Star Wars Video Game Adds Gay, Separate-But-Equal Characters

Software developer BioWare is adding gay relationships to the video game Star Wars: The Old Republic–sort of. Gamers will be able to buy an expansion pack to the game called Rise of the Hutt Cartel, where users can select “flirtatious dialogue” options with characters of the same gender, but only on a separate planet. That’s right, gay is okay, but only on a segregated planet light years away. Albeit, the move to add the option for gay characters is a bold one and was met with vocal opposition from thousands of angry gamers.

On BioWare’s offical forums, fans of The Old Republic have complained about the move.

“Star Wars is a family-based story with nothing to do with SGR,” wrote one user. “Please, please, please Bioware do not allow SGR (same gender romance) in Star Wars The Old Republic. It will ruin the game and make a lot of people leave it.”

Despite the opposition from anti-gay gamers, BioWare went through with the move and executive producer Jeff Hickman apologized for the addition taking so long.

First of all, I want to apologize that this is taking so long to get in the game. I realize that we promised SGR to you guys and that many of you believed that this would be with a companion character. Unfortunately, this will take a lot more work than we realized at the time and it (like some other pieces of content we talked about earlier in the year) has been delayed as we focused on the changes required to take the game Free-to-Play. As we have said in the past, allowing same gender romance is something we are very supportive of.

Secondly, I want to reveal today that we are adding SGR with some NPCs on Makeb and do intend on pursuing more SGR options in the future. More details to come!

So although gay relationships are only available on a separate planet for now, at least they are working on it. Gotta start somewhere, right? BioWare is actually most famous for their game Mass Effect, where homosexual relations are available by default. Users have the option to form a relationship with either a male or female supporting character, featuring various sex scenes between the character and their partner.