Mass Effect is a franchise known for letting players sleep with other characters, and while that sauciness makes a return in Andromeda, some romance routes have left fans heartbroken.

Lots of Overwatch fans read the game's proud, pink-haired Russian lady soldier Zarya as gay. While perhaps not a huge deal on its own, that interpretation conflicts with homophobic views widely held in Russia and backed by the state, forcing Russian Overwatch players to reconcile two clashing interpretations of a widely admired character.

Starship: Eclipse may sound like a title for a run-of-the-mill sci-fi game involving spaceships, but don't let the name fool you. It's actually way steamier than that.

It's tough enough getting women and dudes who aren't white into a starring role in a video game. So imagine how impossible it is to try and get a gay or lesbian character in the spotlight.

Achievement hunters will do anything to get their precious 1000G... but that doesn't mean they'll always be happy about it. Case in point: Bully's "Over The Rainbow" achievement, which requires players to kiss other boys for 20g. Cue homophobia from reluctant players over on Xbox360achievements.

Here's something that sure escalated quickly: neoGAF user sphinx noticed that at current, there are an absurd number of Spanish websites that report some variation of the idea that Mario and Luigi are gay. Upon further inspection, it seems like it's dozens of sites who believe this.

The first thing that immediately stood out to me when I initially previewed Far Cry 3: Blood Dragon wasn't the neon, it wasn't the hark back to the ridiculousness of the 80's, it wasn't even the blood dragons themselves. That's because I didn't get to see much of any of that before being hit with a gay, possibly homophobic joke.

Tomorrow’s Saga #12 — the latest issue of Brian K. Vaughan and Fiona Staples’ critically acclaimed series — won’t be available for purchase via comics-reading apps on the iPad or iPhone, because it contains images of gay sex. That means that folks who buy and read the sci-fi adventure drama via apps like Comixology won’t be able to do so once the issue goes on sale.

So argues Todd Harper in a open letter to Riot Games about the League of Legends champion, Taric. Rumour is Taric might be gay.

This morning, the ladies of ABC's The View were talking about a celebrity wedding. Happens all the time, right? But the celebrities in question were the X-Men, not the Kardashians. And the wedding? It's going to be super-fast adventurer Northstar marrying his longtime boyfriend Kyle. Definitely not your typical talk-show fare.

Mass Effect 3 became the game in the sci-fi series where BioWare finally opened up the relationship possibilities for players wanting to romance a character of the same gender, with characters Esteban Cortez and Samantha Traynor only available for wooing if you played as a male or female Commander Shepard.

Who is waging the public opinion battle between anti-gay "family values" groups and the video game creators who dared to allow same-sex romance in their massive new Star Wars game? The anti-gay crowd says the Star Wars defenders are getting help from spam-bots. (Would they be spam-droids?)

Often, the cosplay we feature here on Kotaku skews towards exquisite costumes or pretty ladies. Because, well, that's what's generally the best we can find. Today, we're flipping the tea table. Trying something different.

Words are powerful, but they also have the potential to evolve. I myself have been very guilty of using the word 'gay' in a derogatory way without really thinking about the impact of that word. My argument has always been that the word, in a certain context, has a different meaning - but is that a cop-out?

In 2005, comedian Masaki Sumitani became the most popular funny man in Japan. He dressed in a PVC hotpants, thrusting his pelvis as he exclaimed, "Fooohhh!" Little kids imitated the catchphrase, and Sumitani conquered the conquered the country.

Mass Effect developer Casey Hudson's announcement less than a day ago that same-sex romances would be given fuller and more explicit articulation in Mass Effect 3 has unsurprisingly ignited a spark among many followers of the franchise.

Can an egg-laying dinosaur without sex organs be gay? IGN's Jack DeVries makes the case that Mario's green dinosaur steed with the prehensile tongue is "dating"-in the strange, largely irrelevant backstory that frames the series-Birdo, the pink, bow-wearing dinosaur first seen in Super Mario Bros. 2.

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Players losing in Heroes of Newerth 2.0 may find that they've had their "cherry popped" or taken part in a "three way" if the person they're playing against purchased the PC game's "flamboyant" audio pack.

When banned 26-year-old Xbox Live gamer called Xbox support to explain that his town of Fort Gay, West Virginia, was a real place and not a homosexual reference, he was threatened with account cancellation.