Hello, and welcome to Slice of Ace!
Video games are a unique form of media because the experience of the player
will be different every time you play a video game. Did Mario jump over that
first Goomba? Did he defeat him? Or did he fail at the first obstacle? These are
simple gameplay differences, but as the medium progressed, developers started to
build these choices into the games themselves. Narrative decisions to change
the story and the world of the game became integral to the experience. There
are a few large developers in particular who emphasise storytelling in their
games. The ones that come to mind offhand are Telltale, Bioware, and Quantic Dream.
I'm going to focus on one of these for this video, and that is Bioware. In their
games, often times you create a character at start of the game and then throughout
the game you make choices which will influence what happens within the world.
These choices can be mundane from simple dialogue options to things on a more
grandiose scale such as choosing which race of aliens to save over the other.
The majority of these choices come in dialogue.
Here's an example from Detroit: Become Human. A choice will pop up on the screen and the players choice
will affect what the character - Connor - says.
Connor: I'm not going to hurt you! I just wanna talk and find a solution
One thing Bioware in particular is known for
is romance. In their games, you often have the decision for your character to
become romantically involved with someone else
these romances are optional and for the most part don't affect what's going
to happen in the overarching story, and is more just a form of character development.
When I was younger, I used to view these romance options as sort of a
bonus. I wasn't really interested in the romance aspect of it, I just liked the
character and wanted to see more of them. But as I got older, I started to dismiss
these romance options altogether. In the Mass Effect series for example, your main
character is Commander Shepard. My Shepard completely ignored the advances
of everyone around him. He was happy being single while he was saving the
universe. And similarly with the first two Dragon Age games, my characters weren't
romantically involved with anyone. However, a bit after completing Dragon Age for
the first time I decided to replay it. The second playthrough, I played as a female
human mage. There's a character in that game called Alistair
Alistair: Allow me to introduce myself: I'm Alistair, the new Grey Warden, though I guess you knew that...
Because I was a girl this time, the romance options popped up, and I thought
"Yeah, let's do this! Let's romance Alistair!" So I did, and I was a bit confused
because I liked learning more about the character and seeing the character
develop and seeing my character being romantically involved with him.
Alistair: Um, that sounded better in my head.
But I didn't really think much of it
past me liking the character.
Alistair: Now come and have some pie. I promise you'll feel better!
Then, Mass Effect 3 happened. There's a character in the Mass Effect
series called Kaidan Alenko.
Kaidan: Shepard
Shepard: Kaidan
And I was playing the game
I was going around the galaxy, saving people, hunting things ;-)
And then Kaidan said he wanted to talk. So we went to a café, and then this happened
Kaidan: It's just you plan a career, you focus, and then suddenly the world's ending and
it's too late to uh... to find someone. Shepard: Someone?
Kaidan: We've been friends a long time Shepard
Have you ever known me to be with anyone? But I guess I'm just
choosy or patient or I don't know. Maybe what I've never found, and what I want is something
deeper with someone that I already care about. That's what I want. What do you want?
And when this happened, I was what I can only describe as conflicted
This was something that I was very unfamiliar with growing up in a
conservative area. In my heart, it felt right, but in my mind I was told that it
should be wrong. But as fate would have it, one of my family members came in and
I, panic-stricken, chose no-I-don't-want-you/just-be-friends (option)
But, as I've done so many times in my youth, I ignored it
The next anecdote I have for you is Dragon Age Inquisition. This is the third
game in the Dragon Age series, unsurprisingly. Before Dragon Age
Inquisition was released there was a lot of publicity around a party member in
the game called Dorian
Dorian: Good! You're finally here! Now help me close this, would you?
Dorian, I believe, was the first openly gay and exclusively gay character in a AAA RPG
Dorian: I prefer the company of men. My father disapproves.
Me [sic], being closeted to myself,
did the romance Dorian when I played
through Inquisition but "Only because my character wanted to". I was very quick to
deny to myself and to others that I was romancing Dorian because I wanted
to, and there was this internal conflict where I knew I was gay but I was
trying so hard to deny it, to forget about it. I think those experiences in
video games were so valuable to me, because it helped me understand a part
of myself that was very unfamiliar. If I hadn't explored my sexuality through the
eyes of my characters, maybe it would have taken me a lot longer to realise
and to understand my sexuality. Video games are important for a lot of
young people, and seeing their sexuality, or their gender identity, or their race
represented in a positive way in media is going to help them accept themselves
and be happy about themselves, and that can only be a good thing. And that is the
end of my story. If you enjoyed the video, then please leave a like, and also
consider subscribing. I post videos every Saturday, so if you want to see more
then do hit the subscribe button if you so please. If there is something in
particular you want to see out of this channel then
comment below. I know this was a bit off-kilter because I'm used to doing
videos about asexuality. Don't worry that is not going away!
This channel will always for its whole life be about asexuality. I just like to
branch off into some other topics sometimes. Thank you for watching and
have a wonderful day!
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