If you thought that gamers could be normal when two gay men share a passionate kiss in 2023, then you would be dead wrong. Horizon forbidden west‘s new story DLC, Burning Shorescontains a scene where Aloy can decide to kiss a woman named Seyka, and it seems some PlayStation fans weren’t happy. In fact, some players were so offended at having that choice that they mass-reviewed the DLC on Metacritic. While the meta score based on critic ratings is currently 82, the user score is just 3.2.
Burning Shores is a DLC only available for PlayStation 5s due to technical reasons. It brings significant improvements in quality of life such as loot easieralthough apparently there are details like that better looking clouds making it a PS5 exclusive. The update also gives players the option to have Aloy have a romantic relationship with a nice person, which it was fan wish for years. And I’m happy for them. Seyka seems like a nice lady, and Aloy deserves to open up to someone after running around saving the world for two straight games. The main people who are angry at the moment are the homophobes who can’t seem to bear the thought of gay content in the horizon Series at all – even if it is completely optional whether Aloy acts according to her feelings or not.
The bar is on the floor, y’all. But it doesn’t stop zealots from running in face first. new players complained on Metacritic that “homosexuals” proposed a “dirty agenda” that “sabotage” what could have been a nice story. Almost all reviews with a “0” score complained that they shouldn’t be forced to see that there are gay women in the world of horizon. One player called the game “propaganda awakened” because it had allowed Aloy to fall in love with someone she’d only just met — as if so often human romantic attraction didn’t work. “[Guerilla Games] reconnected the main character for LGBTQ nonsense,” lamented another so-called fan, who seems to have completely missed the spark between Aloy and Petra Horizon Zero Dawn. “Aloy has never shown any sign of being a lesbian,” lamented one player who appears to have been playing a different game entirely.
This isn’t the first time a PlayStation first-party franchise has been attacked for containing overtly queer characters. This February, homophobes Review bombed The last of us on HBO for being forced to endure the unbearable sight of queer tenderness on television. Hopefully, with enough repeated exposure, players will realize that queer video game characters are here to stay. Because culture advances, either with or without them.
