Gay and lesbian characters will soon be joining League of Legends if their story fits.
It’s only a matter of time before there are gay, lesbian, bisexual, or transgender champions in League of Legends. In an interview with Polygon, Greg Street, Design Director at RiotGames, explains that they are focused on the right story for the heroes. The team doesn’t want to force LGBT characters into the game whose lore does not match.
The sexuality must fit the character’s identity
During the interview, Polygon and Greg Street talked about the fan passions behind certain heroes in League of Legends. Parts of the large LoL fan community are still not receiving attention in the game. The Design Director was then asked if there will be champions in the game in the future whose sexuality is clearly not heterosexual.
Street responds that they owe it to the players and the world to take a step in that direction. What he doesn’t want is to say, “Okay team, the next character should definitely be a lesbian, no matter what.” – that wouldn’t produce a satisfactory result. It must fit the character’s identity from the beginning. “I’m sure we will implement that in the future. I don’t know which character it will be or when we will do it,” says Street.
Representing LGBT characters in character-based online games was already a major topic in the gaming community last year. When Blizzard made hints about the sexuality of various heroes in Overwatch, the community took notice. In a comic, Blizzard showed that Tracer is a lesbian.
While Overwatch and League of Legends are multiplayer games that tell little of the story within the game, they still provide fans outside the game many opportunities to read the background story and lore of various characters. Be it through comics, short stories, or short films that explain why champions are the way they are.
During the conversation with Polygon, Greg Street explained that he really liked Blizzard’s idea of revealing Tracer’s sexuality in this way. It’s likely that future LGBT characters will come out in a similar way, outside the game.
A matter of law as well
Games like League of Legends and Overwatch are played by gamers around the world. There are countries that have laws against what they see as “normal”. To avoid clashing with these laws, it is a good option to let storytelling happen outside the game.
“There are times when it’s worth fighting such a battle. But we have to be careful. It’s not just about a video game company going against the government of another country. Even if it might be very exciting for players, it could lead to players in a specific region losing access to the game. We don’t want to indirectly harm gamers through that,” says Street.
So we should remain surprised about the plans for future champions in League of Legends.
In World of Warcraft, lesbian night elves are part of the lore
