Search
Apex Legends Tournament Sparks Backlash From Queer Fans And Allies
15.4.2024
Respawn’s hero shooter battle royale Apex Legends is an incredibly inclusive game for the queer community. It has several playable LGBTQIA+ legends, has given players Pride Flag cosmetics to showcase their identities in-game, and developer Respawn even put a statement supporting trans rights in...
Overwatch 2’s Latest Change Has The Community Shook
14.2.2024
Overwatch 2’s ninth season is underway, and it’s bringing some sweeping changes to the hero shooter. On top of reworking Pharah and giving every hero both a health buff and a passive heal, Blizzard also increased the projectile size of most heroes’ weapons. In layperson’s terms, they made...
New Report Suggests The Games Industry Is Failing LGBTQ Players
13.2.2024
I’ve known that representation in games mattered ever since that day in 1987 when I finished Metroid and discovered that intergalactic bounty hunter Samus Aran was that rarest of things (for the time): a cool female video-game protagonist. I loved playing as Mario, or Link, or any intrepid hero...
Overwatch 2’s Latest Mercy Skin Sparks Fan Backlash
5.12.2023
Overwatch 2 season eight begins today, December 5, but Blizzard showed off its new skins, events, and latest tank hero, Mauga, before kick-off. And the sentiment from players about the skins for season eight has been mixed—Baptiste’s formal wear is a standout, but it’s sandwiched between some real...
Venture Is Overwatch 2’s First Non-Binary Hero
6.11.2023
While the new tank hero Mauga was the headliner of Blizzard’s Overwatch 2 showing at Blizzcon this weekend, the dev team also highlighted two more playable characters coming to the hero shooter next year: a DPS character named Venture and a support hero code named Space Ranger. If you only watched...
Overwatch 2 Heroes’ Official Ages Sound Extremely Made Up
8.9.2023
For a game like Overwatch 2, in which its story has been trickled out over dozens of disparate external media stories rather than in one, cohesive thing—you know, like, a video game campaign?—there are bound to be inconsistencies along the way. But lord, seeing the game’s 38 heroes suddenly...
Chainsaw Man Creator Asks Fans To Read Gay Porn, Fans Go Hell Yeah
23.3.2023
The more I learn about the creator of Chainsaw Man, the more I like his vibe. His art assistant just had their explicit work published in a manga anthology featuring gay men, and Tatsuki Fujimoto wants his fans to check it out.Read more
Genshin Impact’s Queer Backlash, Explained
3.2.2023
The Genshin Impact community can’t seem to stop harassing its voice actors. A few days ago, a queer Genshin voice actor made a negative tweet about “fujoshi,” a term most commonly attributed to straight women who consume anime media about gay men. The resulting firestorm of online harassment...
Nintendo Japan Says It Recognises Same-Sex Marriages, Even Though Japan Doesn't
13.7.2022
Nintendo issued an update on the company’s corporate social responsibility (CSR) initiatives yesterday, and while this is normally a pretty stale kind of thing to read through as a fan, this particular publication had one thing that stood out.Read more
Night In The Woods Featured In Amazing Pride Demonstration
30.6.2022
The Portland Timbers beat Houston Dynamo 2-1 last night, but the coolest moment came before the match even started when giant banners in the stands were raised to reveal an unflinching Pride display with an unlikely messenger: Mae Borowski from Night in the Woods. It was one of the best video game...
Overwatch Devs Explain Why First Black Female Character Took So Long
15.4.2022
After years of waiting for an update, we finally know what exactly Overwatch’s 33rd playable character, Sojourn, can do–and why her release has taken so long. Read more
EA And Gearbox Sign Letter Opposing Anti-Trans Bill In Texas
11.3.2022
On February 22, Texas Gov. Greg Abbott issued an order for child protective services to investigate the families of transgender children who receive gender-affirming healthcare for child abuse. A day later, he called on everyday Texans, in addition to professionals, to report parents for “child...
Jim Sterling: From 'Pathetic Edgelord' To YouTube's 'Princess Of Pansexual Pandemonium'
9.2.2022
As a child, James Stephanie Sterling often found themselves picking apart what made games good or bad, what entertained and what left them cold. Silent Hill 2 would prove their favorite game. They adored its evocatively bleak atmosphere, and years later, that mirrors how they feel about the video...
GTAV’s Enhanced 2022 Release Should Leave The 2013 Transphobia Behind
22.9.2021
Years ago, I saw a video on YouTube—since removed, it seems, though a few like it still remain—of a GTAV player deliberately brutalizing some of the game’s trans sex workers for his own amusement. In the comments, one viewer voiced these chilling words of encouragement: “You’re doing God’s...
ToeJam & Earl III's Original Final Boss Was A Klansman
21.9.2021
In early builds of the Xbox’s ToeJam & Earl III: Mission to Earth, the eponymous extra-terrestrials beat up a hooded member of the Ku Klux Klan as the final boss fight of the game. Previously we only had the developer’s word from an obscure interview, but now we can finally see it for ourselves...
Red Dead Player Gets Famous For 'Killing' KKK Racists Online
5.8.2021
A man creeps up to a group of cowboys who are dressed in white from head to toe. They’re all wearing hats—pointy ones. In the background, a remixed folk song plays. Right as the beat drops, the man shoots them down one by one, in style. As the video captions tell it, these aren’t just any Red Dead...
Sorry, FNAF Creator Scott Cawthon, Political Donations Don't Work That Way
14.6.2021
Scott Cawthon, creator of the Five Nights At Freddy’s series, went viral over the weekend after his political donations were publicized on Twitter. The donation list was a who’s who of homophobic and transphobic lawmakers including Tulsi Gabbard, Mitch McConnell, and Donald Trump. Fans reacted...
A Group Of Hades Fans Are Staging The Entire Iliad On Twitch
4.6.2021
Hades, the well-received roguelike from Supergiant Games, is very obviously rooted in Greek myth. So what better way for a cadre of the games’ most devoted fans to pay homage to the source material than by staging a cover-to-cover reading of The Iliad, arguably one of the most recognizable stories...
Austin Parents Call for Firing of a Teacher Who Read An Anodyne Picture Book About a Trans Kid to Her Class
15.3.2021
Conservatives who rant about cancel culture actually love canceling children’s books that include content that makes them personally uncomfortable. Read more
Writer Torrey Peters Wants a Punk Utopia for Trans Girls and a Cuisinart Mixer
8.3.2021
My friend and colleague Harron Walker once found it difficult to preface the force that is Torrey Peters. Now, here I am, repeating that confusion, at a loss for how to possibly describe a writer who refuses to be pinned down by other’s expectations. Her debut novel, Detransition, Baby, published...