Games with strong LGBTQ characters?

I'm a shit boring white dude in his twenties, living with two nice ladies. We've all got weird schedules, but when we do hang out we can usually agree on fairly nerdy fare (Doctor Who, anime, tabletop roleplaying, etc.) Two of us were pretty into Final Fantasy and Japanese RPGs as teens.

This other gal has recently outed herself to us (we had our suspicions). She's put it to us that the reason she doesn't really enjoy video games is a lack of anything even resembling a strong lesbian lead character. She plays a lot of doujin dating sims and enjoyed Saint's Row IV for the first hour or so, until it became too tough for her to hang with (not an expect with a dual-stick controller). She has jammed on some Let's Play stuff for Bioshock Infinite and other story-heavy games, and put it to myself and my other roommate that she'd be down to essentially "drive" one of us through a game to get to story bits.

Right now my best bet is the Mass Effect trilogy, which allows for all manner of queer characters. There's also (stick with me) Final Fantasy X-2, which at least tells a story about an all-female J-pop band with costumes as a mechanic. She's very into musicals. Also Madoka Magika.

What other games do you think would be worth looking into to entertain my good, recently outed friend?

You could recommend games that focus more on gameplay than the character you're playing as. What those games are, though, I'm not entirely sure. I'd say Bit.Trip Runner, but Commander Video's clearly heterosexual.

Gone Home is pretty much it, unfortunately. On the plus side, it's very gameplay-unintensive so it would probably be perfect for her.

@jeffrud: I don't know how "good" the gameplay is but Heavenly Sword had a very female-centric plot - although it can get difficult if she is the one playing.

The new Tomb Raider has a nice strong female lead and the story hinges on Lara attempting to rescue her best friend Samantha, with no cheesy romance along the way.

I actually don't know if there are any mainstream games with lesbian leads. You could recommend Gone Home which she should have no problem playing and might be able to relate to.

When did they add another letter to LGBT?

Unfortunately there are not a lot of games that address sexuality if at all. As you have mentioned Bioware is one of the few with both the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises. Skyrim allows it as well, but its more of a "write my own fiction" kind of deal, so you would have to go out and seek it.

She is more likely going to have to find and search out some indie games on PC after that or pick games that story and sexual preferences aren't a factor in the game.

I guess this is a question for another topic, but I wonder how much ones sexuality affects their taste in games?

In Dragon Age 2, every romancable (don't think that's a word) character outside of the religious archer dude is bisexual. Two of the followers in Fallout New Vegas are too,but any romance is only of the "in your mind type." Since you mentioned Saints Row IV, it has every type of sexuality under the sun.

@bocam said:

When Quizno's threatened to sue.

@bocam: Honestly, I have no fucking clue. I live in the Pacific Northwest and have friends of every possible stripe. I live in constant (imagined?) fear of accidentally offending people for not being informed. I don't think I'm alone in being unflinchingly in favor of gender/sexual equality while not feeling particularly compelled to know the entire "alphabet soup" chant.

@iigrayfoxii I suppose we'd all be interested in seeing an avatar that bears some resemblance to us as we're playing a game. That's why Skyrim and the like go over so well, far as I can tell. It's not something I think about very often, but that might have something to do with most games being headlined by straight white men. I can empathize with that on some level! My housemate is a petite queer woman, and I think she's put off by the notion that games don't push characters that look like her.

All of the Tetris blocks are lesbians.

Fear Effect 2?

Kanji's pretty cool.

What's the 'Q' in this abbriviationathon? 'Queer'? I would've thought that to be an offensive term and if it was meant 'playfully' to describe someone of that orientation it would be covered by the first three?

I think in Fallout 3 if you play as a women you can also get the 'Lady Killer' perk? But that's a very minor buff and isn't explicit about it.Kind've like how in Bully you can kiss the boys as well as the girls.

*Edit* I looked it up and looks like I was wrong, seems that perk is for male characters only and is a buff towards members of the opposite sex. Although I've never really thought of those games as 'sex' heavy. There's no 'romance' options like Mass Effect or Dragon Age, although in Skyrim I 'married' someone as a male Elf. I don't know the intricacies of that though, could a Khajiit marry a Human? Interspecies relationships? I guess Elf is a species of its own? Anyway, I digress.

I think that most (of the few) female leads in games are not given clear sexual preferences. Which when you think about should be equally acceptable to a gay person as if they were gay.

You would think.

Persona 4 deals with gender and sexual identity issues, but in a very teen "I'm confused" kind of way. My brother, who is queer, has been really interested in playing it, just hasn't had the time. Keep in mind that the game doesn't capture all the nuance of gender and sexuality, so it's not, like, the pinnacle of radicalism or anything, but I think it's acceptable 'cause it's about awkward, confused, teenagers.

Besides the ones mentioned here, the only thing coming up for me is Indigo Prophecy or Fahrenheit. I think that had a gay character in it. But I dunno what else.. The Sims?

Edit: OHOHOH Valkyria Chronicles. Many of the side characters vary in genders and sexuality, if I recall correctly.

GTA 4: The Ballad Of Gay Tony.

No snark here, Tony's probably one of my favorite characters in the whole franchise.

I don't think you'll do any better than Mass Effect but there are other Bioware, Bethesda, or Fable games.

Maybe The Sims?

Here's a list of games with LGBT characters.

As for the Q, a lot of people don't want their sexuality defined by anyone so they identify as queer.

The hell does Q stand for? And why are they all lumped together? That's dumb. You know what's not dumb? The ballad of Gay Tony. It's a damn fine game/expansion.

Q is for everyone not covered by LGBT

also OP the only good transgender character is Erica from Catherine

and Kaine from Nier I guess

Seconded; Gay Tony is a fantastic character. Easily my favorite in GTAIV.

Also, I had a great time roleplaying Fallout New Vegas as a gay character, but I'm not sure if that's a particularly good fit in this case.

The Ballad of Gay Tony and to a lesser extent GTA IV. I'd consider TBoGT to be the high point in GTA this generation.

There are numerous gay and lesbian characters in Valkyria Chronicles. It's mostly optional characters with crushes on main characters though. Nothing story related. If you keep them together on the battlefield there are stat bonuses.

Nier has a transgender character, but it's not a good game and that subplot isn't really brought up until NG+.

You can make out with dudes in Bully. Again, nothing plot related; it's just used as a game mechanic.

I still don't know what the relationship between Fang and Vanille is in FFXIII. Then again, nothing about that game makes sense or is explained at all.

Gone Home is probably the best/freshest example. So go with that, I guess.

I dunno man, he does make rainbows pop out of his ass when you get all the plus signs. I think it's pretty clear where his orientation goes.

@twolines: The Q stands for "questioning."

Wasn't one of the Fallout New Vegas party NPCs gay?

I took a class for my sociology minor, and briefly before it started one day, a few kids from the GLAAD group at our university came in and spoke about this lecture they were having at the student union. One of the guys who was talking kept on calling it BGLAAD because I guess he was bisexual and felt left out? I felt bad. For a couple years, I genuinely thought the organization changed their name to included bisexuals. Nope. Still GLAAD. Oh well.

On-topic, probably not Fear Effect 2. Gone Home, fer sure. Unfortunately, video games with human characters are typically violent.

@winternet:

The guy spends the entire game chasing women. Gay men do not chase women.

@video_game_king: Maybe he's trying to fit in so the other runners in the Bit Trip High School don't pick on him and bully him.

@winternet:

But he's the star of the running team! Why would the kids pick on him? Don't they know about the big game with Kirameki High next week?

@alkusanagi said:

Veronica was a lesbian, yeah.

Fallout New Vegas. Two of your party members are strictly gay and another is at very least adventurous. The major heel faction of the game are Roman expies, sop plenty gay stuff there, and the game allows you to choose your orientation with perks which give you special dialogues.

This was kind of my thought too, but then looking at the OP again it says this lady is primarily into dating sims, so the sexual orientation of the character would probably play a part in what she wants to get out of it.

I don't know if there are any lesbian characters in the Fire Emblem series or if you can have relationships with whomever you want, but something like that might interest her, where character interactions are a main part of the game, but threre's also a separate gameplay part so there's more to it than say an interactive novel. You could also try googling "Yuri Games" but be prepared for what might come up. ;)

@razielcuts: there is a perk in New Vegas that basically makes a male Courier gay (and gives 10% extra damage to males or something).

Edit: oh there is a female equivalent too. Maybe that's where you were confused. They're called Confirmed Bachelor and Cherchez La Femme.

That's a really weird reason to not enjoy a medium. I'm not gay or black or an alien but that doesn't stop me from enjoying games with characters who are.

Yeah. Like, I was all about playing as CJ in San Andreas, and Franklin is just an awesome character in V. Hell, he has arguably the best power of the three, and access to the coolest unique vehicle. Also, clothes.

Just wanted to add one more voice to the Dragon Age games. Bioware has always been pretty good with that stuff. I got a man crush on one of the male leads in DA:O, you know the guy, and my character instantly became gay. Big hairy gay dwarf man getting it on with elf man. It was a thing of beauty.

You can't get your gay on with each character, but you can romance just about everyone with everyone else.

I think Q refers to Queer, which is fucking ridiculous considering the word queer means weird/strange/odd. The fact that people in this thread are happy to use that term is fucked up.

Fear Effect 2 is the main one that comes to my mind, and to boot it's a damn good game. Speaking of Doujin-esque games/visual novels, if she hasn't already played it, get her to play Christine Love's Analogue: A Hate Story. It's a fantastic visual novel (little gameplay, tons of reading and story and character development, on steam) and deals with a couple of issues relating to being LGBTQ.

Frankly, she doesn't sound like much of a gamer. Maybe this a lost cause.

I hate to break this to you, but the term queer is very commonly used as a self-descriptive term by quite a few different orientations. If you don't believe me, take a look at the Craigslist personals in San Francisco.

And black people commonly refer to themselves and their friends with the N-word, but that doesn't mean I can use it too does it?

Not to spoil it, but Dangan Ronpa had a pretty good transgender character. Arguably the most likeable of the bunch.

The idea behind it is the reappropriation of the word to turn it into something tangible or empowering, instead of something you use to insult somebody.

"Queer" means not in line with the norm, and is basically a "fuck you" to heteronormativity and gender binaries. Maybe I'm a little lax about it 'cause I grew up with a lot of queer friends and family and am somewhat fluid with my own gender, but I don't think it's messed up at all, at least not the application of the word on this thread.

Queer isn't a dirty word...

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_studies

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_theory

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_Eye

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Queer_as_Folk_(2000_TV_series)

@alexw00d: No, it does not. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KVN_0qvuhhw

@omghisam: I'm not saying it's a dirty word, I guess in the US it's ok to use in such contexts for whatever reason, but as a word in the English language it very much means what I said it means.

@dezztroy:

Yes it does. https://www.google.co.uk/search?q=oed&oq=oed&aqs=chrome..69i57j0l5.329j0j8&sourceid=chrome&espv=210&es_sm=93&ie=UTF-8#es_sm=93&espv=210&q=define:queer

I love that he's apparently outraged enough to complain about it but clearly doesn't care enough to know that Queer is, in fact, a real term that is used when talking about sexuality.

Like, I get that it probably isn't relevant to him but in that case why bother throwing a huge shitfit about it?

@three0nefive: I love that you can't actually phrase your passive-aggressive statement at me. I also love how you seemingly can't understand that the US isn't the rest of the world and how sometimes maybe words are used differently in the US compared to everywhere else. I also love that you consider a couple of posts a 'huge shitfit'.

@alexw00d:

Woah there, I was referring to what you said about the "N-word" and linked to a humorous song about it.

The world is so cruel.

I always thought Q was "questioning," like @alkusanagi mentioned. A person who doesn't necessarily define himself or herself as LGBT. I suppose some people refer to it as "queer," but it's not something I think about much, honestly.

I'm not even in the US, yo.

And you're right, "huge shitfit" was a bit of a hyperbole. Let's go with minor shitfit, then.