Over the years, the world has grown to be more accepting of people with different races, sexuality, and more. The world has become so accepting that they start popping up more and more in all types of media including video games. Characters like Ellie from The Last of Us and Tracer from Overwatch have lesbian backgrounds but they aren't introduced as lesbian. In the case of Ellie, Naughty Dog decided to reveal her sexuality in a piece of DLC nearly a year after people became attached to her. It was a way of showing that just because they have a different sexuality, it doesn't change who they really are. You should still care about someone based on who they are deep down, their sexuality doesn't define them.
As more and more developers like Bioware, Blizzard, Naughty Dog, and many others continue to break new ground with characters and storytelling, others are following in their footsteps. In a recent interview with Polygon, director of the popular MOBA League Of Legends addressed the topic of LGBT characters.
“We owe it to the players and, I think, to the world to do something like that,” Greg Street said. “What I don’t want to do is be like, ‘Okay, team, next character, whatever you do, has to be lesbian.’ I don’t think we’ll end up with something good there…. From the beginning, it has to be the character’s identity. I’m sure we’ll do it at some point. I don’t know which character or when it will happen.”
Street went onto mention Tracer's reveal as "awesome" and talked about developing the world and story outside of the actual game.
“You know, both League and Overwatch are global games,” he said. “There are countries whose laws around things that we consider pretty normal at this point in the U.S. are not the same way. One way you can get around stuff like that is by having some of the storytelling outside the game….
“There are times when it’s worth having that battle. We just have to be careful, because it’s not necessarily just about a game company taking on the government of some other country, which may be very exciting for players. It could end up with players in that region not being able to play a game, which may be striking a blow to those players. We don’t want to indirectly hurt players.”
League of Legends is available now on PC.
