The Power Of A Kiss

HEROICS, VIOLENCE AND GRAPHICS TOOK A BACK-SEAT TO TEENAGE ROMANCE FOR SONY AT E3

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BIG, IMPORTANT, SOCIALLY IMPACTFUL MOMENTS IN THE GAMES INDUSTRY DON’T COME ALONG OFTEN AND THEY DON’T TEND TO HAPPEN ON A STAGE. For that, among other reasons, the latest reveal of The Last Of Us: Part II gameplay was a seismic moment for the industry and all it took was a kiss.

So, why was Ellie kissing Dina during a dance important? Why has it lead to more column inches, blog posts and reaction videos than the graphically violent gameplay has done? To our minds, and the reason why we’ve chosen to focus on it here too, it’s because it marks a new milestone for the representation of LGBT characters in videogames and the growing inclusiveness of game developers to reach beyond cis-gendered white men for its leads.

Now, that doesn’t mean that having somebody other than a cis-gendered white male character makes your game inherently better and it doesn’t mean that choosing such a protagonist makes a game inherently bad. The positive reaction to this character development for Ellie has nothing to do with what we believe the final quality of