Transgender characters in video games Capcom created
Final Fight for the
arcade in 1989. The game involved players choosing among three fighters on a quest to save the mayor's daughter, who was
kidnapped by a criminal gang known as Mad Gear. In 1990, Capcom presented Nintendo with a version of the game for the 16-bit
Super Nintendo Entertainment System (SNES). According to
David Sheff's book
Game Over, Nintendo stated that Capcom could not put a female enemy in a video game published for the SNES, as that violated Nintendo's ban on violence against women. Capcom countered that there were no female enemies in the game, revealing that the female characters Roxy and
Poison were
transsexuals. The characters were nevertheless removed from the international versions of the
SNES port (the Japanese Super
Famicom version retained the characters). However, in 1993, Sega obtained the rights to release the game for their
Sega CD. In a sign of Sega's more liberal policies, Poison and Roxy could remain in the international versions, but with less-provocative clothing, and there could be no indication of their transgender status. (Sega of America later removed a homosexual boss and unlockable playable character called Ash from the international versions of
Streets of Rage 3.) In the 2016
role-playing video game ''
Baldur's Gate: Siege of Dragonspear'', there is an optional
dialogue tree in which the
cleric Mizhena mentions that she was raised as a boy, indicating that she is a
trans woman. This, along with a reference to the
Gamergate controversy, attracted
contention resulting in
online harassment and insults towards the developers, especially against the game's writer Amber Scott. The game's Steam, GOG and Metacritic pages were bombarded with complaints that the transgender reference constituted "
political correctness," "
LGBTQ tokenism", "
SJW pandering" and pushing a
political agenda. On an April 2016 post,
Beamdog announced they would expand Mizhena's story, saying in part, "In retrospect, it would have been better served if we had introduced a transgender character with more development." Paul Tumburro of
CraveOnline termed this as "spineless and disappointing" stating that Beamdog's founder Trent Oster refused to acknowledge the transphobic criticisms leveled at the game. In
The Legend of Zelda: Ocarina of Time, developers introduced a not-obviously gendered character named Sheik. Eventually, Sheik is revealed to be Princess Zelda in disguise. Sheik never self identifies with any set of pronouns in the game; however, a character in the game refers to Sheik with male pronouns. Sheik's presence and gender ambiguity in
Ocarina of Time created the “Sheik Gender Debate.” Two sides were taken in this debate – one that believed Sheik was simply cross dressing. The other side believed that Sheik was Princess Zelda assuming a male gender identity using some sort of magic. It is revealed that Vilia is merely a
cross-dressing male Hylian in official media, such as Creating a Champion. However, it is not uncommon for fans to consider Vilia to be a trans woman. The 2018 indie game
Celeste had hinted and led to speculation by media and players that the player-character, Madeline, was a trans woman. This was later confirmed by the game's lead developer,
Maddy Thorson, who herself has come out as a trans woman, the game in part an allusion to her own identity issues prior to opting to coming out. Released in 2020 by
Dontnod Entertainment,
Tell Me Why features two main characters, one of which being
Tyler Ronan, a trans man and the first transgender protagonist to be featured in a triple-A video game. The development team worked closely with LGBT charity
GLAAD in order to ensure that Tyler's story was an "authentic representation of the trans experience". As part of this, trans actor August Aiden Black was cast to voice Tyler and worked collaboratively with the writers and developers.
Bridget from the
fighting game series
Guilty Gear was first introduced as a child who was assigned male at birth, was raised as a girl due to the superstitions of her village, and was secure in her gender identity as a feminine-presenting boy. In the 2021 game
Guilty Gear Strive,
Bridget appears as a DLC character, and she comes out as a transgender woman.
Gay characters in fighting games Having gay male characters in
fighting games can challenge the perception of homosexuality and masculinity. Nevertheless, hints about a particular character's sexual orientation in a fighting game often take the form of stereotypical femininity in an otherwise tough masculine character. In the
Mortal Kombat series,
Kung Jin is a homosexual character. The story mode of
Mortal Kombat X features an exchange between Jin and
Raiden that implies Jin's sexuality. Jin's homosexuality was confirmed by
NetherRealm Studios cinematic director Dominic Cianciolo. The same game also implies that
Mileena and
Tanya are in a relationship, or at least show obvious attraction to each other. In
Fighting EX Layer, the character Sharon has been revealed to be lesbian, making her one of the first openly lesbian characters in a fighting game.
Gay characters in action games In 1996,
Night Slave was a
shooter RPG released for the
PC-98 that have cut scenes in which occasionally contain lesbian
adult content. The
PlayStation 3 game
The Last of Us (2013) was praised for its gay and lesbian characters, including teenage protagonist
Ellie.
GLAAD, the American organization promoting the image of LGBT people in the media, named the supporting character Bill one of "the most intriguing new LGBT characters of 2013".
LGBTQ visual novels and independent games Many
visual novels and
independent games are created by independent creators and may sometimes include or be focused on LGBT themes and narratives. Many of these narratives themselves sometimes come from the personal perspective of a member of the development team. These depictions tend to be more similar to the struggles of being LGBT in the real world but often take place in universes where homosexuality is normalized and acceptable. One of the first known games with LGBT themes was
Caper in the Castro in 1989, a detective adventure game that was written in the onset of the
United States AIDS crisis when queer people were being mistreated and their struggles were being largely ignored. The game's author, C.M. Ralph, wrote the story to help promote awareness of LGBT themes of the time. In the 2013 exploration visual novel
Gone Home, the player takes on the role of a young woman who returns to her dilapidated household which is mysteriously empty. By collecting clues, she uncovers that her sister has recently come out to her family as a lesbian which caused an issue between the protagonist's parents and the elder daughter herself. This leaves the house in disarray and leaving the player a non-linear way of piecing together the situation. In the 2015 action-visual novel
Life Is Strange, the player takes on the role of
Max Caulfield, an eighteen-year-old student and photographer who has discovered that she can turn back time at will. She uses this power to try and save her town after seeing its destruction in a vision in tandem with solving a mystery of a girl who had gone missing before the beginning of the story. Throughout the story, Max and
Chloe Price bond. Chloe is a friend from Max's childhood and helps Max throughout the series as they try to stop the destruction of their town together as they develop a better understanding of one another as both friends and lovers. Chloe Price is an implied lesbian, while Max Caulfield's sexuality is mostly unknown. Ultimately,
Life is Strange is met with some
criticisms on the writing with the player ultimately having to choose between saving Chloe and letting all other characters and their town be destroyed or by letting Chloe die and saving the entirety of the town. If the player chooses a route where the main love interest is Chloe Price, the protagonist has a goodbye kiss in the Sacrifice Chloe ending. In the 2017 visual novel
Dream Daddy: A Dad Dating Simulator, the protagonist which is a created character, can assume the identity of a
cisgender male, or a
transgender male, and is also given the option to be bisexual or homosexual, which is denoted by having a conversation with the protagonist's daughter about her life up to this point. Most of the characters themselves don't reference their sexuality in any way, but some are clearly bisexual or at least,
bi-curious, as evidenced by the character Joseph who in-game is married with a wife and several children but is still a romance-able character. The character Damian who is a romance-able option in the game is also revealed to be a transgender male at the beginning of his playable content as evidenced by his dialogue and his use of a
chest binder. In the 2018 visual nove
l Monster Prom, the player can play as one of four characters based on contemporary popular monsters in popular culture.
Monster Prom is treated as a single-player experience and also a competitive experience.
Monster Prom, while more on the side of fantasy deals with themes like coming of age situations and a queer outlook on specific historical events, as well as
Lovecraftian fiction and aesthetics.
Monster Prom also is the first major visual novel to include an option to identify as
non-binary, with the option to use different pronouns at the beginning of the game. ==Same-sex relationships==