Misgendered by the Hobgoblin?: Queere Repräsentation im zeitgenössischen RPG Baldur's Gate 3

Contemporary role-playing games are undergoing a significant shift in how they handle LGBTQ+ narratives, moving away from historical industry tropes like queerbaiting and heteronormative defaults toward more explicit inclusion. Baldur’s Gate 3 serves as a primary case study for this evolution, demonstrating that while modern titles have successfully integrated inclusive character creation tools and avoided harmful stereotypes, they still struggle to fully embed queer identities into the core narrative architecture. The industry’s persistent reliance on playersexuality—a design choice where non-player characters remain fluidly available to the player regardless of gender—often renders sexual orientation narratively invisible, relegating meaningful queer experiences to optional side content rather than central story arcs.

The evaluation of these representations relies on four key criteria: explicit orientation, the inclusion of trans and non-binary identities, the avoidance of reductive stereotypes, and the presence of diverse relationship models. Baldur’s Gate 3 excels in providing positive, non-stereotypical examples, such as the prominent lesbian relationship between Dame Aylin and Isobel, which stands as a rare instance of an integral, non-optional queer narrative. However, the game’s primary companion romances frequently default to playersexuality, which obscures the characters' inherent sexual identities and limits the depth of their queer experiences.

Ultimately, while the game represents a progressive step forward for the RPG genre, it highlights a lingering structural limitation. Because explicit queerness is often treated as an elective feature rather than a foundational element of the main plot, players must frequently rely on mods or personal interpretation to achieve a sense of authentic representation. This suggests that despite the market demand for more diverse storytelling, the industry has yet to fully move beyond the practice of compartmentalizing queer content, leaving the most profound expressions of identity to exist on the periphery of the primary gaming experience.