Within two hours of gameplay, I already had the option to flirt unabashedly with another woman. Plus, she looks and fights and sasses so much like Xena that the first time I started Googling her name to figure out how to upgrade her gear, Google’s first autocomplete suggestion included our favorite queer Warrior Princess. A tragic childhood (dropped from a cliff by her own father!), a magical pet eagle (Ikaros!), an option to play as an archer (my favorite style of combat!), and an empathetic disposition despite the trauma she endured as a youth (□). The main game paid off Ubisoft’s pledge, and thirty minutes after meeting Kassandra, my Greek mercenary just trying to survive and make a dime during the chaos of the Peloponnesian War, I had imprinted all over her. I think this allows everybody to build the relationships they want, which I feel respects everybody’s roleplay style and desires.” Players decide if they want to engage with characters romantically. Not only was a playable woman a given, but: “Since the story is choice-driven, we never force players in romantic situations they might not be comfortable with. In 2014, Assassin’s Creed Unity creative director Alex Amancio infuriated fans when he revealed that Unity was meant to have women assassins but they were cut because “it was really a lot of extra production work.” Four years later, Odyssey‘s creative director Jonathan Dumont was singing a whole new tune. (*Link of Breath of the Wild, of course, who never even opens his mouth to speak and is easy enough to imagine as a soft butch ninja dreamboat.) With an emphasis on choice and a guarantee that players could spend an entire playthrough as a woman or a man who could romance women or men, it seemed like the Ubisoft had finally heard the cries of the legion of queer fans who wanted to put their money where their protest tweets were and just see themselves reflected in one of the most popular video game franchises of all time. But last year’s Assassin’s Creed Odyssey promised to change all that. That was my main problem with Assassin’s Creed Syndicate, which was otherwise my favorite video game of 2015 - it gave the very first playable woman assassin, kickass tenderheart murder maven Evie, a built-in romantic storyline with a dude, while her twin brother’s storyline was just assembling his own gang and refining his swashbuckling. And if there are romantic options within the game, I’ll only romance other women. With one elfin exception*, I have a hard rule when it comes to video games: I won’t play an RPG unless I can play as a woman. The Autostraddle Encyclopedia of Lesbian Cinema.LGBTQ Television Guide: What To Watch Now.
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