It’s now entirely normal for triple-A games to include queer representation, or allow players some flexibility regarding their character’s sexuality. However, one Starfield gamer was still shocked and horrified when he noticed he could flirt with Sam Coe, a male NPC.
“Gross,” tweeted The Gaming Christian this weekend. “You can flirt with Sam Coe in Starfield. This is fine if you’re a woman, but I always play as myself in a game.” He added that this scene “goes against the story as Sam is a straight guy.”
But as this complaint spread (and was roundly mocked) on X, it got pushback from an unexpected source: Sam Coe’s voice actor Elias Toufexis. “Actually, I played Sam as bisexual,” he replied.
The original tweet now includes a community note clarifying that other Bethesda games have included bisexual characters too.
This is a familiar subgenre of complaints in the video game culture wars. This Starfield player reacted as if he was being forced to flirt with Sam Coe, when in reality it was just one of four dialogue options. Similarly, some conservative gamers freaked out about Starfield‘s character creation system, which allows players to choose their character’s pronouns.
If you don’t like the idea of Sam Coe being bisexual, there’s an obvious solution here. You simply choose one of the three non-flirty options. As one snarky reply put it, you control the buttons you press.
Just like with the pronoun controversy, however, some players can’t even handle the hypothetical possibility of a character being queer.
