Looking for a fun time? We’ve gathered some of our favorite video games with queer content here for you to browse.
Now before you get all bent out of shape: yes, we know there are far more than 10 great gay video games out there.
Which ones did we miss? Tell us your favorites in the comments and we’ll reconsider our ranking if a consensus emerges.
1. The Last of Us
How about we take this to the next level?
Our newsletter is like a refreshing cocktail (or mocktail) of LGBTQ+ entertainment and pop culture, served up with a side of eye-candy.
It’s been said that zombie stories are allegories for American racial anxieties, but it would be interesting to examine zombie games and movies for subtext about sexual orientation. There’s no need for subtext with The Last of Us and Left Behind, which have explicitly queer characters, frankly depicted and without leaning on stereotypes.
2. Mass Effect and Dragon Age
It’s hard to think of two game franchises that did a better job of handling LGBT love stories. Bioware developed both, and did a magnificent job of giving players options to fall in love with characters of the same gender. As an added bonus, Dragon Age features a great trans character, and also lets you create your own characters with a wide range of gender expressions. Bioware also produced a KOTOR game with a lesbian character named Juhani.
3. Final Fantasy XIV
The latest installment of FF finally lets you craft same-sex relationships. About time, considering just how campy and gay some of those bosses are. This is a far cry from Final Fantasy VII, which featured what might be a pretty problematic depiction of gays in a hot tub.
“Why should there be restrictions on who pledges their love or friendship to each other?” said producer Naoki Yoshida.
4. Succulent
Suck a popsicle. That’s it. That’s all you do in this game. And yet it’s still oddly mesmerizing, with a hunky man in his underwear drawing you closer and closer as his frozen treat melts. Meanwhile, the sexy fellows behind him gyrate and rub themselves, until it’s too late to pull back and you discover that these homogenous gay body types are really a curse.
5. Hurt me Plenty
Created by Robert Yang, who also made Succulent, this game lets you simulate a consensual BDSM experience. You meet a sex partner, negotiate your terms, slap his ass around until it’s jiggly and red, and then engage in after-care. As an added bonus, if you have the right hardware, you can control the game with gestures, actually swatting your hand back and forth as though there’s a butt hovering right there in front of you.
6. Mount Your Friends
In this game, a bunch of floppy marionette-like figures wiggle around and try to climb on top of each other to make a pyramid.
Of course, they’re wearing just speedos, and their genitals are plainly obvious, swinging back and forth. Hot.
7. Grand Theft Auto: The Ballad of Gay Tony
Well, duh. Gay is right in the title. This is an add-on to GTA IV, and it’s a chance to play in a slightly more rainbow-filled world of bad-behavior.
Tony is the naughty gay nightclub-owning member of the crime family we all know and love from GTA IV, and so the plot dovetails nicely with the main game.
You play as Gay Tony’s bodyguard, driving around and shooting people and blowing stuff up in pursuit of a cache of diamonds.
8. Final Fight
A vintage fighting game from Capcom features a lady named Poison in a sexy slinky outfit. For a long time, producers said that it didn’t matter whether the character of Poison was male or female, but she’s popped up in more games since then, and they’ve had to figure out a more specific backstory for her.
Now producer Yoshinori Ono has confirmed that Poison has transitioned from male to female. Her latest appearance is in Ultra Street Fighter IV.
9. My Ex-Boyfriend the Space Tyrant
A cute point and click adventure game, this game features lots of chiseled torsos and massages. You get to click around a futuristic spacey world and gaze lovingly on men’s nearly-naked bodies. You can even unlock a special mode in which all of the characters are in their underwear. It looks like Space Ace with all the rippling muscles, but plays like a Sierra game — perfect!
10. RuPaul’s Drag Race: Dragopolis
The superstar queens from the TV show appear in this strangely captivating little iPhone game that’s actually a bunch of drag-themed mini games. You bounce balls around a grid, collect power-ups (wigs, beads, outfits, etc) and read the villainous Apocalypstik (played by Mimi Imfurst) to filth.
Discover more
PRINCE OF SNARKNESS aka DIVKID
GTA’s Trevor. Baddest badass evah!
[youtube http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5BxpLWNesNk&w=560&h=315%5D
Stevenw
You would give separate slots to two games that barely qualify as ‘games’ – yet dump both Dragon Age and Mass Effect into one?
This is truly terrible.
Jacob23
Gay people aren’t queer and gay video game characters aren’t queer. F*ck your 1990s hipster, self-loathing little self, Benji Douglas.
davidslay
No love for Coming Out on Top?
http://obscurasoft.com/
DarkZephyr
@Stevenw: Don’t you think that your reaction is just *slightly* extreme? This is just a cute fluff piece.
My only beef with this article is that I wish they would have chosen a picture of Kaidan and ManShep about to kiss or something, rather than FemShep feeling up Jacob, BUT I can see why they chose it. Jacob’s bod.
@davidslay: I have heard of that game and am considering buying it. Is it any good?
One game that I like is a fairly obscure title called Singles 2: Triple Trouble. Its kind of a rip off of The Sims 2 and the two main story-mode stories are heterosexual, but there is a freeplay mode and you can have same sex pairings and the kissing and sex animations are pretty hot, in my opinion. The 3D body models are also anatomically correct and do not require any special meshes, but the US version of the game DOES require a mod to remove the censoring when they are naked, pretty similar to how you have to get a fan made patch to remove the blur in the Sims titles.
Gruffling
Yeah there are so many good pictures – sexy or cute – of the Male Shepard (the only true Shep) and Kaidan romance from all three games. Much better choices.
Kieru
@davidslay: @DarkZephyr: COoT is a great little dating sim. You’re not going to get any real immersive storyline… it’s more “Choose your own adventure” with some high quality illustrations to help improve the already well-written dialogue.
But if your gaming style is for more depth / stuff to do? COoT may not appeal to you. You can play through a single scenario in less than 5 minutes if you’re not reading the dialogue (you can auto-skip any dialogue you’ve already read). It’s much smaller in scope than most of the games on the Queerty list – but the focus is EXCLUSIVELY a gay-themed game, rather than a game with gay-themed elements.
Cee
Mass Effect 3 did it the best. They gave you the option to choose a gay storyline and they didn’t do it half assed.
In The last of Us they alluded to Bill being gay.
I think they mentioned his partner and it was a guys name.
The partner was already dead though, and you just felt bad for Bill.
Would have been better if Bill’s partner was still alive somewhere and then they could have added that to the story line where you go searching for Bill’s partner.
A lot of developers are scared to raise the bar and write full gay story lines, so they half ass it. They need to work on story lines in general just as much as they work on game play. The games would be 10x better.
There’s a few gay sequences in Saints Row IV. I’d add that to the list.
There’s a gay scene in one of the earlier Saints Row games too where the guy gets caught with a gay magazine. It was short, but noteworthy and funny.
pengwinofdoom
Coming Out on Top definitely deserves a place on here. I mean it’s gotta be the first western game of this genre right?
See No Evil or anything else by Captain Gerbear deserves a mention, too.
@DarkZephyr: I would definitely recommend COoT.
@Jacob23: What the hell, dude? Maybe the reason queer was used is because there are L, G, B, and T characters on the list. If you hate the word “queer” so much, maybe you shouldn’t be commenting on a site with that word in their name.
CalibratedEmu
If ever there was ever a sign that we need more diversity in games this list is it.
Not a slight on the author, just that there’s…so little to choose from…
And yeah, Coming Out on Top was fantastic and definitely deserves a place here, IMO.
Daveliam
Agreed that Dragon Age (all three games) and Mass Effect (really just the last one if we are talking about gay males) should have different spots on the list, not crammed together.
Also agreed about CooT. Obscura, the developer, has been awesome in the process. I was a kickstarter backer and she really involved gay males in the writing process. Whenever she had questions about how to approach a topic, she’d ask on the forums and it would be a great discussion. I’m disappointed it’s not on the list.
Another game that I’ve really enjoyed that had gay characters is State of Decay. There’s a plotline where you save a gay couple and then one of them becomes a playable character. Both are non-stereotypical, so it’s a nice depiction to see it so matter of fact and non-chalant. There’s also a young black woman who seems to be a butch lesbian (she wears a shirt that says “Ask me about my big dick”). It’s fun game.
Deviija
I think each installment of the main Dragon Age game series deserves its own spot, and Mass Effect comes with a lot of baggage in its history of inclusion (like how the ME Team denied Asari/Human Female relations would qualify as a real lesbian relationship, and thus there is no real gay content in ME1 and 2). ME3 did it better for that franchise, in the end.
What is sorely lacking, however, is Coming Out On Top. Obscura worked very hard on making the game more than just titillation, but actually hilarious, inviting, and endearing, with worthwhile plot notes to examine — like dealing with coming out to your friends and to your parents. We can reduce it to just being an erotic game aimed at gay men, but I think that’s a disservice to the quality of content and what it means for this kind of polished work in the (indie) gaming sphere.
I’d also add Fallout: New Vegas to the list for the effort of making sexuality a part of the game, from mechanics to flavor. You can choose a perk (or two if you want to be bisexual) that not only allows for stat bonuses to your sex of choice, but also opens flirty and unique dialogue paths and content within the game. It isn’t too elaborate, but it sets a very interactive and roleplaying tone and personal investment in your character. There are also several queer NPCs and companions in the game, like the brilliant Arcade and the awesome Veronica.
Games still have a long way to go for diversity and inclusion, and making stories and storylines that aren’t stereotypical and very fringe (sometimes even hidden) content, but we are at a place where we are seeing the first steps.
DistingueTraces
I have to agree about Fallout: New Vegas.
Even though romance isn’t a feature, Arcade Gannon is maybe the best-written (okay, except for his name) gay character I’ve encountered in a game.
Gruffling
@Deviija: Actually you can be gay in Mass Effect 1 and Mass Effect 2 it’s in the game files you just need to do a little tweaking. They wrote in an extra dialogue in Mass Effect 3 that’s only accessible if you did this to validate it when they ‘officially’ incorporated same sex relations.
And yes Arcade is excellent. There’s a lot of good stuff with the Confirmed Bachelor perk. Also in Fallout 3 Elliott Tercorian will blatantly flirt with your character regardless of gender.
Giancarlo85
LOL I played My Ex-BF Space Tyrant on Steam… kinda stereotypical game… but it was cute. I suppose lol.
Now I admit I play Lara Croft and Far Cry 3 more (haven’t got around to buying the 4th one yet as I’m short on money)… as far as a game being gay themed. I’m not sure. My Ex-Bf is totally gay themed. Perhaps a blend is better.. and is more inclusive.
Maybe I’m just rambling.
Stevenw
@DarkZephyr: Slightly extreme? No, not really… Bioware deserve to be massively lauded for both franchises; both games were an utter relevation to me. Thoughtful, well-written, tasteful and not patronising, I could finally be the action movie hero without being forced into playing it straight. It was awesome – and so far in advance of Hollywood it beggars belief!
To lump both franchises together just because they are published by the same developer is bad enough… but to give two separate slots to the not-really games Succulent & Hurt me Plenty?
Fluff piece or not, frankly I’m aghast.
I would like to see the Bioware team encouraged and congratulated for the risks and effort they have made for us. But this list of the ‘best’ is so embarassing I sincerly hope they never see it.
Cagnazzo82
You guys mentioned gay videogames and you missed *Coming Out On Top*? What?
Isn’t that the game everyone’s been talking about?
Kathryn
@Gruffling: I take a little offense at manshep being the only true Shep…….
As a gay female, for me that would be FemShep.
Gruffling
@Kathryn: Sorry that was meant to be more lighthearted. I type as I talk and sometimes somehow forget my inflections aren’t translated into text. Also I’m British.
You enjoy your Femshep I’ll enjoy male Shep. Live and let live and all that.
roadkill
You ought to check out skyrim, you can marry either gender you like, and also from the same company bethesda there’s the fallout series, in fallout 2 you may marry a npc boy or girl regardless your character’s gender, and in fallout new vegas you can have the confirmed bachelor perk wich allows you to hit on npcs and so on, also in fable wich is a little older from microsoft if I’m not mistaken, you can choose to mary either boys or girls. ^^
cheers great article
DeltaSierra
You forgot Coming Out On Top by ObscuraSoft! Though granted, it’s definitely R-rated…
KateIndeied
You can add this game to your list:
http://armingf.webstarts.com/
This is on ArminArlert from attack on titan.
Ridpathos
I just found this out after playing through this game, but the main male character (who is one of the 2 main playable characters) is canon gay. The game is Dreamfall Chapters. Not only that but it seems there is budding romance between him and a blue elf dude. The character is also hot af.
Ridpathos
Here is a picture. The dude is gay. The girl is just sporting a pixie cut, but there is a lesbian couple in the game as well.
https://i.ytimg.com/vi/bxkkZo_mkvY/maxresdefault.jpg