this post was submitted on 22 Aug 2025
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What you are describing is a concept of the mechanically bisexual. The options as given often allow players to choose in a sandbox game whether they experience the game as a completely non-queer experience or not. It sometimes creates queerness as an option rather than a core part of an experience which rep wise is considered a step better than when all romance options in games were mandatorily heterosexual but also kind of a cop out where player choice means all characters are often Shrodinger's bi. If you want to experience say Skyrim as an almost entirely queer free experience - you can. Your choices flip that representation on and off like a lightswitch so if you have queerphobic tendencies the game doth not offend much. No one ever hits on you first.
Rep wise Gay characters are ones specifically ones where the queerness isn't optional, it's a part of the canon of the character. Straight characters often are so in fixed story narratives where they have hetero relationships and if they have brushes that look like same sex romance it's played for laughs and treated as not really an option. Since culture still sort of assumes straightness as a default if the character only ever is coded romantically by the frame of the game to be attracted to the opposite sex they can be termed a "straight character" because as a player the game's interfacing with that character's sexuality is mandatory. An example is the Prince of Persia games or the Final Fantasy series which have a romantically coded opposite sex paramours that you don't have an option not to interface with the character's sexuallity.
This is way more common in older games and fixed story franchises.
So outside of visual novels, are there good queer games where you get hit on first? I’m in if the story is good and the gameplay is engaging. I am straight but not narrow, and games are fictional.
By making the player make the first move, they empower the player to choose.
The problem often becomes that the entire sexuallity of mechanically bi characters or all characters in the game are often under player control. In a some circumstances games with this mechanism will have the characters who are not chosen as romantic options pair with no one ever or defer to straight behaviour. This is in deference to games wanting to have it's cake and eat it too.
Examples of this in action :
Stardew Valley where if you don't choose a same sex option to romance - no other characters ever have any romances ever. The one exception is Leah who has an ex who shows up late in the romance pursuit who tries to win her back. However, the ex is whatever gender the PC is so if it's a hetero relationship, it still appears to be a hetero relationship.
Harvest Moon Mineral Town (later editions) give the player to options to romance same sex options... But everyone you don't choose pairs up in hetero relationships and no other characters.
In both games there is no other queer rep so the player essentially opts in or out to all queer representation in the game. Blanket Heterosexuallity or bi-invisibility until given player approval is the default.
Indy games are generally the leaders for actual queer rep that isn't optional to the game's plot where characters sexuallities are not revealed by the player opt in.
Okay, I definitely agree with you on the player being the only romance option for NPCs... for the most part. Looking at it, I do see plenty of existing romances in Skyrim, Fallout 4, and Cyberpunk 2077 — the examples I gave — and I think they're mostly straight. In Cyberpunk, Judy Alvarez, an established lesbian character who will only romance you if you're female, has a female ex who is a main character. You meet her before you meet Judy. She's the one who gets you the heist gig, sort of. The one who hires Dex, who hires you and Jackie. It may not be obvious at first, but if you follow Judy's story, even as a male character, it will be obvious. And Fallout 4 had a romance with two robots, but that's mainly played for laughs and most people will never see it. (You have to go to the school in Diamond City and speak with the female robot, who will ask you about love. Give the most heartfelt answer and, the next night, you will see her wed a male robot outside the all-faith chapel, if you're there for it — you could be elsewhere and you will miss it.) But that's a robot relationship, and it's hetero.
I do want to say one or two of them had a couple gay/lesbian romances.
Going a bit off-topic, Animal Crossing — largely considered a kids' game — actually has a bunch of stuff just beneath the surface that most people will overlook. Flick, the bug collector, is considered by many fans to be FTM trans. He identifies as male but appears to be AFAB. There's a peacock who identifies as female — peacocks are specifically the male of the peafowl species. Peahens are the females, and they don't have the big feathery thing. So that's a female character who was AMAB. Plenty of other characters rock the trans flag as well. Kids would never notice this, and being a Japanese game, they have to be very careful as that country is super conservative. (There's actually a pretty deep rabbit hole on that game's lore. Some characters hint toward the game being a game, breaking the fourth wall. There are also hints the game takes place in a post-apocalyptic world and you're the last human.)
I'm with you though, in that I would like to see more same-sex relationships and LGBTQ+ representation in my games.