The game has just been nominated for two Gayming Magazine Awards due to its (optional) gay romance.
“TRIGGER WARNING,” the post begins. “Among all the various awards and nominations we’ve received, we’ve also just been nominated for the @gaymingmag GAYMING AWARDS! I’m really proud of that, because I absolutely stand by the fact that the way we did it is exactly how something like this should be done. Non-coercively, naturally, and educationally (because we show how things really were in the Middle Ages without idealizing them)–and without shoving it down anyone’s throat or trying to re-educate them like so many titles that are rightfully called ‘woke’ these days. We made the gay community happy and gave them the CHOICE to be themselves, just like we did for others in other choices and quests, and anyone who isn’t interested probably didn’t even notice. Except, of course, for [a] very small and very loud minority.”
The game has a gay romance option, which is something that you can unlock over the course of the game with the right dialogue options and is fairly tastefully done. The game is very intent on being a 1403 simulator and the characters are all written with that in mind, but it’s nice that the game recognises that gay people would have existed regardless of the cultural attitudes at the time.
I think his comments refer to the implementation of the romance in the way that it doesn’t feel like it was put there so the studio could boast about how progressive they are.
The late mediaeval period was actually fairly accepting of gay relationships, with a legal doctrine of Brotherment being practiced in several countries, where two men would legally join their lives and assets, and which often included declarations of affection.
Big “I’m doing the thing I complain about, but it’s different when I do it” energy from his statement.
It looks like he’s really commenting on the way these relationships are portrayed in KCD2 compared to other games, but he doesn’t specify which other games he’s on about so it’s hard to say exactly what he’s referring to other than a general perception of modern media lazily inserting LGBT characters without integrating them more deeply into the setting or narrative.
And that complaint is an example of the issue. You’re effectively complaining about normalization of LGBT+ characters and relationships, so you see it as lazy, expecting them to be tokenized and making them some kind of not-just-a-normal-person character.
No, you’ve misread my comment: the tokenisation is lazy, having characters whose sole defining characteristic is their gender or sexuality (or race, disability, etc.) is lazy, failing to make them fully rounded characters beyond their superficial traits is lazy.
What Daniel is talking about is presenting these issues in a modern framing, in a time period which understood them in a very different way.
This is exactly what KCD2 has done well with this particular romance option, having the characters be rounded individuals first with ambitions and flaws, and also give them the opportunity to explore their sexuality in a way that occurs naturally through the game (depending on choices you make).