A... different character
 

In all the games i've played, characters were officially heterosexual (Main characters always fall for the other sex). Of course, those characters who "look" gay (yuna in ffx-2, one of the characters in ff12 whose name i don't remember) are presumed heterosexual

However, could it happen that an important character be homosexual (male or female)? Could such a game land on shelves without being "overrated" (M or R for sexual content even w/o sexual acts or references, just same-sex love)?

Cloud from Final Fantasy VII could almost be classified as gay, simply because of the Cloud-Barret Date Scene which was obscure but could be triggered....does that count? And no, I don't think homosexuality would be rated Mature, Teen at the most, since most everybody knows about homosexuality. I can't imagine anybody wanting a game that displays gay sex though......

Yuna looked "gay"? I thought hot-pants were supposed to be sexy. How can a girl look gay? A mullet or buzzcut is required for such a "look" I'd say.

there was a action game for playstation where the two main charecters were lesbians. I think the name was Fearsomething :/. It looked cellshaded, all i remember.

Hoho, joke aside, many people have this mindset. Why on earth would that count? There's three female character dates in there as well, by your logic that classifies him straight automatically. If all date possibilities would be taken into consideration at once, he'd be bi-sexual, but because only one date happens, it's only up to the player. And even then one humorous "date" doesn't make a character gay. Cloud's relationship to both Aeris and Tifa would indicate he's interested in the opposite sex.

Fear Effect 2: Retro Helix is the only game I've played with a homosexual relationship that goes beyond mere typical sexual deviant jokes. How typical that both are women.

There was debate about Shenmue's Ryo being gay, what with disregard for girls, "Let's get sweaty!", looking for sailors, etc, but I'm thinking he's just a very dull japanese man, instead of actually attracted to the same sex. I'm pretty sure that had the game made it clear Ryo's character was homosexual, the rating would have gone up easily (which is of course ridiculous).

I really can't remember where I read it, but the thing was that they tied Gordon Freeman to gay-hood. It was something with the lambda symbol (which apparently is a gay symbol).
The funny thing is I really can't imagine a game with a homosexual protagonist. Odd, really.

I think the reason we haven't really seen this kind of thing much is because even though it's a lot more common and you see it on TV and whatnot, society is still not accepting of it enough to see it passively in a video game and not really think it strange. The truth is, at this point in time, if a game is released featuring a gay protagonist, with the guy falling in love with another guy or something like that, I can almost guarantee that sales would be poor to fair at best and it would bring up some controversy that would probably be more damaging than helpful to the game developer.

The Developers are making games to make money, not to make social statements, so I don't really see anything like this happening anytime soon.

oh, i didn't imply game developpers should. I mean, I also play games for fun, not for the moral!

according to a designer I read in my newspaper, her shoulders are rather broad in the game...

Hmmm, I do recall reading a review on the recent Enchanted Arms for XBox 360, and one of the characters is supposed to be gay, but in a very stereotypical manner.

Kuja was pretty fucked in my opinion. I had no damn clue he was a he until around the end of the game. :/

Regardless, the point stays the same, a game with a non-straight protagonist is not going to get marked down and overrated in anyway. We're all mature enough to not point and stare at a gay protagonist.

Well, that may apply for the few of us here, but I'm sure a lot of casual players will form a pretty strong opinion about that.

Well, not quite what you're looking for, but here's a list that somewhat goes with the topic:
http://gaygamer.net/index.php?s=gayest
I used to think Fox was a cool character in Bloody Roar...then years later I found out the person was actually a guy :(

On a slightly more productive note, several western RPGs allow you to have same-sex partners (including Fable, of course).

Fear Effect, yes. Supposedly there was a scene in the second game where she consumated her love for another woman. Also, the wiki page on lesbianism mentions that Saga Frontier had a primary character that was a lesbian: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lesbian#Video_games

Video game developers can easily answer this question by making side quests, cheats, or hints to enabling such activity. But it is not in their interest to create a large amount of such..... stuff. There may be some little gimmicks here and there left by a developer out of sheer love for a character. (Or mere hatred). But other than that, to create a game whose character show a blatant homosexuality, that's not very marketable.

As far as homosexual relationships in video games go, the only ones I've played are Fable and Jade Empire, and both weren't "fixed"--the choice was up to the player. Jade Empire...oh man. I'd heard about the M/M relationship possibility (F/F too), so I started out with Furious Ming and pretty much buttered up to Sky as much I as possibly could. Yet, STILL nothing. There was a person on the JE forums that finally tracked down a surefire way of getting it, which ended up being something pretty difficult. I don't know if it was purposefully difficult, but I would've never figured it out on my own without constant replaying. Also, the "special scene at the end" is censored; instead of showing a fulfledged kiss a la the M/F and vice versa relationships, it fades to black. Plus that quirky grin... Didn't like that too much.

About Shenmue, I remember in the second game where, after beating Izumi, she gets this slightly needy look in her face and asks Ryo if he'd like to come over to her place. When he turned her down without a second glance, I laughed.

Anyway, I agree with what sadikyo said. I know that more and more people are becoming open towards homosexuality (or maybe not? I don't know any statistics or whatever), but there are still a good lot of folks not too privy to that sort of thing.

Avenging your father's death is far more important than sex. In Ryo's defense, he really didn't have any male companions beyond getting his ass handed to him (no pun intended) from martial artists.


I wouldn't mind seeing a gay main character. A male gay one would be better as lesbians are accepted, well as accepted as male fantasies go. However if it's as a dating sim, or an action game, I don't care. And it doesn't have to be a flaming homosexual as well. It could be a James Bond esque character who does some pretty awesome stuff and maybe an attractive woman finds him attractive but he doesn't. He'd rather go after the handsome man.

The fact that games cost a lot of money and don't have additional outlets to recoupe money is what's keeping developers from experimenting. The fact that 'Hot Coffee' is still pretty warm will also keep developers wary. It's a shame really.

huh...cybil bennet is a lesbian? Wah?

I guess I neglected the actual plot, what with spending all my time playing the arcade games and buying capsule toys. Lame humor aside, I think that attitude of his was something I really liked about his character. No sappy romantics that a lot of games and movies throw at you. Man, I want Shenmue III...


Back on topic, I remember people questioning about having the possibility of a gay PC (romance choice) in the KOTOR series, and LucasArts/Obsidian/someone stating that such a thing would never happen. But I think that's more akin to how they (whoever that is) don't want to relate Star Wars to homosexuality, akin to how they didn't want the general public to know that Ewan McGregor was in the movie Velvet Goldmine. Makes me a little sad.

Anyway, I too wouldn't mind playing as a gay main character in a game. In fact, I'd like to see it happen, but, as has been stated, there are a lot of issues with the whole thing. There are a lot of kids playing video games, and while it probably won't skyrocket a game's rating to M when it's really a T, there are a lot of people who "don't want to expose their children to it", or would make it into some great big controversy, etc.

I just remembered MGS3, with Volgin and Raidenevitch. Of course, that was more about mocking how lolololol gay Raiden looks than an actually mature homosexual relationships, but still..

Seeing as games have such trouble portraying even a "normal", heterosexual relationship maturely enough, it's no surprise homosexual relationships not only do not feature heavily, but are pretty much never handled in an intelligent manner.


The Shenmue argument is always amusing though. It's entirely plausible that Ryo's mind is preoccupied with tracking down his father's killer, but if he's so busy, why would he find time for collecting trinkets, taking care of cats, wasting hours in the arcade etc?
Because the player decides that?
Why shouldn't the player then be able to decide on his replies properly as well? It wouldn't even have needed to be anything final, just a choice between "Sorry, not interested" and "*wink* Maybe some other time" or something.

In the same way I noticed while replaying through FF7, that it's possible to play through the game being pretty much indifferent towards Aeris, even though everyone seems to agree that she and Cloud were the hot item of the first disc. In effect, you are shaping a part of Cloud, how he acts despite the heavy scripting, and I would seriously love to see more of subtle stuff like this in games, not just Help him/kill him choice trees.

Fear Effect 2, to be precise. Rain wasn't in the first game. And it's made pretty clear the two are rather intimate. I don't remember exactly how far they went on screen during the game, but it wasn't exactly subtle.

Fear Effect 3, where are you :(

Wow...I never heard about that. Dare I ask how? Nothing in the game really seemed to indicate that something like that would even be possible, given how it just seems to "lock out" any type of activity like that with a person that's the same sex as the main character (ala KOTOR).

Well the page is mostly a joke, just characters that they think "act" gay rather than being confirmed gay (although with some of them it's pretty darn likely...). I thought the Cybil one was a funny choice, I'd say she sounds more like a girl who grew up as a tomboy than a full lesbian.

Yeah, that part kinda confused me. It was kind of like "Is Volgin just trying to see if you're a fraud, or does he just like touching other men's crotches?". Come to think of it, I still don't understand the real intention of the scene...

Canceled long ago, sadly. I still have the Game Informer issue with Fear Effect: Inferno on the cover. I can't understand why they canceled it, it looked like it was coming along fine. Some other publisher should pick up the rights to it and release it as a budget game if anything, seems like such a waste to leave a game half-done. But in any case, doesn't sound like the series will be revived anytime soon.

Well, it was basically a "looool Volgin puts it in the pooper!" exposure scene. The two are lovers and Volgin doesn't seem to mind touching Raidenevitch's crotch, so when he touched Snake's, he could tell it was a disguise.

I played through Planescape: Torment recently. Throughout the game, at any time you can talk with other party members about a variety of subjects. With the females you travel with, this extends to being able to proclaim your love for them, and, given your charisma is high enough, or whatever it's based off (I'm not sure exactly what functions it works on), you can work up to moving in on them and sharing a passionate kiss.

Now, why weren't those options available when following a dialogue with the male party members? It seems strange they'd allow the main character to choose to veer towards either good and evil, but limit a decision as regards his sexual preference.

Given that the game is in the true D&D mold, it purports to offer freedom of choice as a central defining gameplay element, but by exposing this one point, I believe to have sliced cleanly through that veneer of freedom, the true nature of the games restrictive linearity penetrating through the gash thus created like a piercing ray.

i dont remeber yuna in hot pants thought that was rikku but i havent played FFX-2 in a while so i could be wrong

The scene of Fear effect 2 that everyone talks about is when the two girls are on an elevator and they start to get undress and fool around to have an excuse to cover the surveillance camera with their clothes.

LINK: Hanna & Rain

I'm also waiting for another FE game. They were pretty good.

I just realised something, I have no clue wether or not Kefka is male or female.

Somebody mind to tell me? :tpg: