10 Most Influential LGBT Characters In Video Games

Sam is the absent protagonist of Gone Home, one of the best hidden gems to have had its time in the spotlight thanks to Xbox’s Games With Gold. The game can be completed in less than a minute, but you’re only hurting yourself if that’s how you play it.

The game sees you control a young woman who has (you guessed it) gone home, finding your parents house empty. There’s no other characters in the game, so everything is learnt by reading diary entries, finding various notes and through piecing together clues in each of the rooms.

Set at night and following in a long history of first person horrors, the game feels very tense at the outset, as you’re left wondering what could have transpired. It turns out, you eventually discover, that your sister Sam has come out as a lesbian and ran off with her girlfriend.

It doesn’t bat you over the head with a twist, it just lets it unfold naturally. However, the thematic parallel between the relative banality of someone eloping with their lover and the gothic horror vibe subtly reinforces how scary coming out can be, especially to less than accepting parents.