Love stories in modern video games?
 

It occurred to me the other days as I was playing the third "new" Tomb Raider game. What happened to love stories in video games? Like, even on the side? Lara Croft doesn't even so much as indicate any light attraction toward anyone in 2013, Rise, or Shadow, though I guess an official comic for 2013 indicated they wanted to make her a lesbian. They tried. The Red Dead Redemption games, there is only the specter of relationships, or doomed ones. The Last of Us games, your only option is a lesbian love story. Same in the Horizon games... I think it lets you mildly flirt with dudes, but you are only allowed to actually hook up with another woman, no men. The "Life is Strange" games appear to be big LGBTQ bonanzas. Can anyone even think of any modern games with a solid, conventional love story on some level? Because it kind of seems like there either needs to be a LGBTQ one, or none at all in today's climate.

Pretty sure because most games give you romance options now, like Mass Effect or Skyrim, etc. It's up to the player to choose. Other games like Red Dead Redemption already have John married with a kid so.

You can also romance both Tifa and Aerith in FF7 and get their dates in Chapter 8. Check their scenes on youtube if you didn't do it.

Cyberpunk 2077 had 4 characters for 4 different relations ships. You could be a man or woman (or whatever) and you could have relationships with one of two people (the straight or gay option).

The only one you can even kind of romance is Tifa, and it's in a blink and you'll miss it moment on a date, and that's only if you have maximum friendship with her. I did all of her sidequests and had (I thought) maximum friendship and I didn't get the kiss. Screw that.

Cyberpunk 2077 I wouldn't really consider a mainstream game. And love stories don't count in stuff like Red Dead where they're already past their love story and already married/angry at each other and are doomed anyway.

I always figured Lara Croft as that unobtainable type. Like you don't want her actually swooning over a character so she feels 'single' for her fanbase of horny teens.

At least classic Lara. I'm not sure about Survivor wabnabe Lara.

What do you consider mainstream? It was a triple A game made by a pretty big game Studio (CD Projekt Red famed for the Witcher). It had 8 million pre-orders and (after a quick google search) as of 2020 has sold 13 million copies. Pre-Edgerunners it held the record for most concurrent players then after the anime got up to 1 million concurrent players. It even had a major action movie star as acting as one of the most prominent characters.

The only thing that could have made it more mainstream is being made by Nintendo or Bethesda.