In Cyberpunk 2077, players quickly run into Judy, a woman who clearly doesn’t like men . However, modders found out that with a small adjustment, Judy can also be romanced with the male V (based on body type and voice). The text is fully voiced for the male V, which makes gamers suspect that content has been removed by the developer. CD Projekt Red states that this is not the case.

“It was just more convenient and easier for our localization team, from a production perspective, to put all the text on so that we could avoid accidentally missing something that would necessitate future recordings, “a spokesperson for CD Projekt Red told Eurogamer . “Judy was always only a potential partner for the female V. That was the artistic vision from the start. No male romance option has been removed from the game.”

But the confusion doesn’t stop there. If you play a male version of V, you have the choice of one man throughout the game to romance, apart from adventures with male sex workers. This Kerry Eurodyne is gay and only interested in the player if he plays a man. But is that completely correct? In Cyberpunk’s canon tabletop game, Kerry is bisexual. This adjustment is painful for bisexual gamers, because there is already such a poor representation of bisexual men in the gaming industry.

The ability to create mods for the PC version of Cyberpunk 2077 creates more problems. For example, modders have made it possible to have sex with Keanu Reeves in the game. The character that Reeves plays in the game is normally not to be romanced. Modders replace the model of a sex worker in the game with the model of Johnny Silverhand, the character played by Keanu Reeves. CD Projekt Red now wants modders to stop having sex with Keanu Reeves.

“With the characters we’ve come up with for the game, you’re broadly free to customize the game and have fun,” said CD Projekt Red opposite PC Gamer . “However, when it comes to models of real people that we have asked to participate in the game, we kindly ask you not to use them in situations that might be considered offensive if you don’t have their explicit permission.”

It’s a tricky situation especially when characters in games look exactly like real actors. Then you quickly end up in the same category as deepfake porn, in which the heads of famous people are pasted into realistic looking porn videos.

In the case of fictional characters otherwise, because those characters cannot give permission. Then why shouldn’t you be allowed to change their sexual identity, as happens with Judy? For example, if you’ve been following Foreplay for some time, we even called once to make Jaal from Mass Effect: Andromeda bisexual .

Critics on The Last of Us: Part 2, among others, would have us believe that lesbian women can be found in every game these days, but that’s not the case. Lhbtqi + characters are still very scarce in the game industry. If you use mods to modify someone’s sexual identity so that they sleep with you, you erase a marginalized identity for your own gain.

It seems like a small act, but it sends a bad message to queer gamers. As if they can be changed with a little adjustment. As if they simply haven’t met the right person yet. It’s even reminiscent of conversion therapy, especially with a character like Lucy written so clearly as a lesbian.

This has been happening for some time now. Think of the gay Dorian in Dragon Age: Inquisition. Among other things, this game stood out because there were characters with a defined sexual identity. In mods, Dorian’s sexuality was adjusted so that he could also dive into bed with the female lead character. That while his storyline is about being able to be himself as a gay man.

Sexual identity remains a tricky issue in the gaming industry. For example, over the past month more became clear about the sloppy development of Mass Effect 2. That started with the disclosure of a writer who worked on the game in an interview with TheGamer . Brian Kindregan said in the conversation that the character Jack was written as pansexual for most of the development. However, in the game, she can only enter into a romantic relationship with the male Shepard.

How did that happen? According to Kindregan, BioWare was terrified by the attention the sex scenes from the first Mass Effect got in right-wing news programs in the United States. With this Kindregan of course refers to Fox News.

Jonathan Cooper, who also worked on Mass Effect 2, talks on Twitter that he only learned through the interview that Jack cannot be romanced with Femshep. “I have animated scenes of man and woman,” Cooper writes. But it doesn’t stop there. During development it was also possible to romance the character Jacob as a male Shepard. The sex scene between the two was copied one on one from the gay cowboy movie Brokeback Mountain. “What I was told then is that ‘America is not ready’.”

Cooper explains that they copied the scene from Brokeback Mountain so it wouldn’t be unacceptable to be. “But apparently there are different rules for film and games. Personally, I still believe it was the wrong decision to take it out, as we protested at the time. People who have a problem with it can go fuck themselves. They deserve it. not to play our games. “

Why game creators and gamers have so much trouble with sexual identities in games ? Possibly because for a long time the focus of the game industry was largely on the same target group. If there was a sex scene in a game, it was made for the male gamer who likes women.

In recent years, games have become more inclusive as game creators behind have come that other target groups also play games. However, many gamers still expect everything to be made for them. You notice this not only in the criticism of female protagonists or queer characters in games, but also in the fact that people have no problems with erasing sexual identities via mods. Queer gamers have long struggled to see their identities reflected in the games they play. Now they must defend that position.

In the Foreplay section, we look at the different ways sex and sexuality are dealt with in games, through specific examples, trends from the game industry and interviews. Also read previous episodes: