Have you ever gone against your IRL sexual preferences in a game romance?

(Note: due to our small number of posters, all of whom seem like rational humans, I think we can discuss this topic in a mature and interesting way. If the mods disagree, feel free to delete the thread)

So, for instance, if you are gay IRL, have you pursued a heterosexual relationship in a game (or the other way around).

How about furry romance? I read a game description that concluded with "by the end of the game you will have a furry fetish". That seems highly unlikely. The only time I've ever done this was in the game Crush Crush when I was forced to romance a bear. Oh yeah, I also played a pigeon dating sim briefly. There was also one about dating tanks, but I didn't play that.

Back to legally more acceptable human/human relationships, I understand that a lot of heterosexual male players romanced Garrus in Mass Effect.

What if you are playing the opposite gender, though, like you are male and playing female Shep? If you tend to stick to your IRL preferences, would you then pursue a lesbian romance or pursue a male character? Does the presence of romance in a game make you more or less likely to play as the gender you identify as IRL?

Is it all just a game, and you don't care who you romance? For me, if I'm going to role play, I'm going to stick to my IRL preferences, but I'm a stick in the mud, as they say. I also shy away from evil playthroughs and even just any playthrough that differs too significantly from my IRL personality.

AHA! I JUST FIGURED OUT MY PROBLEM. I don't actually role play at all. I just play as myself.

But anyway, how do you handle these things?
 
I pretty much always play as myself as well. I don't remember ever choosing to play as a female character or romancing a male NPC.

I also almost always avoid the evil options, at least for the first playthrough. I think Black & White is one of the few games where I was almost consistently evil, but that's mostly because it's much faster to convert villages by being evil than by being good. I did usually take good care of the people that worshipped me.

I did start a single-player Baldur's Gate 3 campaign with the Dark Urge after only having played a few hours in co-op, but it's honestly been too hard to be properly evil. I chose to give in to the urge a couple of times and sometimes it's just kind of funny, but there have been too many instances where it's just been horrifying. Outside of the times where there was a Dark Urge option I've been very helpful to the people I've met and I've decided I'm going to try to redeem myself and resist the urge from now on.
 

Zloth

Community Contributor
If I play a male character I only romance female characters. If I play a a female character (which I play more often) I will romance either. I have done heterosexual and lesbian romances, but never a gay (male/male) romance.
Ditto this - though I think I'm somewhere close to 50/50 for whether I'll play as a male or female.
 

Frindis

Dominar of The Hynerian Empire
Moderator
The female romances in Cyberpunk 2077 were really good, especially with Judy Alvarez as she had a deeper questline. I romanced her as a female protagonist. In one of my Baldur's Gate 3 playthroughs my main was a bard who romanced a mind flayer. They are hermaphrodites that reproduce asexually and some of them have a sense of identity based on the gender they were before becoming mindflayer.
 
I generally try to avoid romancing if possible, but if I have to do it, I’ll just pick whoever I think would be the best to spend time with. Not necessarily who is the most romantic or suitable romantic partner, just whoever I think is the better character overall. I have gone against my IRL preferences but it doesn’t make me feel any different. It’s just a video game after all. I do always play as a male character if given the choice though, so there has been a lot of gay romance in my games lol.
 
There is an old text adventure/simulator called Alter Ego that let you play as a man or woman from birth until death. It was designed or curated by a psychologist. I found it quite interesting but it's somewhat dated (some might say regressive - it came out in the mid 1980s).

Being able to play as characters from a different gender from yours can be an interesting experience - especially if the writer/designer is also from a different gender from yours.
Just like in other media like film, novels and music, male and female brains and sensibilities are different when writing female or male characters.

What specific games have you played that have handled this subject in a meaningful way?
Sure, some games trick you into thinking you are given at lot of different options but more often than not it doesn't alter gameplay or even storyline at all...
 
What specific games have you played that have handled this subject in a meaningful way?
Sure, some games trick you into thinking you are given at lot of different options but more often than not it doesn't alter gameplay or even storyline at all...

Crusader Kings comes to mind as a game where playing as a woman does impact the gameplay, as women cannot become the ruler, sit on the council or own land depending on the laws of the country you live in.
 
All the time, I'm watching a story unfold l so it really has nothing to do with me.
Crusader Kings comes to mind as a game where playing as a woman does impact the gameplay, as women cannot become the ruler, sit on the council or own land depending on the laws of the country you live in.

Totally depends on the laws. You can be a tribal queen but playing as female or may also makes the game harder and in many ways more fun. Some of the best times I've had in that game have been with successive female rulers in the late tribal era, once flipping all of England to be ruled by pictish warrior queens!
 
Last edited:
Absolutely. So, little story, my dad is, well...a homophobe, so whenever i got the chance to romance another man in a game, i did it just to show him. There wasn't much i could really show sex-wise until Dragon Age! Oh man, i romanced every dude in those games and always found a way to show him love scenes lol (wasnt living at home when they came out).

Other than that, i actually dont really engage with romancing in a game and its probably because most games i play dont allow that. Its just not a part i look to tackle if its in the game im playing.
 
What specific games have you played that have handled this subject in a meaningful way?
Sure, some games trick you into thinking you are given at lot of different options but more often than not it doesn't alter gameplay or even storyline at all...
When people talk about "strong female characters", all that means is that you have a realistic female character with depth as opposed to a simple archetypal character. Yet they are so hard to find, probably because most developers seem to be male.

And what happens when men, either in Hollywood or AAA game development, decide to make a "strong female character"? Well, they tend to be archetypes instead, and usually the same type. They generally are portrayed as one-dimensional bossy, a-hole control freaks. It's just bizarre. It's almost as if they are confusing "strong" to mean strength of personality.

I think the games that do female characters the best are the one where the female is just a normal person and the fact that they are female really doesn't change anything. I suspect the Horizon games are like this (I can't think of the full names of the games right now), and probably any narrative heavy game where you have the option to play as either male or female, like the Mass Effect games.

On the other hand, if you want your female character to deal with issues particular to females, I can't really think of any. That Amnesia game with the pregnant female lead may be an example, but I didn't get very far in it, so I don't know where the story went.

If I had to guess, the best place to find these sorts of games might be in point & click games. Of course, then you have to deal with things like figuring out how to fix a satellite dish with the dead cat you've been carrying around for an hour.
 
When people talk about "strong female characters", all that means is that you have a realistic female character with depth as opposed to a simple archetypal character. Yet they are so hard to find, probably because most developers seem to be male.

And what happens when men, either in Hollywood or AAA game development, decide to make a "strong female character"? Well, they tend to be archetypes instead, and usually the same type. They generally are portrayed as one-dimensional bossy, a-hole control freaks. It's just bizarre. It's almost as if they are confusing "strong" to mean strength of personality.

I think the games that do female characters the best are the one where the female is just a normal person and the fact that they are female really doesn't change anything. I suspect the Horizon games are like this (I can't think of the full names of the games right now), and probably any narrative heavy game where you have the option to play as either male or female, like the Mass Effect games.

On the other hand, if you want your female character to deal with issues particular to females, I can't really think of any. That Amnesia game with the pregnant female lead may be an example, but I didn't get very far in it, so I don't know where the story went.

If I had to guess, the best place to find these sorts of games might be in point & click games. Of course, then you have to deal with things like figuring out how to fix a satellite dish with the dead cat you've been carrying around for an hour.
Hmm... from articles and books, as well as my experience with family and friends I remember how important it felt, for women/girls, to have characters like Lara Croft and Chun Li in games in the 1990s, even though they were presented as sex symbols and the games were terribly violent.
Perhaps the best examples are these, where characters have the same traits regardless of gender. Or being of a different gender than your own is not terribly important to the story: it's just how the story was written.
When you factor gender into gameplay, usually it's the light hitting but fast moving woman in belt scrolling beat-em-ups or RPG (or the healer), but that's not necessarily realistic or conducive to having impact.
In the same way few games consider age in gameplay.

If you're centering gameplay specifically around gender then I'd argue that's not a game anyone wants to play. If you're playing an avatar, it makes sense that, if the avatar is plastic, you can change it to play it as you would like to, and if he isn't then it's just the way the character is.

One way or another, game developers, as an industry, should probably tailor more games to fit characters women players might be interested in. Just take a look at television and film, there's loads of material everywhere, if it's all about making money off people's interests.

As for female designers there have been a few, and quite brilliant too. Hopefully many more will come in the next decades, if given a chance.
 
  • Like
Reactions: Pifanjr

TRENDING THREADS

Latest posts