All My Friends Are Here: Dragon Age 2 and the Importance of Queer Friendships

It’s 2011. I’m fourteen years old and I am sitting deep inside of the closet. It’s a wooden box that fits me to the T and no matter how I try and move, I find it hard to breathe. When I do attempt to find the door, the fear of being released out in the open, to have everyone’s eyes on me, is what keeps me from moving. It’s that feeling that dogs me, and will continue to do so, for the next six years. 

But of course, there are moments of startling clarity, and none has been more sharp than when I first started playing Dragon Age 2. To some BioWare fans, Dragon Age 2 is the bastard love child of the Dragon Age franchise: copy-and-paste environments, NPC’s that would make Oblivion look good, etc… The list goes on.

Yet Dragon Age 2 was incredibly formative to my identity in a way that I was not expecting. Unlike Dragon Age: Origins, your companions were all – barring Sebastian Vael – bisexual. I played Hawke as I would myself – a lesbian. To have her surrounded by so many different, but similar, people to her was an experience that I had never come across before in real life. 

Even better, depending on who Hawke romanced, their companions would ask them about it. They’d tease you, ask for all the gnarly and exciting deets and even express concern if it went horribly wrong. I ended up romancing Isabela (who is the best BioWare love interest, by the way) and the moment Merrill teased my Hawke about it? My heart leaped from my chest in delight. Here this group of bisexual friends were, teasing one another about love and sex. It felt different and exciting. For a brief moment, I could see beyond the closet where I had those same relationships too. 

However, in spite of the positives that Dragon Age 2 offered – and by god there were many – it also made me realize something about myself.

While I had friends beside me in high school, both inside and outside of it, I was incredibly lonely. Unlike Dragon Age 2’s companions, I had nobody in my friendship circle that was queer and I was only out to my best friend. Where the Dragon Age 2 companions could seemingly chat about everything – even if they didn’t get along – and have that underlying connection to the people around them, I found that I was simply not latching onto anything with my friends. I’d given only part of myself in my friendships, and none of it felt real.

I was alone and scared, and the only thing that seemed able to ease it, was surprisingly the thing that made me realize how desperately I wanted LGBT friends in the first place: Dragon Age 2. For a few hours a day, I could pretend that I had my own circle of queer friends – and for once? It felt like I belonged. 

Yet, despite invoking negative emotions at the time, Dragon Age 2’s queer circle of friends made me realize that we needed more of it in video games. Why? Because when you are part of the LGBT community, you can’t help but drift towards someone who is also part of it. For safety, for a desire to feel like you belong. And while that may seem like a small thing to include in video games that isn’t strictly necessary to include, they feel like anything but. 

Mass Effect: Andromeda also had a cast that was full of queer characters who Ryder could befriend or romance. Despite its reception, it, like Dragon Age 2, got one thing right: LGBT people are quick to draw together; for safety yes, but sometimes, just sometimes, because girls, boys and/or non-binary folks are just damn hot and we need to gush with someone who gets it.

But beyond sexuality, it’s about knowing that there are characters out there who, while not real, allow us to feel part of something incredible. Even Saints Row, a game where you can use a giant dildo to kill people, didn’t shy away from allowing you to hook up with whoever you wanted, meaningful or not. It wasn’t a big deal and none of your gang treated you differently. It was just as easy as breathing. For fourteen-year-old me, the feeling of not being judged by people you care about was like a utopia and was why I clung desperately to Dragon Age 2 and its characters. 

Your own personal utopia can be anything from allowing you to see yourself kissing whomever you want in space to feeling like that somewhere out there, you’ll find the people that’ll help you not be so lonely anymore. Dragon Age 2, despite its faults, did just that for me and is an example of a game that understands its queer audience and characters – something that all games that include queer characters should pay close attention to.