The Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation (GLAAD) has announced the nominees for this year’s GLAAD Media Awards, a list that, for the very first time in the show’s 30-year run, features a category for video games.
Five titles have been nominated for the Outstanding Video Game award, a category that seeks to celebrate interactive experiences that include authentic and impactful LGBTQ characters or storylines.
Those five games are as follows:
Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey (Ubisoft)
The Elder Scrolls Online: Summerset (Bethesda Softworks)
Guild Wars 2: Path of Fire (ArenaNet)
Pillars of Eternity II: Deadfire (Versus Evil)
The Sims Mobile (Electronic Arts)
A more in-depth look at why these five games were selected for GLAAD’s inaugural video game category can be found on the organization’s blog. The winner is set to be revealed during this year’s Sundance Film Festival on March 28 and May 4, alongside those from television, film, music, and other forms of media.
The organization has also made a separate post addressing recent concerns over the controversial DLC for Assassin’s Creed: Odyssey which initially locked players into a heterosexual romance despite allowing them to choose the sexuality of the game’s main character up until that point.
GLAAD notes that it has been in communication with Ubisoft about the DLC and that the developer has, following feedback from the LGBTQ community, announced it will change the add-on to “better reflect the nature of the relationship for players selecting a non-romantic storyline” and will “ensure the paths that players experience mirror the choices they make in game” in future releases.