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Gay male protagonists?
Sorcelators
BellevueRegistered User regular
BellevueRegistered User regular
Does anyone know of any good games with gay male protagonists that are not visual novels, dating games, yaoi games, etc?
Generally, I am not really interested in "playersexual" games, or games where "romance" is involved--e.g., Dragon Age, Stardew Valley. Those are good games, I like them and everything, but those are not particularly interesting as far as having a gay protagonist goes, and I don't find the writing or gameplay aspects of relationships in games to be particularly good.
To give an example of what I'm interested in, imagine any Zelda game, but where princess Zelda is prince Zelda (or whatever a good male equivalent of Zelda is--Zoltan? I'd date a prince Zoltan, that's a rad name), but everything else is the same. Or Chrono Trigger where Chrono bumps into the Prince under the pseudonym Mark, but everything else is the same. Or Halo where Master Cheif has a hot AI Cortez helping him out, but everything else is the same.
See what I'm going for here? In each of these cases, the game isn't "about" the relationship with the other character, and in a sense, you could ignore it. But knowing about it informs your understanding of the main character and his motivations, and without it, the story would be a lot less interesting.
The closest I could think of is Tales of Zesteria, aside from the fact that they never actually say that Sorey is gay, you just have to infer that from the, like, three tickle-fight cutscenes and general cuddlyness with Mikleo...
Generally, I am not really interested in "playersexual" games, or games where "romance" is involved--e.g., Dragon Age, Stardew Valley. Those are good games, I like them and everything, but those are not particularly interesting as far as having a gay protagonist goes, and I don't find the writing or gameplay aspects of relationships in games to be particularly good.
To give an example of what I'm interested in, imagine any Zelda game, but where princess Zelda is prince Zelda (or whatever a good male equivalent of Zelda is--Zoltan? I'd date a prince Zoltan, that's a rad name), but everything else is the same. Or Chrono Trigger where Chrono bumps into the Prince under the pseudonym Mark, but everything else is the same. Or Halo where Master Cheif has a hot AI Cortez helping him out, but everything else is the same.
See what I'm going for here? In each of these cases, the game isn't "about" the relationship with the other character, and in a sense, you could ignore it. But knowing about it informs your understanding of the main character and his motivations, and without it, the story would be a lot less interesting.
The closest I could think of is Tales of Zesteria, aside from the fact that they never actually say that Sorey is gay, you just have to infer that from the, like, three tickle-fight cutscenes and general cuddlyness with Mikleo...
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You seem to be demanding some sort of explicit signal that a character is gay, while also declaring that games with explicit signals don't count, because they involve "romance." Some of the characters present might be romanceable by the player if the player is male or female, which means those characters are bisexual, but there are also characters who are definitely gay, because they only go for the player character if the player is of the same gender.
Here's a question for you: Why is it that Zelda would have to be male for Link to be gay?
Why is it you're so sure that Master Chief isn't gay?
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Does Snake's sudden gayness change the story for you? Does it make Snake's flirtatious attitude come across sarcastic, considering he's not really interested in any of the girls? Is there sexual tension between him and Ocleot (canonically yes I said quite a lot) now that we know Snake is talking about his *other* engraved weapon by his hip?
It can be very frustrating to look at a genre like fantasy and not see stories you want told there. Representation is important and, as time goes on we're slowly getting better at it. Is Gone Home an action game with the budget of God of War? Nope. Does that mean it'll always be this way. Also no. Looking at games that let you choose who you want to rub nasties with and what gender, like the excellent AC Odyssey. And we're moving even further with games like Cyberpunk 2077. I think more and more stories are making room for players to live out their games how they please. There might not be a direct Zelda-like analog with a male Zelda, but I think that says a lot more about how most straight male fantasies are played so safe and by the numbers. A lot of gay stories told in games are more interesting and investing, like the Life is Strange games. Allowing these stories to be told is getting easier, even if it's not equal by any means yet.
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That's every shounen protagonist ever. They don't know where babies come from.
They can't talk about the weather with a peer-female or the primary demographic audience can't project their fantasies on them.
In FFXV came out and people went "eww, bromance," it's because a male social circle has simply become that rare a thing for a JRPG.
Zelda or Cortana being female or the hypothetical where they're replaced with a male equivalent doesn't further inform the decision. The cosmetically apparent gender of Master Chief's AI companion doesn't inform his sexuality anymore than Tony Stark having JARVIS or FRIDAY.
Across the multiple generational timelines of Link and Zelda, they're not generally portrayed as a love interest and I know of no iteration where they canonically end up together (admittedly parsing out the LoZ timeline requires a $30 book that's a couple games out of date now so maybe I'm missing something somewhere), and it creates some problematic genetics if they do. It is a standard trope that the hero saving the damsel in distress then gets said damsel as a prize, and there's a lot of cultural expectation informing assumptions about Link and Zelda but... Well, just as an example, Link to the Past ends with Link back in a hovel with holes in the floor with his uncle and Zelda living in the high tower of a fabulous castle. Kid doesn't get to keep the sword.
Oh come on. Heteronormativity is the flavor of the day and we all know it. Unless you specify, ESPECIALLY in major commercial nerd brands, for males heterosexuality is the standard. THAT'S why it's not specified in-game, because it already constantly is in every other way shape and form.
It's also just a really awesome game.
This is a good point, no one assumes Geralt is gay because he keeps pulling Dandelion out of jams.
I seem to recall that he's explicitly NOT gay. He likes home economics so he's not "normative," but his crush turns out to be a girl in drag and he's very relieved.
Apex Legends Gibraltar has a single line in his bio describing him as having a boyfriend.
We might have to wait for the sequel for anything resembling in-game story elements (and be supportive of a company that has been embroiled in a bit of controversy in recent years), but Overwatch's Soldier: 76 was confirmed as being gay.
At least, I think he's been confirmed as gay...haven't paid attention to the followup of that announcement.
Persona 4 suffers even more than your average Atlus game from homophobic scenes that undercut the series messages of self-acceptance and progressive attitude.
Also, a not-insubstantial amount of fans read Naoto as trans and/or Kanji being gay/bi.
There is nothing wrong with a character not being heteronormative, even if folks writing a game think otherwise.
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It’s greek mythology. This is not unexpected.
In the same game, the eldritch, genderless Chaos is referred to as a They/Them.
Indo-European descended mythology in general tends to be very much non heteronormative.
I don’t know, but it’s one of my favorite games.
I read it as him not being actually sure, at that questioning stage, but feeling too scared and repressed to actually try to find out. I figure there's a decent chance of bi, since he seems attracted to Naoto when he thinks she's a guy and when he knows she's a girl, but the big thing is that Kanji never actually sat down to "do an introspection", as the kids say, because societal pressure about normativity makes him too scared to confront the possibility that he might be, gasp, not hetero.
The assumption of straightness is in fact so strong that people assume not only that they're straight, but that if there's a dude and a girl in the same game they must be together, even if the game itself gives absolutely no indication to that end.
Like, let's be real for a moment, there's like four games in the entire fucking series where Link and Zelda are so much as reasonably shippable, let alone implied to be any kind of interested. But, dude and girl, both title characters, clearly they're together. But if you just replace Zelda with a dude this level of ridiculous assumption will not be there.
EDIT: If I may... it's always somewhat annoying to realize the different level of "proof" demanded of gay pairings vs hetero pairings. Like, to stay in nintendo games: Compare the assumption of Link and Zelda inevitably being an item despite them often not sharing more than two scenes in a game, to, say, Pearl and Marina from Splatoon. These two are life partners, Marina is seen lounging in Pearl's house in multiple supplementary materials, Pearl's canonical response to "what is the best thing to ever happen to you" is straight up "meeting Marina" (and she has this image saved in her phone), Marina nearly has a breakdown at the idea of them separating and reacts to saving the world by running at Pearl and throwing herself into her arms in celebration (which does have the problem that Marina is a head and a half taller so the mechanics of that are not in Pearl's favor). This is actual official splatfest promotional artwork.
But you point out these two are probably girlfriends or on the way to such, and everyone is like "no they're just friends, they haven't kissed on screen". Meanwhile a dude and a girl grab each other's hand for a moment to cross a risky bridge and that's basically marriage. It's goddamn exhausting is what it is.
big boss absolutely fucks, he's just sterile
snake is the one who's overly flirty to mask the fact he's a socially awkward loner
also MGS has a noticeable (read: nonzero) proportion of canon bi characters, BB included
The same reason we don’t assume Mario or princess peach are gay. The decades of many, many games of them obviously being in love with each other.
It sort of sucks! I like that dragon age lets you have a same sex romance, but yeah I have to admit an exclusively gay game would be pretty fun!
And then we’re mostly just left with characters being described as queer in some secondary literature or the implication that they are
I think there are some indie games that are explicitly lgbtq but I doubt we’ll ever get a Gay As Hell game from a large studio
The only explicitly hetero Mario moment so far that I can recall is the end of Mario Odyssey.
You can say that there were strong implications from the beginning with these games of "save world get girl," kill the dragon to save the damsel in distress so you can claim her, etc. but a lot of that seems to rely on the viewer's own assumptions based on culture and society. The fact remains that few games have shown these characters "obviously" in love with each other, which is what I think @DarkPrimus was getting at.
Some games have shown Peach kiss Mario and he gets all red and embarrassed, but he didn't initiate anything. It could easily be a "thank you" kiss and nothing more. I would argue there really isn't usually an implication that he's going to marry her and rule the mushroom kingdom at her side, in fact there are a lot of games where Mario doesn't seem to have quit his day job and finds out Peach has been kidnapped again while minding his own business miles away. His job was done so he left, and that's not the actions of a lover. In Mario 64 I guess she baked him a cake, for whatever that's worth. Going on vacation together in Sunshine is suspect but Toadsworth is there too so I don't buy it as a romantic getaway. I haven't played Luigi's Mansion 3, did they get separate hotel rooms...?
The same thing applies to Link, although with him much more often than with Zelda, he's got what you might be able to call hetero crushes with other girls. Zelda's just someone in trouble who needs his help. She's not Saria, or Marin (who he basically goes on a date with), or Ilia, or Mipha. Although similarly as Mario, Link is mute and doesn't seem to reciprocate, so it could more accurately be said that the girls are after him. The only possibly romantic moment with Zelda I can remember is the end of Zelda 2, where she tells him "thanks a million" and they appear to embrace as the curtain falls. In general though Link feels like barely a friend to Zelda most of the time, they're pretty far from being in love.
None of this is to say that representation isn't important, or that these games couldn't do better, or that there couldn't be a male Zelda-and-Link game. It's simply saying that in most of their games, the characters aren't obviously in love. These characters are so one dimensional and the stories so simply told that they can usually be anything, which is highlighted by picturing what would change if there were males (or females) in both roles. What if Saria was a guy, Link's childhood friend who gave him an ocarina and said "don't forget me?" I think it'd be great. I think a lot of people would assume they were just buddies, but again, that reflects on the culture examining the relationship and not what is present in the game.
I also think it would be wrong to say or imply that Mario isn't gonna help anybody unless there's a girl waiting for him at the end of the quest, he's done a number of things with no expectation of companionship of any sort. Link has less of a choice, due to the triforce binding those three characters together through the generations.
Now, Bowser might be in love with Peach. But that's one-sided and creepy. He told his son that she was his mother, like what the hell man.
I am not really sure how a knight rescuing a damsel in distress is not a heterosexual story! It’s like the archetypal version of that story, and it seems kind of obtuse to just ignore all the implications that come with it.
Splatoon was a pretty good example of how much people resist reading things that way but... it might be worth pointing out more of those. That's all the OP was looking for.
Saving someone of the opposite sex, or teaming up with them to fight the forces of darkness... does not mean you are romantically interested in them.
Yes, that's how those sorts of stories have been traditionally coded... but that doesn't mean they are intrinsically or inherently heteronormative.
If we cannot ignore the implications that correspond to heteronormativity, then we also cannot ignore the implications that correspond otherwise.
People of the opposite sex can care about each other without it being a romantic attraction.
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aside from the narrative matter that most 'damsels' were literal princesses and the reward for their rescue was marriage...
You interpret these stories as having hetero implications because of the culture you grew up in. it does not make the story inherently hetero.
Think of it this way:
Game A: Link has a childhood friend named Saria. They seem pretty close. When he leaves, she gives him an ocarina and says "when you play my ocarina, I hope you will think of me and come back to the forest to visit."
Game B: Link has a childhood friend named Sario. They seem pretty close. When he leaves, he gives him an ocarina and says "when you play my ocarina, I hope you will think of me and come back to the forest to visit."
Script is identical between the two games, only the character model and pronouns are swapped out.
If you interpret game A as Link having a budding young love interest and now she's heartbroken and may never love again, but you interpret game B as Link being best buds with some dude and they just hung out and partied and his bro's gonna platonically miss him...that's on you and the culture you were raised in.
Because if they're identical other than gender, they're communicating the exact same thing: someone is going to miss Link, and gives him a gift as he leaves. The story you build up around it in your mind is what you bring to it.
The classic fairytale "Poor man rescues a princess and marries her, becomes rich" is a stereotype, sure, but there are also numerous fairytales where a poor woman does something and woos a prince, marries him, and becomes rich. Many story archetypes stem from fairytales, and the "Poor person manages to find love and money" story resonated because a lot of people were poor and marriage could be their only real shot at upward mobility.
Heteronormativity is the standard because heterosexuality is the norm. The percentage of people in the United States that identify as LGBT is less than 5%. That doesn't mean that gays don't deserve representation any more or less than any other minority group, it just means that if you pull a random person off of the street there is an over 95% chance that they will be straight. If you were betting money you'd pick hetero every time.
If you don't feel that modern game developers are doing a particular group of people justice regarding representation (and considering how few games that have gay male protagonists have been mentioned in this thread so far you are probably on to something), the good news is that it has never been easier to learn how to make your own game. You won't have some publisher demanding you make changes to appeal to that 95%, you won't have to settle for limiting your LGBT inclusion to lesbians (the "safe gay" choice when it comes to media), you can make a game where a gay man is the protagonist and no one can stop you.
and there's a big difference between "i will represent you" and "i will let you represent yourself."
almost as if centuries of assumption about the exclusively male-female nature of long term relationships underpinned even our most fundamental economic structures... 🤔
The subtext between Rush and David is so thick, even with the censored localization, that you have to cut it with a giant two-handed sword.
// Switch: SW-5306-0651-6424 //
I was thinking of examples of a male character rescuing another male character as part of the motivating part of a main story - there actually are a few - just in random stuff I have played recently, witcher 3 had a massive subplot about rescuing a male friend, farcry: new dawn has your first few missions be about rescuing your male traveling companion, etc. So its not uncommon but I feel like those instances are treated a bit differently.
One example that came to mind was GTA: Ballad of Gay Tony, where you play as a male character whose main task is essentially to rescue a gay male charact. In that, you can’t really use the excuse of “they are just two heterosexual men so of course they aren’t going to hook up”. But they don’t, and its really not treated as weird at all that they don’t - Tony is basically treated as Luis’s surrogate father, and instead it becomes a story of a son trying to help his dad overcome his flaws. Which is fine, great even.
But, can you imagine that same story with an unrelated female heterosexual in the role of Tony? Like a mid 20’s male character trying to save a 40 year old female character they aren’t related to or who isn’t already the wife of someone else important from the mob without it ending up as a Mrs Robinson situation? Maybe that story is out there somewhere, but I can’t remember it and have a hard time imagining it in a game.
Holy crap, for real? This is one of my favourite games but this is the first I've ever heard of this.