Thread by @Dreamboum

Here's a simple comparison to showcase the difference in coverage with FF16 and Horizon FW released with the same critical reception.

This is how Kotaku headlined Horizon's gay romance, and this is how it headlined FFXVI's.

What's even more interesting is the content ⬇️

The writer, the same for both articles, highlighted the romance in Horizon FW and takes it as a victory, despite the romance being optional, despite Aloy herself having flirtatious dialogue with male characters, despite being only in a DLC.

It is a defense of Aloy's queerness.

Which is fine, Aloy IS queer, you just have to pay a $20 DLC to see it flourish.

It doesn't matter that HFW makes it optional, it doesn't matter that it allows HFW to be sold in Saudi Arabia since only the DLC is banned.

The criticism is only one paragraph in the conclusion.

The treatment of the gay romance in FFXVI is completely different at Kotaku, despite being a mandatory scene in the story, and despite causing the game to be banned in Saudi Arabia.

Kotaku even writes that FFXVI relegates gay men to options?

And all of this stems from the camera pulling back during Dion and Terrence's kiss.

Which you could absolutely argue is fair criticism in this case, despite them sharing a longer intimate kiss moment than they do in HFW.

But Kotaku goes so far as saying FF16 wants its cake and eat it too. That it fails to portray gay romance, it even compares it to a corporate play, that it doesn't want to commit, that it is scared.

For a mandatory scene? When they praised HFW for an optional scene in a DLC!

Sony pulled the Queer DLC card twice with Horizon FW and TLOU1, and it is majestic, it is something worth defending and celebrating.

FF16 doing it in a non-optional scene, and got banned in countries for it, is considered..a failure of portrayal of gay characters?

Dion being gay is not even a revelation that pans out at the end of FFXVI, it's what he starts with and is a part of his identity all the way through. All his future actions start with the audience understanding his queerness a fact of the matter. Not as a DLC surprise.

Something similar at TheGamer, that I have less issues with because it still highlights the good.

But what happened that Horizon releasing the Gay DLC is the watershed moment for the gaming press, but FF16 is full of caveats?

I feel like HFW is even clearly queerbaiting as a sales tactic. The romance is there! Just finish the entire base game and then pay $20 to see it. It is so tucked away at the very end and in the end you can even turn down the romance, but FF16 is the non-committal party here?

Now, it's great that it happens in HFW, and I wish I didn't have to compare the two, but it is important to highlight the differences when the press adopts two entirely different positions that don't make sense when you see the difference in coverage for something worth praising.

It is hard to look at examples like this and not see how FFXVI is being slammed for doing things that are more committal than other AAA games do.

And it just keeps happening for FFXVI, with press people saying it's "mild criticism" as if the issue is only that. It's a pattern.

It's fine to have two different opinions on similar things, but it is also fascinating to highlight the difference in tone and in framing.

The corporate greed angle is invoked for FF16, but absent for HFW, despite the romance being locked behind a monetary transaction.

I'm gonna amend and say calling it queerbaiting for Horizon is too strong a word. But I do want to highlight the optional nature of it.

You can miss it in a way you cannot miss Dion's relationship in an *explicit* way.