Happy Pride everyone! We’re updating and republishing this list of some of the Switch’s best and most comprehensive games to mark Pride Month. To enjoy!
The gaming industry hasn’t always been good at portraying LGBTQ+ relationships and identities, but thanks to the efforts of small studios, independent developers, and LGBTQ+ creators, that’s starting to change. Not only do we have enough games with strong LGBTQ+ themes on the Nintendo Switch to actually make a list, but they’re all games exceptionally good. We are spoiled for choice!
But what constitutes an “LGBTQ+ game” anyway? It is more than a game that has some representation in it — it is a game that is proudly representative, who wears her queerness on her sleeve.
For example, we don’t count games like Overwatch, which has LGBTQ+ representation in characters like Tracer and Soldier 76, but are both confirmed to be gay in the material outside games, and we’re not including Miitopia, Harvest Moon, and Story of Seasons, because even though they allow players to marry characters of the same gender, they call it “best friends” — which is pretty repulsive in 2023.
However, keep in mind that for many of these games, their LGBTQ+ content is a plot point, so they exist many spoilers here. Happy spoilers, but spoilers nonetheless!
Publisher: Finny / Programmer: Endless fall
Although the plot of Night in the Woods is mainly about the mysterious happenings in Possum Springs and the personal demons of the protagonist Mae Borowski, the actual everyday life of the game involves Mae and her friends who are gay and commit crimes. No, literally — that’s their catchphrase: “Be gay, commit crimes.” Featuring the gay romance between Gregg and Angus, plus Mae’s own pansexuality, A Night in the Woods depicts a group of friends who aren’t afraid to be their most authentic selves.
Publisher: Modest games / Programmer: Happy gaming Ray
Imagine a game like Harry Potterbut set in a world that’s both welcoming and proud of its trans, pansexual, nonbinary, gay and queer characters, and you’ve got Ikenfell, a Chrono Trigger-esque RPG about saving the world from magic gone wrong.
The teenagers at Ikenfell’s wizarding school go from “discovering their sexuality” to openly flirting, which is a refreshing take on “all teenagers are nervous about kissing.” It’s also one of the few games we’ve played with neo-pronouns, and one of the teachers uses ze/zir.
Publisher: 8-4 / Programmer: 8-4
Undertale’s most obvious LGBTQ+ reference is the “best ending,” which — spoilers — involves an absolutely GORGEOUS lesbian relationship between Alphys and Undyne, which you can easily miss unless you’re doing pacifism.
There are a variety of other low-key queer displays, from Mettatron’s gender representation to the main character’s use of they/them pronouns.
Publisher: Matt produces games / Programmer: Matt produces games
Many people who worked on Towerfall, Celeste is a brilliant, incredibly difficult platformer. The story mainly deals with the mental problems of the protagonist Madeline as she tries to climb the mountain, despite her self-doubt.
Not only does the team behind it represent many of the letters in the LGBTQ+ acronym, but Maddy Thorson — the game’s non-binary director and designer — confirmed that Madeline herself is trans. In fact, it was creating Celeste that helped Maddy come to terms with her own feelings about gender!
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Publisher: Worried monkey / Programmer: Worried monkey
The Story of Seasons and Harvest Moon games have historically been more than a little bad at portraying same-sex relationships. Many of them allow you to have same-sex marriages, but the fact that these are known in Japan as “best friend ceremonies” gives you an idea of how progressive it really is.
Stardew Valley, a game heavily inspired by the Harvest Moons of yesteryear, is less shy about its LGBTQ+ representation.
Publisher: Awesome (XSEED) / Programmer: Awesome (XSEED)
As we mentioned above, the Story of Seasons series hasn’t always been great at same-sex relationships — but the Friends of Mineral Town remake on Switch is a step in the right direction. Not only is it a solid update to one of the best games in the series, but it also offers a veritable cornucopia of potential marriage candidates, including the Harvest Goddess herself. Brandon and Jennifer are two new love characters added to the roster for the remake!
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive / Programmer: Annapurna Interactive
Gone Home is one of the first narrative games to be told almost entirely through found objects, as Katie Greenbriar returns home to an empty family home. Walking around and finding various diary entries, tapes and scraps of paper, Katie is able to piece together what happened to her sister, Sam.
While we’re never given more information than what the game tells us in snippets of text, and Sam’s story is never expanded upon, Gone Home is a delicately told, surprisingly moving story despite initially appearing to be a horror game.
Publisher: Turn on digital / Programmer: Turn on digital
What would you do if you found a locked phone belonging to a stranger? If the answer is “I’d go through all the messages and emails, but I’d feel REALLY bad about it,” then maybe you can indulge your curiosity harmlessly with Normal Lost Phone.
You find the phone of Sam, a teenager whose life you slowly unravel as you go through their correspondence with friends and family. In the end, it will become clear why Sam left the phone: to start a new life away from his homophobic and transphobic family and live authentically.
Publisher: Limited games / Programmer: Novetakl
The House in Fata Morgana begins in an abandoned house, as you — a mysterious person with amnesia — explore the memories of the mansion. As you travel through time, you watch stories of abuse, grief, heartbreak, murder, and at the center of it all, a witch’s curse — but in the end, you’ll come to the truth of it all. Fata Morgana is a tragic story about rejection, the other and discovering one’s own identity, even if it means losing everything else.
Publisher: The Grumps game / Programmer: The Grumps game
Dream Dad is, on the surface, a fluffy, heartwarming story about dads dating dads in a utopian, dad-friendly suburb. Dig a little deeper and you’ll find threads about what it means to be a gay dad, a black dad, a trans dad, a plus size dad, a closeted dad, and a self-hating dad.
Body types, race, diversity, and the difficulties of raising young women are intertwined with the flashy exterior of the Dream Dads dating game, and it’s this depth that has made this short, narrative-driven experience a huge hit.
Publisher: Annapurna Interactive
If Found… is a visual novel centered on the life of Kasia, a transgender woman, as she writes in her diary about her experiences in Ireland in the early 90s. You can only interact with the game by erasing Kasia’s words, revealing her story of trying to fit in by not fitting in as you erase her from the world.
With a punky, hand-drawn magazine-like art style, If Found… is about how sometimes building new bridges means burning old ones.
