It’s been a big couple of weeks for LGBT rights, thanks to the legalisation of equal marriage in the United States, along with numerous Pride events taking place across the globe over the past few weekends. More than ever before, it seems acceptance and inclusion are winning the day and we’re seeing this bleed into popular culture as a whole. Just last month, Nintendo announced the next Fire Emblem would allow both male and female same-sex marriages in game – a marked turn from the resistance it showed to introducing such unions into Tomodachi Life.

But there’s one gaming character revealed in the last 12 months whose homosexuality clearly marks a big step forward for the inclusion of diverse characters in the titles we play. I’m talking, of course, about Dragon Age: Inquisition’s

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“There’s a tendency for every character’s ‘default’ to be straight, white, and male in our industry – and nobody questions that default”, explains series creator and writer David Gaider. “No character ever has to justify why they’re straight, white, and male. The moment you make them anything else, you suddenly need reasons why that’s okay…or do you? A certain amount of deliberateness is required to challenge the idea of a default, and while it feels a bit unnatural to do so, it’s absolutely necessary. It’s a way to create without unthinkingly doing things the same way simply because that’s how you’ve always done them.”

“ There’s a tendency for every character’s ‘default’ to be straight, white, and male in our industry – and nobody questions that default.

Of course, BioWare has a long history of progressive depictions of sexuality. In 2003, the studio released Star Wars: Knights of the Old Republic and, in it, introduced the first known gay character in the Star Wars universe in the form of Juhani, a female character who could romance female players. The game was released in North America on July 15, 2003 - 11 days before the judgement in Lawrence v. Texas invalidated sodomy laws in 14 States and thereby legalised same-sex sexual activity between men throughout the US.

In the realm of gaming, to say nothing of society as a whole, we've seen a higher number of lesbian relationships rather than those between two men - certainly there are a disproportionate number of games that feature instances of lesbianism with varying levels of depth, compared with few which do the same for guy-on-guy relations - but regardless, perhaps this explains why the studio’s follow-up titles continued to champion same-sex relationships in the form of bisexuality and continue not to offer an out-gay male party member. In 2007, BioWare released the first entry in its Mass Effect franchise and with it Liara, an Asari who can have relationships with male or female players. This was followed by Dragon Age: Origins in 2009, where your male or female character can have relationships with party members of the same sex… but said party members will always profess themselves bisexual if questioned.

So it wasn’t until Dragon Age: Inquisition that the developer added what Gaider referred to as its first “fully gay” male character in a blog post; a throwaway term which he instantly came under fire for from both LGBT activists and those who don’t support gay rights alike. Speaking to Gaider, however, he believes the strength of this reaction is just another example of why it’s so crucial game writers continue to create varied characters.

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“The post’s purpose was to announce Dorian’s existence, not to announce that he was gay, and yet it felt awkward to talk around that fact when it made up an important part – if not the only important part – of who he is,” he says. “I also knew that mentioning it would, for many, eclipse everything else I said about him. And that’s exactly what happened.

“ I wish it hadn’t been a necessary consideration... but that's evidently not the world we live in.

“I do wish now that I hadn’t said that he was ‘fully gay’. I knew there was a significant part of the audience who believed that we’d already had gay characters in the series, and I had no intention of trying to educate them on the difference between bisexuals and homosexuals; still, I should also have known that others could interpret what I said as a comment on bisexuality itself. It certainly wasn’t intended.

“I wish it hadn’t been a necessary consideration, that I could have just mentioned the fact as one among Dorian’s numerous characteristics and trusted everyone would treat it as such, but that’s evidently not the world we live in.”

Eight months after the game’s release and many Game of the Year awards later, however, and the reaction to Dorian has been almost universally positive. It’s easy to see why: he’s an exquisitely well-written character. Though initially jarring and even irritating, over the course of the game it becomes clear to those who put the effort in that his cocky swagger masks a deeply damaged individual. BioWare has always realised that while the overarching tales it tells may be epic sagas, it’s the base human stories that make up such narratives that have the strongest ability to punch us in the gut. The scene between Dorian and his father over their different interpretations of his sexuality is one such example.

For those who haven’t played the game or pursued a separate path, the confrontation sees Dorian finally challenge his father after running for most of his life. He brings up that which has been unspoken for too long; his father’s use of forbidden Blood Magic to try and ‘fix’ his son. Tevinter culture is all about carefully planned marriages to produce the most powerful heirs, and clearly his sire believes Dorian is simply being selfish and hedonistic. Dorian’s questioning of this status quo is so detestable that his father would rather Dorian lose everything that makes him who he is rather than transgress societal norms, even if they’re artificially constructed ones. As Dorian says, “If he’d succeeded… I can’t even imagine the person I’d be now… I wouldn’t be this Dorian.” Sexuality isn’t a choice for Dorian. In essence, his father is trying to destroy everything he is, simply because it poses a threat to the “duty” his society demands.

“ There’s a way for stereotypes to be harmful, no question, but I’ve never found agreement even within the gay community as to what a ‘proper’ representation of a gay character should be.

Of course, this isn’t necessarily an experience that’ll speak to all gay people – fantastical elements aside – and an issue that often comes up when LGBT characters are introduced into games is whether they’re only there to tick a box or not, in order to create a shallow façade of inclusivity. When asked whether he’d class Dorian as a “gay character” who perhaps relies too heavily on stereotypes, or instead as a more nuanced “character who happens to be gay”, Gaider shares his view that it’s not always as easy a distinction as many assume.

“What constitutes a gay stereotype is a difficult subject,” Gaider muses. “Certainly there’s a way for stereotypes to be harmful, no question, but I’ve never found agreement even within the gay community as to what a ‘proper’ representation of a gay character should be. Some suggest that gay male characters must eschew all characteristics that could be described as ‘too overt’: they cannot be effeminate, cannot be stylish, and certainly cannot be sexual without someone accusing them of being a harmful stereotype.

“Yet I am some of these things, and I know friends who are all of these things. Are they not the ‘right’ type of gay? Are gay male characters required to be completely straight-acting and straight-looking in order to be presentable for public consumption? Must they also avoid any ‘negative’ characteristic which could be construed as a trope or some kind of commentary on gay people at large?”

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With this in mind, it may be assumed making such a character would be an incredibly pressure-filled experience, but Gaider explains it actually wasn’t. Dorian’s sexuality evolved naturally as the character of a genuinely good mage took shape, and after that it was about rounding out the other facets of his character. Once he’d taken form, however, BioWare was keen to include him in the game. Dorian says, “Selfish, I suppose, not to want to spend my entire life screaming on the inside,” and Gaider ended his original blogpost by suggesting the inclusion of such a character is “not that much to include, and really it's very little in comparison to the entire rest of the game and thus, considering what it means to those fans who receive that validation almost nowhere else, it's not too much to demand a bit of tolerance and compassion from the portion of the audience for whom this content is not even intended."

It’s possible that some players didn’t care for Dorian, or that they simply found other characters from Dragon Age: Inquisition a better fit for their party. But in a time that’ll be remembered in history for LGBT rights, it’s worth celebrating how much things are changing. You may argue player characters have been able to be gay in BioWare games before now, and it’s true. But there’s a big difference between a gay player character and Dorian. The player has agency, which is the narrative fulcrum on which so much pivots, while Dorian just is, and that’s much more empowering. As players, we’re no longer being asked to join the dots or project ideas onto something that isn’t there. Instead, relatable characters are beginning to be inexorably woven into the games we play.

Dorian marks one of the first times a gay male gamer can find himself already in a fictional world, instead of putting themselves in it. With all the other changes the real one’s seeing at the moment, here’s hoping this is just a taste of things to come.

Luke Karmali is IGN's UK News Editor. You too can revel in mediocrity by following him on Twitter