Controversy Erupts Over LGBT Content in Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores: Analysis of Representation in Video Games

2023-04-26 16:51:05

The developers of Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores added a spicy option to the game that angered a significant part of the players. Their resentment provoked resentment

Players are angry regarding the LGBT content of the Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores add-on and leave negative reviews on Metacritic, and a game journalist is angry because of the bombardment of reviews.

In the new material Robert Zak tried to convey the idea that same-sex romance in video games is not so common in games and it is incorrect to attribute Burning Shores to the “agenda”.

It so happened that a significant part of Robert’s material consists of paragraphs in which he speaks not very flatteringly regarding some users, for example:

«Sometimes it seems that before one wave of toxicity stops erupting from the mouths of a certain emotionally inadequate part of gamers, the next splashes right in our faces. This time it was for a same-sex kiss in Horizon Forbidden West Burning Shores. Yes, Aloy is a lesbian (or bi, or just not straight), which has led to a bombardment of reviews, blind rage, and scathing comments from cavemen.».

Nevertheless, Robert spoke on the topic. For example, he decided to recall the latest AAA games where LGBT protagonists would have been. If we exclude games where same-sex relationships are optional, such as Assassin’s Creed and RPG from BioWare, then we get only The Last of Us and Horizon, there were a couple more in Overwatch (Tracer and Soldier 76), Life is Strange and Borderlands.

Then Robert expanded the sample to include not only LGBT protagonists, but characters as well:

«According to Wikipedia’s list of LGBT characters in games, there were only eight games with LGBT characters in 2022. As you may have guessed, such a low number is not indicative of some unstoppable wave of LGBT disproportionate representation, since even in 2012 there were more LGBT characters in games (12)».

According to Robert, there is no LGBT dominance in video games, but he doubts that his findings will convince toxic users:

«Maybe all this analysis is meaningless and will do little to calm the sweaty little men who are indignant regarding this. Maybe these people don’t really believe in “the agenda” and maybe they’re not even homophobic, just angry because their fantasies regarding a character they liked were shattered by the fact that she’s now “unavailable” [поскольку она лезбиянка]».

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