Video games, maybe more than other forms of digital media, make the most room for self-expression.

It’s where we can date other gay characters, choose the skin we wear on the battlefield, and where we can carve a community where we’re allowed to just be. If you’re like me when I was young, a game like The Sims might have been your first encounter with a gay kiss that didn’t feel like a crime. We’re far from making games wholly safe and inclusive for queer people, but the experiences we can shape in our image through play make it an important place for exploration, self-acceptance, kinship, and pride as LGBTQ+.

For Pride Month, I asked a few people about a significant moment when video games and their queer identity have intersected. Here’s what they have to share. 🏳️‍🌈

Fox, cosplayer and graphic designer (she/her)

I think, in a nutshell, a lot of female video game characters were my childhood “queer awakening” before I even knew what they were. I look back on video games I played as a child, and my interest (and borderline obsession) with some of the female characters I looked up to made me realize that “Hey, that was a little gay!” One of the most notable ones being Black Cat from Spider-Man 2 on the PS2. I remember being so enamored by her and being strangely excited for any quest that involved her. I was about eight at the time, so there was no way I could know what I was really feeling then.

Now that I’m an adult, I can very much identify my feelings as queer attraction. When video games like Dragon Age or Cyberpunk 2077 give me that feeling of representation, and let me romance both male and female characters alike, I definitely feel a sense of peace in my soul. I’m thankful for the video games we have now, where I feel a lot more free to be me.

See more of Fox’s cosplay on Instagram and Twitter.

Don, writer (he/him)

I don't recall a specific instance of “representation” as other people did in video games (like they did). I think the fruitiest character I’ve encountered so far — which is also reflective of my limited gaming experience (games are expensive!) — was Bolson, the fabulous carpenter of Hateno Village and his band of hunky assistants in The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild. Of course, you can always argue about the queernees of other characters in certain video games but it was in Stardew Valley’s same-sex marriage that made me feel *seen* as a queer video gamer. The game afforded me rights that my goddamn country wouldn’t. Pelican Town didn’t care whether you’re queer, really. They let you go on your own business and transacted with you whenever beneficial. People really loved you in that town unless you’re going to act like a total asshole (I married the depressive town drunk, if you’re curious).

But if we take real-life experiences, I can’t tell you how many times I’ve played video games because a guy I liked was really into it. It worked one time and we kind of ended up together (We didn’t put a label on it, okay).

Follow Don on Instagram.

Agustin, game artist/animator (he/him)

The first game we ever got for the Playstation 3 was The Orange Box, a collection of five games developed by Valve. They were all masterpieces in their own right, but Team Fortress 2 particularly stuck with me as it hit just about the same time I was going through puberty.

With a roster of nine burly, bloodthirsty dudes, it quickly became my favorite game to spend my days in. I found several online communities celebrating its weird lore and weirder characters. One stray click, and I ended up in a rabbit hole of fanfiction. Definitely some things I’m not proud of reading, and yet I couldn’t get enough of it.

I always felt a bit of distance whenever the other boys in class would talk about girls and their celebrity crushes, as if they were speaking a language I could not understand. But then just like that it all came into focus – and what a relief it was to feel everything all at once.

I owe a lot to that stupid shooting game – I made a bunch of good friends and it provided me hours of entertainment (in more ways than one, lol).

You can follow Agustin’s work on Twitter, Instagram, and his website.

Paolo, video game streamer (he/him)

I’ve only been recently exposed to esports — like 2017 lang — and I was covering Season 4 of the Mobile Legends Professional League for work then I saw the then-captain of ONIC Philippines, Ohmyv33nus, literally rumarampa to the stage for their team’s finals game and, as a gaymer, I’ve never felt more represented. They didn’t win, but to see an openly queer player make it to the finals of a male-dominated field — which can be very homophobic — just changed how I see queer players, including me altogether. Like, every time I play League of Legends or Valorant now, when I get called “bading” or “bakla” in-game by people who use it as an insult, I don’t take offense at all because I’ve seen how a “bading” or “bakla” can kick ass in esports.

Paolo regularly streams Valorant and League of Legends on Facebook.

Gene, technical director (he/him)

Being able to choose homosexual romantic options in BioWare RPGs were very memorable moments to me. RPGs usually have predominantly straight characters with straight romance subplots. BioWare allowing players to be gay (or bi) in their hit RPG Dragon Age: Origins back in 2009 was a huge step in representation.

I felt I was no longer forced to sit through a romance subplot that didn't interest me at all (sorry Tidus, Yuna). It wasn't just the same dialogue you get from the straight romance either — these were custom-written and voice-acted specifically for the homosexual romanceable partymate. Future games in the series also gave more LGBT+ romanceable characters, each with their own unique romance storylines, dialogues and side quests. The fact that BioWare was willing to put out that much effort for their LGBT+ players quickly cemented the Mass Effect and Dragon Age franchises among my favorites.

Today, other open world games like Assassin's Creed Odyssey and Cyberpunk 2077 have followed suit in giving players options to pursue non-heterosexual romances in their stories. Hopefully more and more developers continue this fight for representation.

Gene leads the development of Project Xandata, an upcoming 3v3 shooter.

Elle, illustrator and comic artist (they/them)

I’ve recently been replaying Square Enix’s cult classic The World Ends With You, which is a game I really loved in my pre-teens. It’s an urban fantasy action RPG game about a socially isolated teenager in Shibuya who learns that the world doesn’t end with him. A lot of it is typical JRPG fanfare, but replaying it as an adult makes me appreciate how much harder it hits me with a queer reading. It’s about learning how to participate, be present, and be vulnerable with the help of a community of people who knows what being ostracized or self-isolated feels like. Also, that this is possible despite a system in place that encourages infighting and meritocracy. Realizing that as a queer adult, and having that intersect with the great comfort I’ve gotten from talking to and connecting with other queer people (trans people in particular), has reminded me that vulnerability can be powerful, transformative, and freeing. And that I wouldn’t be half as sure of myself without that community. Replaying a game that I only first played because of its cool factor, then having it be actually reaffirming to things I face now just feels right.

See Elle’s illustrations and zines on Twitter, Instagram, or their website.

Chino, baker (he/him)

I find that my experience of queerness revolves around being drawn to kindred spirits, of a deep, guttural need for intimacy with people who share my culture and — to some extent — my lived experience. Gay first dates are fairly absurd, at least by cishet standards, oft underscored by a mutual push and pull to figure out whether or not to sleep with each other right then and there, and punctuated with conversations about RuPaul’s Drag Race and — if we’re feeling saucy — video games.

I was something of a nerd growing up, so whenever I meet a boy with even a passing interest in comics, D&D or video games, I find myself foaming at the mouth, desperate to connect with someone as obsessive as I am. I even have a history of dating soft, artsy guys with penchants for 2D fighting games. I can’t seem to help myself, it seems, when someone opens up and asks me who my main in Tekken was (Xiaoyu, if you’re curious) when I was a kid. It just gets me every time.

Chino runs Baker on East, a proudly queer-owned donut shop.

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Since 2000, The Sims and its robust building tools have made talented creators out of its most dedicated players. It’s even reached a point where player-made builds have officially made it into the game: last November’s Snowy Escape expansion pack came with pre-built lots designed by four of the community’s top creators.

On YouTube, insanely skilled The Sims builders abound. One of them is Leo, a.k.a. XFreezerBunnyX, a Filipino content creator who hails from Roxas City. His channel has been around for seven years, where he started out uploading Let’s Plays of The Sims 3. Like most of us looking for ideas for our next build, he turned to other creators for inspiration when he first began his channel.

“I have been watching ‘SimTubers’ like TheQuxxn and TheSimSupply for years at this point and seeing them have fun doing what they do inspired me to create my own channel—and I have been here ever since,” he writes.

Cut to the present and you’ll see Leo’s channel regularly updated with new builds, each designed with a level of detail that most Simmers aspire to make. Some of my favorites are his Japanese-themed lots, which capture so much of the nuances of that culture’s architecture, from room configurations to exterior elements that fit naturally in a Tokyo street setting. Because Leo is a practicing architect in real life, this eye for realism shouldn’t come as a surprise.

“The Sims influenced one of my biggest life decisions, which was choosing to pursue a degree in architecture,” he recounts. “Having played The Sims gave me some basic ideas about architectural design that I was able to carry with me through college.”

Leo’s career as both content creator and real-life builder have achieved a kind of symbiosis, where his skills in one feed into the other. His familiarity with design trends allows him to fully optimize each lot he makes in The Sims, with equal attention given to function and form. He personally enjoys making builds in the contemporary Japanese style for its focus on minimalism.

“My favorite thing about this style is how efficiently everything is designed. It may look basic but, as a planner myself, I know there’s a lot of work done to come up with optimized plans. At the same time, it’s aesthetically pleasing.”

Still, making anything in The Sims is, of course, mechanically different from building a house in real life. Take it from me: it’s not enough to just grab a random blueprint of a house on Pinterest and expect a 1:1 recreation in the game. The physics and the math are just built differently. Of course, there are a bunch of tricks you can do in the game to work around its limitations, and Leo is no stranger to these.

“A lot of people forget that ‘moveobjects’ wasn’t a thing when The Sims 4 launched, and up until now it is my most used cheat,” he says, referencing a cheat that let you place objects anywhere on the lot, even over other objects. “However, if I had to choose one piece of custom content or mod, I would have to choose T.O.O.L.1 by TwistedMexi. It is such a powerful and versatile tool that unlocks so many options for builders.”

Leo continues to expand the kind of content he makes for his community. At the moment, he’s hard at work learning to make his own custom content, utilizing some of the 3D modeling techniques he picked up in college. He’s also working on his ‘save file’, which is typically an entire pre-built neighborhood designed by a content creator that other players can load into their game.

Although Leo works on his builds by himself, he’s made a lot of friends and connections within the community. His career as a content creator has also been boosted by being a part of EA Game Changers, a program that gives him and a few others early access to new packs. For Leo though, the real perk is finally coming full circle and meeting creators he used to merely watch years ago.

“The best part of being in the program is being able to interact with fellow Game Changers and the game developers themselves!”

You can subscribe to Leo’s YouTube channel here.

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