Dragon Age: The Veilguard\u2019s romances are a step backward for queer representation BioWareBioWare has announced that players will be able to romance all available Dragon Age: The Veilguard characters regardless of gender, but what seems like inclusivity is a disappointing step backward for a series that\u2019s usually ahead of the curb regarding LGBTQ+ representation. After years of waiting and long periods of radio silence, Dragon Age: The Veilguard is finally getting ready to release later this year. However, one announcement regarding the romance options has given me pause. Unlike Dragon Age: Inquisition, players will be able to romance any companion regardless of their character\u2019s gender or race. However, while this seems inclusive on the surface, it really feels like a step in the wrong direction, especially considering how well Inquisition handled its queer representation. In an interview with IGN, game director Corinne Busche confirmed that all companions are \u201cspecifically pansexual,\u201d a departure from past games. How Dragon Age got queer representation right Dragon Age: Origins featured four romance options: a straight man, a straight woman, a bisexual man, and a bisexual woman. The next game featured four bisexual options, plus one straight male romance option added in The Exiled Prince DLC. Inquisition took things further with eight romanceable characters, including, for the first time, characters who can only be romanced by players of the same gender in Dorian and Sera. This wasn\u2019t the first time BioWare included gay romance options; Mass Effect 3 had Steve Cortez and Samantha Traynor, but while they had interesting stories, Inquisition\u2019s options received far more screentime as companions. Dorian, in particular, felt like an important step for gay representation in gaming, making Dexerto\u2019s own list of the best video game characters of all time for that very reason. He\u2019s certainly not defined by his sexual orientation, but it plays an important role in his story. It\u2019s revealed that Dorian\u2019s father attempted to change his sexuality using a blood magic ritual analogous to the harmful conversion therapy many LGBT+ youth are subjected to. If romanced, Dorian will also note that he\u2019s never really been in a relationship before, with his previous experiences with men being strictly physical rather than emotional. Since Dragon Age: Inquisition released, Dorian\u2019s storyline has been widely praised for depicting an openly gay man as a multi-faceted individual, something that remains all too rare in gaming. And while Sera has been more divisive, criticism of her character centers on her personality and behavior rather than her sexuality \u2014 which is refreshing in its own way. Why Dragon Age: The Veilguard\u2019s approach falls short With that in mind, The Veilguard taking the \u201ceveryone is romanceable\u201d approach feels like a step in the wrong direction for authentic queer representation. Dragon Age: Inquisition did something fresh and exciting by giving each romance option their own identity. You may not have been able to pursue a relationship with the first character who caught your eye, but their sexualities seemed like parts of who they were rather than a limitation on the player. Making every character romanceable isn\u2019t inherently a bad thing, and that it\u2019s become the norm rather than the exception is certainly an improvement from the heterosexual-only options of the past. Still, having The Veilguard revert to this approach feels like a betrayal of the strides forward the last game made with its queer characters. In fairness to BioWare, the developer is aware of player concerns and pushed back on the idea that companions are \u201cplayersexual\u201d \u2014 a fan-coined term to describe romanceable characters whose sexual orientation is determined by the player\u2019s identity. As Corinne Busche explained, \u201cIt can be really off-putting where these characters are adapting to who you, the player, are.\u201d To combat this, all companions are pansexual, and \u201c[the player] has no bearing on their identities\u201d; characters may mention past relationships or (if not romanced) enter into relationships with other companions, with gender being a nonissue. But even though this is an improvement from games like Stardew Valley \u2014 a game where the gender of one romanceable character\u2019s ex will change to match the player\u2019s \u2014 it\u2019s a far cry from the diverse and authentic representation the LGBTQ+ community deserves. Developers should view Inquisition\u2019s queer characters as the bar they want to live up to, but instead, BioWare itself is backtracking. Bisexual and pansexual representation is important \u2014 and I know I\u2019d love to see explicitly bi and pan characters in gaming overtake playersexual ones. However, that shouldn\u2019t come at the cost of gay and lesbian representation.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Dragon Age: The Veilguard\u2019s romances are a step backward for queer representation BioWareBioWare has announced that players will be able to romance all available Dragon Age: The Veilguard characters regardless of gender, but what seems like inclusivity is a disappointing step backward for a series that\u2019s usually ahead of the curb regarding LGBTQ+ representation. After […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-80303","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-uncategorized"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80303","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=80303"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/80303\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=80303"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=80303"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dejan.au\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=80303"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}