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I have an issue with the way canon queerness is represented in video games. While we get rare gems like The Last of Us Part 2, where Ellie’s queerness is part of the story without being the story, most characters have their sexuality pushed to the wayside so studios can get brownie points without actually giving audiences meaningful representation.

Another PlayStation flagship lead, Aloy, was shown to be queer in Horizon Forbidden West’s DLC (which gamers were weird about, as expected), but if Guerilla Games ignore this development in Horizon’s next mainline game, it displays a lack of commitment to their audience. Overwatch 2’s new character Lifeweaver was also announced to be pansexual, but the game itself doesn’t let on to this fact in any significant way. If you want to find out more about his character, you’ll have to go hunting for that information in Overwatch-associated media, because the game tells you next to nothing.

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Unfortunately, Star Wars Jedi: Survivor has done the same with fan-favourite character Merrin. A novel bridging the gap between Fallen Order and Survivor called Star Wars Jedi: Battle Scars was published in March 2023, telling the story of the Mantis crew in the years before the events of the second game. In this novel, it was revealed that Merrin is canonically pansexual and hooked up with a woman who defected from the Stormtroopers. Merrin also briefly mentions in an optional conversation in Jedi: Fallen Order that she had been very close with another Nightsister called “Ilyana” and thought they’d be “together” when she was older. Of course, Merrin already looks like the archetypal bisexual goth girlfriend every gamer (me) craves, so queerness is no stretch of the imagination.

Merrin rest on Cal's shoulder as he puts his arm around her

Unfortunately, you wouldn’t know any of this by playing Jedi: Survivor. Spoilers ahead: she and Cal finally make out and decide to get together. I don’t hate it, though Merrin is definitely punching below her weight - Cal is cute and all, but Merrin is funny, powerful and incredibly competent. It’s very easy for a player to see the relationship between Merrin and Cal develop and see her as a regular ol’ hetero, especially since none of the game indicates otherwise. If you didn’t hear about the novel, which is fairly likely, you wouldn’t even know she was queer.

It’s disappointing, but par for the course when it comes to Star Wars. Obi-Wan is also possibly queer, but we never see that discussed anywhere else other than the book it was written in. A queer Black woman was replaced with an unnamed White character in Star Wars: Tales of the Jedi, possibly to avoid a larger discussion of Ahsoka’s sexuality. Supporting queer characters in Star Wars: Rise of the Skywalker were edited out for international audiences. And of course, last year, Disney publicly backed the ‘Don’t Say Gay’ bill in Florida.

merrin using magick in star wars jedi: survivor
via Respawn

It wouldn’t surprise me if Disney doesn’t want queerness, regardless of canon status, to be discussed when it comes to its major characters. Survivor does have a single grumpy gay couple on Koboh and a pair of lesbians, with a few possible other queer characters. None of these characters affect the story much, and their inclusion doesn't make up for the erasure of a key character's sexuality. It’s incredibly disappointing, but Jedi: Survivor doesn’t care about Merrin’s queerness. That won’t stop me from caring.

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