Video gamers who own an Xbox 360 will now have the option to build their own same-sex families thanks to this week’s release of Fable 3 from Lionhead Studios. Previous games in the groundbreaking Fable series allowed for gay romances and marriages to take place, but the third entry has added an in-game adoption agency open to same-sex couples.
The Fable games have proven to be a big hit for Microsoft as an Xbox exclusive, selling 6.4 million copies worldwide. Set in the mythical world of Albion, the newest game follows a hero of the player’s own making who must raise a revolution against your brother, the land’s corrupt king. The game also boasts an impressive voice-over cast, including Ben Kingsley, Simon Pegg, John Cleese, A Single Man’s Nicholas Hoult, and out actor Stephen Fry.
Besides their playfully tongue-in-cheek atmosphere and a unique moral system in which a player’s choices affect the type of character they become, the Fable series also has the distinction of a progressive and outspoken creative team. As lead designer Josh Atkins put it in a recent interview with AfterEllen’s Sarah Warn, “We’re enormously proud of the fact that game allows you to be gay, straight, whatever you want to be.”
Now with the third game in the series, players will no longer have to choose between having a same-sex relationship and having children. Studio head Peter Molyneux explained “More and more, there are same-sex couples choosing to have a family, and we just wanted to reflect that in Fable 3… It’s a charming thing, having a baby, and we didn’t want to exclude gay people from that.”
Currently, only a handful of other games allow players the option to seek out a same-sex relationship, including Dragon Age, Mass Effect, and popular PC series The Sims. Besides the dearth of LGBT storylines, homophobic language also remains prevalent in many virtual gaming communities. Hopefully, Fable 3 will a provide an another aspirational model for LGBT inclusiveness in the ever-expanding video game industry.
no matter who does it.
People demand freedom of speech to make up for the freedom of thought which they avoid. - Soren Aabye Kierkegaard (1813-1855)