Video Game Characters Who Are Gay AF
- Clara Mount
- Jun 30
- 4 min read
Written in collaboration with Austin Vetor, @vetorphotography on Instagram.
Howdy, Goblins! Today we’re highlighting some of the iconic gay men who populate our favorite games. From touching conversations in a quiet desert town, to giant robot battles, to defending humanity against our enemies, these characters and their stories contribute to a more diverse and entertaining landscape in the video game world.
Single-Player
Kim Kitsuragi
Every cop dynamic duo needs a level-headed, competent partner. In Disco Elysium, Kim Kitsuragi — the resident gay detective — takes up that mantle, working alongside the player character and resident bisexual disaster Harrier du Bois. Kim was born and raised in Revachol, where the game takes place, but due to his Seolite descent, he is treated badly by other Revacholians and struggles with his social identity. Despite all this, Kim is now a highly decorated detective who commands respect from his colleagues.
Disco Elysium is a non-traditional RPG where you progress the game through a series of skill and dialogue checks. Whenever you encounter a tricky situation, your skills will speak up to try and sway you. I wonder what your skills will say to you when you discover the “homosexual underground”?
Arthur & Stanley Petersen
These two lovebirds can be found in a small Arizonan desert community, having either left or been left by their families after coming out. When asked why they chose to live out in the desert, Stanley says, “Because we got tired of people’s bullshit. Things change… but being gay is still dangerous. The end.”
Although Arthur and Stanley were forced to leave their lives in the San Francisco Bay Area behind, they seem to have found safety and contentment in their desert home. They have now been together for at least a decade, and their affectionate banter shows how much they genuinely love each other.
Revolver Ocelot
You cannot have a Metal Gear game without Revolver Ocelot. He’s just always there, cackling in the background, being villainous, dressed like he walked out of a spaghetti Western and doing tricks with his revolver. Even when you think you’ve defeated the organization he stood for, it turns out he was actually a double agent for the President, or for killer AIs, or for his long-dead man-crush.
In fact, that’s where it all started: somewhere in 1970s Russia, a young Revolver Ocelot watched Big Boss get tortured by his direct superior (who is also gay). This awoke within young Ocelot both a torture fetish and a deep love for Big Boss, and from that point on, everything he’s done has been in service to Big Boss’s ideals.
Multiplayer: Competitive
Kung Jin
Although references to Kung Jin’s sexuality in the game are subtle, he was confirmed as gay in a 2015 Twitter post by the studio’s story and voiceover director, Dominic Cianciolo. This makes Kung Jin the first gay character in the Mortal Kombat fighting game series, and he’s an absolute badass. As a thief turned Shaolin Monk, Jin is a master with both a bow and arrow and a bo staff, making him lethal at both long and short range.
Kung Jin is playable for the first time in Mortal Kombat X, where he fights alongside the other Kombat Kids to protect Earthrealm.
Thumb Dolmayan & Ring Freddie
Amid all the chaos and turmoil of Armored Core VI — with corporations and mercenary groups running amok on Rubicon, fighting over the alien resource known as Coral — the Liberation Front's spiritual leader Thumb Dolmayan acts as a rallying voice for the planet's downtrodden. It's also quietly called out that his personal attendant, the similarly finger-themed pilot Ring Freddie, is Dolmayan's paramour and confidant.
As is tradition in From Software games, information about characters and events is written in a very deliberate and evocative tone, even when it’s only a sentence or two. What little lore we have about this battle-tested couple paints Freddie as Dolmayan’s protector on the battlefield, while the old man carries the weight of dark knowledge relating to the true nature of Coral…
Multiplayer: Co-op
Devrim Kay
Devrim Kay is a Guardian of Earth, resident weaponsmith, and tea connoisseur who has been with us since the start of Destiny 2 way back in 2017. Currently serving as a scout in the European Dead Zone — where he hands out bounties for players and organizes the Guardians’ recovery efforts — Devrim has a rather storied past. He once was a member of the City Militia, has crafted many of the weapons used by the remaining Guardians, and was eventually dubbed a Queensguard by Mara Sov, the Awoken Queen.
Devrim and his husband Marc also get credit for raising Suraya Hawthorne, a sniper with a rebellious streak who was instrumental in the war against the Red Legion and now spends her time acting as a voice for the non-Guardian members of the Last City.
Osiris and Saint-14
Okay okay, I know this is the same game, but I just couldn’t leave this pair of badass Guardians out! When the writers confirmed in 2020 that Osiris and Saint-14 are in a romantic relationship, it marked the very first confirmed relationship between two active NPCs in the franchise. While other Destiny characters have been confirmed as queer, those relationships happen offscreen or are merely hinted at through dialogue and lore. But when it comes to these two, we get to see Saint-14, the undead robot Titan, write notes to Osiris, the time-traveling Warlock, where he refers to him lovingly as “my fiery phoenix.”
Did we leave something out? Let us know what we missed!
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