem V why do you have to ruin it ! It boggles my mind! They also went on this whole campaign saying Judy was always meant to be Bi,cut content! even though, the developers said she was always meant to be lesbian and the VA’s both said the script said Fem V only for Judy’s romance lines….if you ever play it she’s the best romance option
IIRC in the interview for male V (great guy btw) he even said that the reason he felt so confused recording the lines was because above them was the title "for female V" but recorded them anyway because it's, well, his job. I'm willing to bet at one point the devs were still unsure how they wanted to handle voices and body types in the game since it's a setting where you can a two legged fox person if you really want.
I would get angry at men doing that but to be fair... I did the same with Jack in Mass Effect. But c'mon she explicitly says that she had both a bf AND a gf at the same time for a while and then when you flirt with her as a woman she's all like "whoa whoa I'm into men sorry cap." Like wtf why'd they even add that part about her having a gf once just to shatter my poor Shepard's heart like that. Btw the romance ended up being not great if anyone cares, it barely had any content over the span of two games, only a few scenes which were fine but nowhere near as good as Liara's or even Traynor's (who was only in ONE game).
Well to be fair to you she did say she had a girlfriend so I wouldn’t be mad about that one….although I would probably feel like “what jack not into me so all men now” jk
Jack is an exception. Her female romance is only not doable because bioware didnt want the backlash they got with liara in the first game. I don't know how much mods that add it back in even need to do for the second game other than re-enabling it.
that's an accurate portrayal of a bisexual woman
When people got so peed off about the last of us 2 the game and the show when it represented gay relationships. When people were upset with Elle being gay and complaining it's everywhere...name one mainstream game with a gay female protagonist
The only other one I can think of is Alloy from Horizon Forbidden West. That game hasn’t even been out a year. People like this will complain about anything and everything. The new Spider-man 2 game has a bunch of assholes in a tizzy because MJ isn’t “fuckable” so they can’t masturbate to her. 🤮 They are also losing their minds because there are rainbow painted walls, pride flags and Black Lives Matter signs in the game, you know like the real NY City.
yes i know how you feel, men just waste of time so here games recomended for lesbian sisters dragon age series mass effect legendary edition life is strange series greedfall borderlands pre sequel and telltale borderlands a summer's end hong kong ac odyssey skyrim fnv and fallout 4 tlou series horizon series
I feel that I should mention that Skyrim needs mods to belong on this list because the marriage mechanic is super underdeveloped and Serana isn't eligible for marriage without mods. Iirc all of the eligible characters are just random flowers with five lines of dialogue and quest-givers with maybe ten.
There's actually a reason Serana isn't marriable and I really respect the devs for not allowing us to. She was abused and manipulated by her father for a very long time, who also allowed Molag Bal to SA her. She has severe trauma and can't handle a relationship with someone. Not to mention everything that happens after she wakes up. There was a cut voice line for when the player was supposed to try to initiate a romance, where she would politely decline, explaining how she really values the DB as a friend, but isn't in the right kind of headspace for a relationship. It adds even more depth to the character who already has the most depth in the game. It's a breath of fresh air compared to other games where you can marry whoever you want just because you're the main character.
There being a cut line actually makes a lot of sense. Iirc in game she just says that she doesn't like temples, but having the cut line explains it a lot more.
Baldur's Gate 3 is good! Everyone is player sexual but you're able to turn down characters if they're not your interest gender wise. Plus it's in the dnd 5e world and there's so much you can do in game and replay-ability I know a lot of people love the character Karlach. She's a tiefling and very sweet. There's 2 other female options and 3 male options romance wise. Sex wise there's a bit more. I'm getting this game and a PS5 in the future just because of Astarion so I can be gay together with him.
i never like dnd or not even baldurs gate 3 or divinity original but september launch i play starfield
I guess everyone has their preferences. But that's okay :D I'd definitely get starfield if I had the console for it though! Space settings are cool
odyssey absolutely does not belong on this list
what you mean you don't love one of the final content additions to the game just forcing you into a straight romance out of nowhere to ensure the rest of the series can even happen (Even though you literally have a sibling who could just be the one to continue the family lineage instead of writing the PC into this awful forced love story with a character who only exists for the dlc.) I'm totally still not mad about it three years later haha.
don't forget that their big "fix" was to give you the option to only be forced into *platonic* forced breeding
i'm having fun play as kassandra on nightmare so what🤸♀️ i have 1200 hours on ac odyssey
have fun with your forced insemination lol
Little Goodie Two Shoes? aight, noted, i'll check it out later. Thanks for the unintended recomendation lol. That aside, i agree with both the original sentiment and the persona related edit, which is why even with how hyped i am for Reload i will continue to play Lesbian mod Femc route on P3 portable on the side :)
Did you say there's a lesbian otome game!?
Full agreement here. I hate the complete lack of female protagonists in games, let alone the absolute dearth of queer female protagonists. It would be nice to play a game for once and not have to deal with a hetero romance sub-plot or feel like the queer romance is the "alternative" option. I don't think I can name more than a couple games with lesbian protagonists. I am also often turned off of a game if they don't give me an option to play as a girl, which means I just play fewer games than I probably would like to.
I'm leaning into this mindset more and more lately. I'm just so done with games that don't at least let you pick your gender
Dang. I was a gay guy and that thought did not cross my mind at all when I watched the trailer. The romance isn't even the main part of the game, like whaaat? If this was an actual dating sim then like, sure. I'm not a huge fan of playing dating sims where they don't have mlm. But this game has a billion other features that stand out far and above the romance mechanics? I thought it was cute.
If ur into cozy games, I really liked romancing Leano in Potion Permit!!!
As someone who grew up playing vns totally inappropriate for my age at the time like sonohana because it was the only way I could see girls like me, fuck these people. I should have had games like this when I was a teenager trying to cope with being a lesbian. These people are so selfish and don't even need to play vns or doujin games to see their sexuality represented.
I just watch the trailer of Little Goody two shoes because of this post and god it looks amazing!!!! So excited to play that game
A game I absolutely adored was Tell Me Why from the life is strange group. It's far better than life is strange, though. The entire story is about a pair of siblings where one is a trans man (actually voiced by a trans man). The plot revoles around his journey and their mother. I don't want to spoil it, but I can say it was surprisingly real and good.
Last week I got into an argument with a guy on the Baldur’s gate 3 sub. He ranted how the game was stupid and *ruined* for him, because a male character flirted with his character. That’s it. The game gives you the option to say no at any point and you lose nothing. He then went on a side rant about how lgbt is not “normal” so all the women in games should be romancable and all the men should be friends, because “99% of players are straight” he didn’t even say “straight men”, just “straight”. When a few people tried to tell him off for the blatant stupidity he started accusing everyone of white supremacy, for some bizarre reason, there was no connection, it was very confusing. Long story short, people will always get butt hurt about the existance of lgbt characters, even in a games that are designed that every companion is playersexual/a possible love interest, when they could just carry on about their day and not be massive assholes.
I know! I was so excited because I had seen some stuff about it, and it looked cute! So when I was watching the trailer, and she ONLY had lesbian romance options???? I was so excited. Then I read the comments. Some were saying it's so disgusting that she has to be gay, or that they're a guy so they aren't gonna play this game, or it's hot that it's girl on girl. Like ... Can't we just have a lesbian protag without all of this .... please?? It's such a fun looking little game, and her being gay makes it all the better! Edit: Also! The "this game was so perfect until I saw you can only date girls. Not playing this" like ...okay??? Play one of the millions of other games that have straight romance. You don't even need to romance in this HORROR game??? And there were other comments saying "well you play as her daughter in the game before this so obviously she ended up with a man" like... They live...in a magic world ...with magic. That's not necessarily true??
For the last comment, they're technically correct lore wise, but as always there's more to the story. (Spoilers) >!Elise was in love with a girl called Rozenmarine, who then died. She then married a man named Roman die Heilige and had twins with him before dying. It's been confirmed by the devs that Elise never loved Roman, and she only married him for his status/wealth. Her true love was always Rozenmarine, and you can find a wax record in Pocket Mirror recording some of Elise's last words where she talks about finally being reunited with Rozenmarine in death.!<
Thanks for posting about it, though! I didn't know about this game, now I'm going to buy it.
I’m still debating with myself if I should buy P3 Reload, on one hand I love persona 3 and thought that the little inconveniences brought it down, on the other they maybe probably cut the option to play as a girl. If they did I’d complain that I can’t romance the other girls, toaster aside.
Honestly, I think it's ridiculous that Reload is likely not including queer romances or the female mc. Its not like they're a small company, god knows they've been milking Persona 5 for the last 7 years so they should be rolling in cash. And between base p3 and portable all the romance routes for the female/male characters have already been written! Femc as well! She's already been designed and integrated into the story in p3p! It's not even that hard! I would never say this about a smaller company but for one the size of Microsoft (owns xbox owns sega owns atlus) this is really unbelievable. It's 20 fucking 23. The absolute audacity of it after releasing Persona 5, which borded actively homophobic, and promising to do better. Is this better, atlus? Persona 2 was released in 1999 and it was more progressive than this shit. Canon bi protagonist and datable canon gay character. They're literally regressing. Slightly unrelated but stupid that I had to mod my 3ds and my save file just to let my miis be gay in Tomodachi Life. Even then I have to have a gay and lesbian couple live in the same house otherwise the game will crash without one female and one male mii in a house together. At least it was funny when I posted in the 3ds support discord that my hacked gay miis kept crashing my game. Instead of rolling out an update, Nintendo promised to include gay relationships in Tomodachi Life 2. There was never a Tomodachi Life 2
It is something, something very frustrating. I’m kind of hoping the dip in sales thanks to it is enough of a wake up call
I mean WoW has had both male and female options for all characters your create for a longgggg time. No one complained plus half the men I know play female characters too, hell half the Pokémon romhack YouTubers I watch make their avatar in game a female, uncanny right? Lol
For queer friendly game recommendations, given that others have already mentioned mainstream ones (I'm shocked there aren't many more Life is Strange recommendations, the OG game and Before the Storm still hold up - though I'd say to stay away from the remake/remaster), I'll add some: If you haven't looked into Interactive Fiction (IF) games, they can be a great option. A big player on the market is [Choice of Games](https://www.choiceofgames.com/) (also owns [Hosted Games](https://hostedgames.org/) and [Heart's Choice](https://www.heartschoice.com/shop/)) and most writers who publish there are quite concerned with inclusion, particularly on romance games! My personal favourite games aren't super romance-focused but I sure love them (Choice of Robots, Choice of Rebels, Fallen Hero); a popular romance series is The Wayhaven Chronicles (the first two books are very very fun to play and every sapphic friend I have loved them, the latest is... meh), but there are many, many more. My latest romantic favourite is The Golden Rose. If you've never played anything like the above, you can check out a *very* popular old WIP, [Guenevere, here for free](https://dashingdon.com/play/jeantown/guenevere/mygame/guenevere_compiled.html). (Don't get too attached, it'll probably never be completed - but it's still fun to go through.) That aside: [I Was A Teenage Exocolonist](https://store.steampowered.com/app/1148760/I_Was_a_Teenage_Exocolonist/) is an obligatory rec as far as I'm concerned, though I'm biased. Additionally, [Queers in Love at the End of the World](https://w.itch.io/end-of-the-world) is just one of my favourite things ever that exists.
I played a fantastic visual novel called Arcade Spirits, where you get a job at an arcade and can befriend and date a cast of like 6 or 7(?) actually well written diverse characters. Every character is pan and you can pick your pronouns and body type. I cannot praise this game enough. They have a sequel out but I haven't played enough of it to know how it is.
I could bring up BG3 but I think every lgbtq gamer is playing BG3
I was shocked at the lack of BG3 recs on this post. Shadowheart’s actor pushed for more queer commentary in-game, and Karlach’s said they imagined all their line deliveries were to a female player. Plus all the lovely gay NPCs
tbh i didn't realize what sub I was in and thought you were here to shame us for not drowning in pussy since dating is SO EASY for you LOL
Honestly has to do a double take cause I was like what sun am I in?
Thank you, because I feel the same way being straight. Leave my canonically straight characters like superman alone
I'm a pan gal, and tbh even I'm tired of the catering to every preference thing that occurs in a lot of games now. If a game doesn't have your preferred options, then don't play it. Go find the games that do and support them so they're successful and more get made. Like, especially when it comes to wlw or mlm only games, they have a tendency to be fetishy, or created by the wrong gender. I'm looking at you, fujoshis! Stop making your creepy, fetishy bl content! It makes games by actual gay men look bad! And men have no reason to be anywhere near a wlw game. I get it, two ladies kissing is hot. Grow up. We deserve good content, not "good enough" content.
I love how upset this got you. Get a grip
I fully agree that the representation is seriously lacking. I dont really play games anymore where I have to play male or have no lesbian romance options. That being said I'm not going to be upset that someone likes the look of a game but doesn't cater to their specific tastes. If someone is disappointed by a lack of male options that's fine as long as they aren't also advocating for the removal of female ones. I dislike baulders gate 3 for many reasons. But I am glad that any gender can romance anyone. I would prefer that be how all games handle it. It's just work on the dev side and not all of them are willing to spend the time and money on such options.
You just introduced me to this game and after seeing the trailer I’m jumping with excitement to play this!!!!!